One day the Muses twined the hands

Of infant Love with flowery bands;

And to celestial Beauty gave

The captive infant for her slave.

His mother comes, with many a toy,

To ransom her beloved boy;[2]

His mother sues, but all in vain,—

He ne'er will leave his chains again.

Even should they take his chains away,

The little captive still would stay.

"If this," he cries, "a bondage be,

Oh, who could wish for liberty?"

[1] The poet appears, in this graceful allegory, to describe the softening influence which poetry holds over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty.

[2] In the first idyl of Moschus, Venus there proclaims the reward for her fugitive child:—

  On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show,

  A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow;

  But he, who can bring back the urchin in chains,

  Shall receive even something more sweet for his pains.