The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-14 00:00:00

VULCAN AND VENUS.

In consequence of several typugraphical errors occurring
in its previous quotation, we have been requested t
reprint the following stanzas from Aletheits; or, the
Doom of Illytho!ogy, a new roena just published by the
Messrs. Longm.n and Co.)
White though the Goddess, black the God of Fire,
Black with the reeking of his dusky forge,
While Vesta bids her tongues of light aspire,
Dark 15Iulciber bis furnace mouth cloth gcrge
With the loud blasts his windy bellows blow,
Snorting the cinders to a rosy glow.
Before his anvil stands the brawny lord,
His forehead smirch'd with labour's grimy tan;
His de !p breath heaving to his work abhorr'd;
His body crippled by its earthward ban;
On smoking thunderbolt with batter'd flank
His ponderous hammer whirls with leaden clank.

Down from his shaggy chest, in glistening drops,
The warm sweat falls, as from the fainting noon
Of sultry autumn days, o'er bristling crops
The cloudless skies rain forth their scanty boon;
So from the fruitful season of his prime

Ooze the rare showers that nurture deeds sublime.

The Subterranein thus, with gnarlel thews
Melts 'mid the dismal discord of his home,
Where, hurtling blocks that stubborn metals bruize,
ThTeoreilythuelchaungteherd'icsl,oapmainddtthbeetpuirulyt Gnome;
dire,
Whene'er to him the victim boars expire.

Yet sweater thrill'd the pulse of his rude life
When, from the creaming of the ruby tide
That lav'd the shores of Cyprus with a strifi,
Of shells and blossoms scitter'd side by side,
Bora from the foam, his naked spouse, between
The opening valves, shone forth of pearls the Queen.
And wafted stately to the florid strand
By cool ambrosial breathings from the lips
Of the guy zephyrs, o'er the glittering sand
01 purple Cytherer, on the tips
Of the fresh billows, like a fbwer afloat,
Glade the strange glory in its fragile boat.
Then downward press'd the Seasons to the beach
Of all things beaut►ful, to her the fair
Young goddess of all beauty, fondly each,
And lavishly, their treasures protfer'd there—
The summer citron, and tne harvest rice,
The vernal crocus and prismatic ice.
A gorgeous carpet for her path lay strown,
The jonquil, and the pansy, and the musk;
And luscious banquets from the trees were blown,
Figs from the bough, and almonds from the husk,
The Pleasures numberless, and Graces three,
Around her frolick'd in nude ecstasy.

And still she stands, as stood her marble shade
In Paphos, or as, yet, the magic mould
Smiles from the pedestal—a shrinking maid,
Dazzling the daring pilgrims who behold
That miracle of art, whose timorous arms
Veil, yet reveal, inebriating charms.
'Round her lithe waist th' elastic girdle spans,
Rising and falling as her passions swell,
Token of man's futurity, which fans
The life that vacillates 'twizt heaven and hell,
Typo of eternity, whose round cloth roll—
The zone of joy, the cestus df the soul.
Down, from the slacken'd stress of her small hand,
Flutter the damask petals of the rose,
With greenest myrtles twin'd, a vermeil band,
To bind the pallor of her brow's repose,
While to her loving palm yet clings the prize,
Pluck'd in proud Ida 'a orchard paradise.
The prize awarded in the lists of love—

A red-gold apple ripen'd to the core
By sunny looks, that, coming from above,
Lived iu the thoughts of Paris evermore,
Visions prefiguring with carnal joy
His dream of bliss, the nightmare of old Troy.

Close to her dimpled feet the ringdovos press,
Her feet like ivory flash'd with shaiow'cl pink;
Full in the splendour of her loveliness
Bask the twin swans that from her goblet drink;
And sparrows, dear as that which Leshia mourned,
Whose lowly tomb Catullus' lays adorned,

Flit in gyrations of congenial gle3,
O'er the blithe Queen of laughter, from whose smile,
Rays forth the happiness that fitfully,
With jocund mimes dejected hours beguile;
So to the Paphian dame duck Cyprian girls,
With haggard cheeks and gay disorder'd curls.
So with half sad and half exultant air.
Pandemus twangs his siikon-bridled bow,
Driving his poisou'd shafts now here, now there,
Piercing the bosoms of the high, the low,
The greybzard peasant, and the child-like prince,
Who, thrilling, sigh, and--signing—thrilling, wince.
Love tempering thus, like acids in the plum,
Thr: ghduess and the grief that Beauty wears,
When Youth, with sudden rapture stricken dumb,
Her fleshly furmwinthfanuepicidae
shapesrigns
c above,op
Beauty's res,—
Though
theliig h
o'er
v, u 3 c
mother of celestial Love!"