Ex Libris K . OGDEN L, //, a & THE WORKS OF CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY GEORGE BELL & SONS LONDON : YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY THE COMPLETE WORKS OF C. S. CALVERLEY WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY SIR WALTER J. SENDALL, G.C.M.G. GOVERNOR OF BRITISH GUIANA LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1901 First Edition of Complete Works, published June, 1901. Reprinted, August, 1901. Stack Annex CONTENTS PAGE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE xi BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xiii VERSES Visitors I Gemini and Virgo 2 " There stands a City " 7 Striking g A, B, C il Voices of the Night 12 Lines suggested by the Fourteenth of February 13 To Mrs. Goodchild 14 Ode " On a distant prospect " of Making a Fortune 17 Isabel 19 Lines suggested by the Fourteenth of February 20 " Hie Fir, Hie Est " 21 Beer 24 Ode to Tobacco 28 Dover to Munich 30 CHARADES : I. " She stood at Greenwich, motionless amid " 36 II. " If you've seen a short man swagger " 38 III. "Ere yet 'knowledge for the million'" 40 IV. " Evening threw soberer hue " 41 V. " On pinnacled St. Mary's" 42 VI. "Sikes, housebreaker, of Houndsditch" 44 Proverbial Philosophy 47 Carmen Saeculare. MDCCCUII 50 FLY LEAVES Morning 56 Evening 57 VI CONTENTS PAGE Shelter 5 8 In the Gloaming 59 The Palace Peace 6 3 The Arab 6 4 Lines on Hearing the Organ 6 5 Changed 6 9 First Love 1 Wanderers 7 2 Sad Memories 74 Companions 7" Ballad Precious Stones 80 Disaster 82 Contentment 83 The Schoolmaster 85 Arcades Ambo 87 Waiting 88 Play 89 Love 91 Thoughts at a Railway Station 9 2 On the Brink 94 "Forever" 96 Under the Trees 98 Motherhood 99 Mystery 101 Flight .103 On the Beach 106 Lovers, and a Reflection 108 The Cock and the Bull no An Examination Paper : " The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" 115 Key to the " Pickwick " Examination Paper 118 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS Sonnet .. 122 The Bottling of the Wasp 122 A Life in the Country 123 April : or, The New Hat I2 $ CONTENTS vii PAGE The Cuckoo 127 The Poet and the Fly 130 Lupus et Canis , . 135 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 136 Painting 137 Parthenonis Ruinae , 138 Australia 147 Carmen Graecum 150 Loca Sacra apud Hierosolymam 154 TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH HOMER, Iliad, Book 1 159 Book II 181 Part of Iliad, Book I. In Hexameters ....... 211 VIRGIL, Eclogue 1 218 ,, H 221 ,, HI 224 IV . 228 V 230 ,. VI 233 ,, VII 237 VIII 239 IX 243 , X 246 HORACE'S Odes, Bk. I. Ode 9. To Thaliarchus 249 ,, ,, ii. To Leuconoe 250 ,, M. To a Ship 250 24. To Virgil 251 ,, 28. To Archytas 252 ,, 3 8 - To his Slave 254 ,, Bk. III. I. Odi profanum 254 ,, ,, 2. Angustam, amice 256 ,, ,, 3. Justum et tenacem 257 ,, ,, ,, 4. Descende coelo 260 5. Coelo tonantem 263 ,, ,, ,, 6. Delicta majorum 265 ,, ,, 13. To the Fountain of Bandusia . . 267 18. To a Faun 268 if ., IV. 13. To Lyce 269 b viii CONTENTS PAGE HORACE, Epode 2. Beatus ille 270 From VIRGII., Georgic. iii. 515 272 ,, SOPHOCLES, Ajax, 645 273 ,, LUCRETIUS, Bk. II 275 ,, CATULLUS, Sonnet to the Island of Sinnio 278 ,, HOMER'S Iliad, Bk. viii., 555-565 279 HEINE 280 ,, J. F. CASTBLLI. At Beethoven's Grave 281 ,, ,, At Beethoven's Funeral 282 Translations of Hymns, from " The Hymnary " 283 THEOCRITUS. Translated into English Verse Preface 310 IDYLL I. The Death of Daphnis 313 IDYLL II. The Sorceress 318 IDYLL III. The Serenade 324 IDYLL IV. The Herdsman 326 IDYLL V. The Battle of the Bards 329 IDYLL VI. The Drawn Battle 336 IDYLL VII. Harvest-Home 338 IDYLL VIII. The Triumph of Daphnis 343 IDYLL IX. Pastorals 347 IDYLL X. The Two Workmen 349 IDYLL XI. The Giant's Wooing 351 IDYLL XII. The Comrades 354 IDYLL XIII. Hylas 356 IDYLL XIV. The Love of /Eschines 359 IDYLL XV. The Festival of Adonis 362 IDYLL XVI. The Value of Song 368 IDYLL XVII. The Praise of Ptolemy 372 IDYLL XVIII. The Bridal of Helen 376 IDYLL XIX. Love Stealing Honey 380 IDYLL XX. Town and Country 381 IDYLL XXI. The Fishermen 382 IDYLL XXII. The Sons of Leda 385 IDYLL XXIII. Love Avenged 393 IDYLL XXIV. The Infant Heracles 395 IDYLL XXV. Heracles the Lion Slayer 400 IDYLL XXVI. The Bacchanals 409 IDYLL XXVII. A Countryman's Wooing 411 CONTENTS ix PAGE IDYLL XXVIII. The Distaff 4 ! 4 IDYLL XXIX. Loves / 415 IDYLL XXX. The Death of Adonis 416 IDYLL XXXI. Loves 418 FRAGMENT FROM THE " BERENICE" 419 EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS : I. VI 420421 VII. For a Statue of Aesculapius 422 VIII. Ortho's Epitaph 422 IX. Epitaph of Cleonicus 422 X. For a Statue of the Muses 423 XI. Epitaph of Eusthenes 423 XII. For a Tripod Erected by Damoteles to Bacchus . . . 423 XIII. For a Statue of Anacreon 424 XIV. Epitaph of Eurymedon 424 XV. Another 424 XVI. For a Statue of the Heavenly Aphrodite 425 XVII. To Epicharmus , . . . . 425 XVIII. Epitaph of Cleita, Nurse of Medeius 426 XIX. To Archilochus 426 XX. Under a Statue of Peisander 426 XXI. Epitaph of Hipponax 427 XXII. On his own Book 427 TRANSLATIONS INTO LATIN Lycidas (Milton) 428 Boadicea (Cowper) 434 Come live with me (Marlowe) 436 If all the world (Raleigh) 438 While musing thus (Bradslreet) 440 Sweet day (Herbert) 440 In Memoriam, CVI. (Tennyson) 442 Tears, idle tears (Tennyson) 444 Ps. LV. verses 4 8 446 Of holier joy (Trench) 446 From the Analogy (Butler) 448 Fountain that sparkiest 45 Go up and watch (Keble) 450 Winter (Thomson) 452 x CONTENTS PAGE Leaves have their time (Humans) ........... 454 My Brother (Moullrie) ............... 45^ Let us turn hitherward our bark (Trench) ......... 458 CEnone ( Tennyson) ............... 46 The Soldier's Dream (Campbell) ............ 460 The Butterfly (Byron) ................ 462 Glenifler (Tannahill) ............... 464 He sung what spirit (Cowlcy) ............. 466 The Nereid maids (Lamtor) ............. 466 Weep no more (Fletcher) .............. 468 Glumdalclitch's Lament (Pope) ............ 470 Laura Matilda's Dirge (Rejected Addresses) ........ 472 Herrick. Amarillis (fferrick) ............ 474 Ca' the Ewes (Burns') ..... . ......... 476 The Gentle Shepherd (Ramsay) ............ 478 Poor Tree (Carlisle) . , ............. 480 Song. " Faithless Swallow " ............. 480 Hymn to the Morning ( Coleridge) ........... 482 Translations of Hymns for " Hymns Ancient and Modern " . . . 486 TRANSLATION INTO GREEK "John Anderson, my Jo, John" ............ 492 PROSE ARTICLES On Metrical Translation The ^Eneid of Virgil " Horse Tennysonianse " BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE VERSES AND TRANSLATIONS. Fcap. 8vo. First published, 1861 ; reprinted, 1862, 1865, 1871, 1874, 1877, 1880, 1884 (Feb. and June), 1885, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1894. Cheap edition published Oct. 1900; reprinted, Jan., 1901. FLY LEAVES. Fcap. 8vo. First published, March, 1872 ; reprinted, July, 1872, 1873, 1876, 1877, 1880, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, (Jan. and Nov.), 1889, 1890, 1891, 1895, 1899. VERSES AND FLY LEAVES. Crown 8vo. First published in one volume, 1885; reprinted, 1887, 1890, 1894, 1897, 1898. TRANSLATIONS. Crown 8vo. First published, 1866; second edition, revised, 1885; reprinted, 1897. THEOCRITUS. Crown 8vo. First published, 1869; second edition, revised, 1883; reprinted, 1891. LITERARY REMAINS. Crown 8vo. First published, Oct., 1885 ; reprinted, Dec., 1885, 1891. .% The uniform edition in four volumes, Crown Svo, first published 1885, was re-issued in a cheaper form in 1896. (Vol. I. Literary Remains ; Vol. II. Verses and Fly Leaves ; Vol. III. Translations ; Vol. IV. Theocritus.) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 1 I. SCARCELY had the grave closed over the head of Charles Stuart Calverley, when there began to be expressed, amongst those who had known him, a very general desire that some brief account of his character and career should be given to the world. It was thought, we may suppose, that the memory of one whose natural powers had made so extraordin- ary an impression upon his contemporaries, and whose pub- lished writings had given evidence of so very distinct and striking an individuality, should not be suffered to pass into oblivion, without some more enduring record than a paragraph in the newspapers, or an article in a magazine. It is in the belief that this was a well-grounded sentiment, and that those who have hitherto known " C. S. C." only as a writer of polished and epigrammatic verse, would be glad, now that he is gone, to learn something of the personality which lay behind those familiar letters, that the present task has been undertaken ; and it may be permitted here to express a wish that the work, though truly in this case a labour of love, of de- lineating a character so unique, might have been entrusted to hands more practised than those of one whom circumstances have long since consigned to the pursuit of avocations quite other than literary. It must be added that the uneventful record of Calverley's life contains no materials for a full and lengthened biography; all that can be attempted is to place before the reader's mind some slight sketch of the mar, as he appeared in the eyes of his familiar friends. 1 This Notice is based on an article which appeared in " The Fort- nightly Review," June, 1884, and on the Memoir published with the " Literary Remains of Charles Stuart Calverley" (1885). xiv BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE A bright, sunny boyhood, fearless and careless ; a youth full of brilliant promise, and studded with intellectual triumphs ; a manhood marked by no stirring incidents, no ambitious struggles, no alternations of failure and success darkened, alas ! in later years, and brought to an untimely close by the ravages of a fatal and insidious malady such are in brief the outlines of a career which in itself would seem to present little that is worthy of record, and to possess but scanty claims upon the attention of the general observer. But if the incidents and events of his life were thus trite even to commonplace, yet his own bearing amongst them, and the physical and intellectual personality which marked each successive stage, would be found, if accurately and adequately portrayed, to present a striking and an interesting picture. From childhood upwards there never was a time when he failed to impress in some enduring manner those amongst whom he moved. His boyhood was dis- tinguished by feats of physical activity and daring, which almost eclipsed even his marvellous precocity of mind, and have already passed in school traditions, like the deeds of ancient heroes, into the region of myth and legend. At a later period, though he was still remarkable for bodily strength and agility, it was the exceptional quality of his intel- lect which fascinated and enchained his associates. And as to this there can be but one verdict amongst all who were even slightly acquainted with him. As an intellectual organism of the rarest and subtlest fibre, he stood altogether apart from amongst his contemporaries. And this not by virtue of any predominant excellence in one or other of the acknowledged lines in which men of talent or genius show themselves above their fellows. Brilliant and incisive in speech sparkling with epigrams, he was still neither a great talker nor a professed wit; capable of reasoning closely, he neither sought nor achieved reputation in debate ; nor could he at any time have claimed precedence upon the score of acquired knowledge. Yet those who consorted with him derived from his conversa- tion an impression which the most accomplished and encyclo- paedic of talkers might fail to produce. I do not know how better to express this phenomenon than by describing it as due to the spontaneous action of pure intellect. Without conscious effort, without the semblance of a desire for display, his mind BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xv appeared to act upon the matter in hand, like a solvent upon a substance. The effect of this was often as the revelation of an unknown force. A few words casually spoken became, as it were, a fiat lux, an act of creation. Let those who knew him at his best endeavour to account to themselves for the sense of power with which his conversation affected them, and they will, I think, be compelled to admit, that though his talk was often witty, always scholarly, and not seldom wise, yet what they marvelled at in him was neither the wit nor the wisdom nor the scholarship, but the exhibition of sheer native mind. And herein, I think, to those who really knew him, will be found the all-sufficient explanation of that nameless excellence which all agree to discover in his writings, and which consti- tutes the key-stone of his reputation. About his most trifling, as about his most serious work, there is an inimitable and in- describable something, which is neither gracefulness only, nor is it merely finish or polish or refinement, while at the same time it is each and all of these, and still defies analysis as securely as the scent and hue of a flower. But whatever theory be accepted as true respecting the in- tellectual side of Calverley's character, this view of him alone will not sufficiently account for his personal ascendancy, nor for the unique place which he occupied in the estimation and in the affections of his friends. For he was fully as much and as deservedly loved as he was admired ; and if he owed the one distinction to his natural gifts of reason unalloyed, he was indebted for the other, in no less degree, to that singleness and sincerity which were his most conspicuous characteristics upon the ethical side. Th at he was absolutely free from all taint of littleness or doublemindedness was manifest, it may be assumed, to the most careless observer ; that he was an ardent lover of and seeker after truth for its own sake, that the windows of his soul were open to all the airs of heaven, and his heart waxen to the impress of whatsoever things are true, lovely, and of good re- port, was discernible by whosoever had eyes to see behind the very ill-fitting mask of seeming recklessness and indifference with which it sometimes pleased him to disguise himself for the mystification of the overwise ; but there was yet more in him than this, and to the few who penetrated into the inmost re- xvi BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE cesses of his nature there was revealed a depth of tenderness, humility, and trust, the existence of which even those who had a right to think they knew him well might be pardoned if they never had suspected. And it is doubtless here, in these central well-springs of his being, that the true secret of his influence is to be sought. Under whatever crust of indifference or reserve, behind what- ever veil of inconsistencies, wilful or unintended the beautiful real nature of the man shone or glimmered irrepressibly, winning all hearts by the power of sympathy and truth. Endued, however, as he was, with infinite capacities of faith, in the matter of beliefs he was an incarnation of the principle of private judgment, and to mere dogmatic teaching always and for ever impervious. " Unsanctified intellect " was, I be- lieve, the term applied to him by a certain school at the Uni- versity; unsophisticated intellect would, I think, more fitly have expressed the fact, if it wanted to be expressed by an epithet. An extraordinary carefulness and consideration for others was always a conspicuous characteristic in Calverley ; and he endeared himself, particularly amongst his poorer friends and neighbours, by a hundred acts of unaffected kindness. In the Somersetshire village in which, previous to his marriage, his home life was chiefly spent, many stories are current, illustrating his active and sympathetic good-nature ; and when the news of his untimely death passed like an electric shock through the circle of his acquaintance, nowhere was there awakened a feel- ing of sorrow more deep and true than amongst the cottages of his old home. Let it not be for a moment supposed that by these imperfect touches I am picturing to myself, or attempting to convey to the reader, the outlines of a faultless character. Calverley had important shortcomings, of which no one was more sensible than himself; and amongst these was an infirmity of will. It is true that he was never subjected to the bracing stimulus of poverty, and that he was without those promptings of personal ambition which might have supplied its place; still some natural deficiency must be recognized here, and it must be confessed that, had he been endowed with a strength of pur- pose at all commensurate with his intellectual gifts, he would certainly have achieved work more truly worthy of his genius. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xvii In his undergraduate days, though capable at times of the intensest application, he was somewhat prone to self-indulgence, and was a grievous sinner in the matter of lying late in bed. During the months when he was (or ought to have been) read- ing for his degree, it was the daily task of one or two faithful friends to effect his dislodgment from his couch before the precious morning hours should be wholly lost. Upon these occasions his chamber became the scene of a conflict which reduced it to a condition resembling that of a ship's cabin at sea in a hurricane. He, with his sturdy frame and resolute countenance, clinging, like " Barbary's nimble son," " By the teeth, or tail, or eyelid," to each successive covering, as one by one they were ruthlessly torn from him, amid a storm of good-humoured objurgation, charged with expletives of every shape and size, ancient and modern, of which he had a perfect arsenal on hand so the battle raged until, having conscientiously removed every port- able article of bed-clothing, his assailants retired victorious, only to return in half an hour and find him peacefully sleeping between the mattresses. II. " C. S. C." came of a good old English stock. He was born at Hartley, in Worcestershire, on the 22nd December, 1831; his father, then known as the Rev. Henry Blayds, removing afterwards to the Vicarage of South Stoke, near Bath. The family, who had borne the name of Blayds from the beginning of the century, in 1852 resumed their proper name of Calverley, under which they had flourished from before the Norman Con- quest in their native county of York having indeed a collateral connection with that Walter Calverley, the story of whose ferocious deeds, and still more ferocious punishment, is pre- served in the pages of " A Yorkshire Tragedy," one of the many spurious plays attributed in an uncritical age to Shake- speare, and included in some of the earliest editions of his works. It was as Blayds that Charles Stuart won his reputation at Harrow and Oxford; at Cambridge he was known as Calverley. xviii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE Upon his mother's side, Calverley belonged to a branch of the ancient and honourable family of Meade; Thomas Meade, Esq., of Chatley, in Somersetshire, having been his maternal grandfather ; and to those who are interested in such speculations, a further examination of his ancestry, on both sides, would probably yield ample and satisfactory proofs of hereditary capacity. Having passed through the hands of more than one private tutor, and after a brief sojourn (of no more than three months' duration) at Marlborough School, Calverley entered Harrow in the autumn of 1846, and from that time forward never ceased to be an object of interest and attention to a widening circle of friends and acquaintances. He is described as a curly-haired, bright-eyed boy, with a sunny smile and a frank, open counten- ance ; a general favourite for his manliness and inexhaustible good-nature, though already, it is said, distinguished for a certain self-sufficing independence of character which remained with him through life, keeping him always somewhat apart from his fellows, and inducing him, even at this early age, to stand aloof from the little cliques and coteries into which the world of school divides itself as readily and naturally as the world at large. He is exhibited in a unique degree, just that mixture of insouciance, reckless daring and brilliancy, which never fails to win the unbounded applause and admiration of every genuine schoolboy. The place is still pointed out where he once leaped down the entire flight of what are known as the school steps, being a clear spring of seventeen feet with a drop of nearly nine, on to hard gravel ; and having been unsuccessful in this attempt to break his leg or his neck, he on another occasion sprang over the wall separating the school yard from the " milling ground," an ugly fall of some nine or ten feet, accomplishing this latter exploit with his hands in his pockets, and alighting (so the story goes) squarely on to the top of his head ; a result with which he was so little satisfied that he at once returned and repeated the jump, reaching ground this time, normally, upon his feet. These and other similar anecdotes, illustrative of his physical daring, have already been given to the public in various forms ; the following, which bears witness to his extraordinary readiness BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xix and aptitude in classical composition, is, I think, new, and rests upon unimpeachable authority. He was out walking with a lad who had upon his mind, as a school exercise, a certain passage from " The Prophecy of Capys," to be done into longs and shorts, and who propounded to his companion the follow- ing couplet, asking him how /ie would do it into Latin : " Raging beast and raging flood, Alike have spared their prey." Calverley appeared to take no notice, and continued for several minutes talking upon indifferent subjects, when all at once he stopped, and said, " How would this do? " " Sospes uterque manet, talem quia laedere praedam Nil furor aequoreus nil valet ira ferae." It may be admitted that many a ripe and practised scholar has spent hours in turning out less satisfactory work than this, the impromptu of a sixth-form boy. Calverley's career at Oxford, though a failure for academic purposes, was distinguished by a series of tours de force, intel- lectual and physical, sufficient to have furnished forth a dozen ordinary reputations. He won the Balliol scholarship by a marvellous copy of Latin verses, written off with such rapidity as to be almost an improvisation. His exploits in the way of daring and impossible jumps were long talked of and pointed out, and their memory may perhaps still linger amongst the traditions of the place. Having, in common with the other students, to prepare a Latin theme, to be submitted on a given day at a viva voce lecture, Calverley appeared in the lecture- room provided like the rest with a neat manuscript book, the pages of which were entirely blank. He had trusted to luck, and hoped that he might escape being " put on." Luck failed him, and in due course the examiner called upon " Mr. Blayds." Whereupon he stood up and, to the amazement of those who knew the real state of the case, proceeded without the least hesitation, and in calm, fluent tones, to read from his book the exercise which he had not written, and of which not a word had up to that moment been composed. Among the academic functions established at Balliol, and possibly also at other Oxford colleges, was a ceremony known xx BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE as " Collections," for which Cambridge experience furnishes no equivalent. It appears to have consisted in a kind of intel- lectual and moral stock-taking, at which the assembled students were put through an examination upon a variety of subjects, sacred and profane, receiving praise or reprobation in accord- ance with their deserts. The following episode occurred during one of Calverley's appearances at "Collections," the Master (Dr. Jenkyns) officiating. Question : " And with what feelings, Mr. Blayds, ought we to regard the decalogue?" History relates that Calverley, who had no very clear idea of what was meant by the decalogue his studies not having lain much in that direction but who had a due sense of the importance both of the occasion and of the question, made the following reply : " Master, with feelings of devotion, mingled with awe ! " " Quite right, young man, a very proper answer," exclaimed the master. It must indeed have been felt that a youth imbued with these just and admirable sentiments would guide his words with discretion, and might even be trusted never to "speak disrespectfully of the Equator." The good opinion which he thus obtained by subtlety did not, however, avail him long, and during his second year of residence his connection with Balliol and with Oxford was brought to an abrupt termination. His biographer, while chronicling this fact, must at the same time not fail to insist that the offences against discipline for which he justly suffered were due to an exuberance of animal spirits rather than to any graver form of delinquency. That at this period of his career he vexed the souls of dons, and maintained a perpetual warfare with constituted authority, is to be admitted and regretted. Into most of his escapades, however, there entered an element of humour which, while it does not redeem them from censure, invests them with an interest in relation to his special cast of mind. Calverley's coolness, wariness, and consummate dex- terity of speech, rendered him at all times a dangerous oppo- nent in an encounter of wits ; he had, moreover, when provoked, a knack of employing words, in themselves most artless and innocent, in such a way as to affect the other side with an un- comfortable sensation of being quizzed. Of the numerous stories current respecting his Oxford days, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xxi some of which went the round of the newspapers at the time of his death, it will be sufficient to notice one or two, the authen- ticity of which can be vouched for. The following incident is related rather on account of the punning verses to which it gave rise, than for its own intrinsic interest. The election to scholarships at Balliol took place upon St. Catharine's Day (November 25), and on the evening of the same day the newly-elected scholars received formal admission, in the college chapel, at the hands of the Master and Fellows. When Calverley's turn came to be presented to the Master for the purpose of taking the customary oath upon admission to the privileges of a scholar, the fact that he had quite recently been indulging in a pipe forced itself upon the attention of Dr. Jenkyns, who had the strongest dislike to tobacco. On withdrawing from the chapel, the Master turned to the Fellows who accompanied him, and said, "Why, the young man is redolent of the weed, even now ! " It was no doubt this remark of the famous old Master of Balliol which afterwards suggested to their unknown author the following lines, which, like the "Sic vos non vobis " of Virgil, received their first publication in the form of a mural inscription : " O freshman, running fast to seed, O scholar, redolent of weed, This motto in thy meerschaum put, The sharpest Blades will soonest cut." To which Calverley at once replied : 4 ' Your wit is tolerable, but The case you understand ill ; The Dons would like their Blayds to cut, But cannot find a handle." Dr. Jenkyns was the most conspicuous figure in the Uni- versity of his day, and there was something in his somewhat pompous (though in truth most kindly) nature, which invariably struck sparks when brought into collision with this audacious and keen-witted undergraduate. The keeping of dogs in college was, it is needless to say, strictly prohibited at Balliol, and was especially reprobated by the Master ; it is almost equally needless to add that the pro- hibition was systematically evaded ; and one of the most in- xxii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE corrigible offenders in this respect was Calverley. Meeting him one day on the way to his rooms, with a tawny nondescript treasure trotting at his heels, the Master exclaimed, " What ! another dog, Mr. Blayds ! " " Master," was the wily response, "they do tell me that some people think it is a squirrel." This reply, while it committed the speaker to nothing, was really calculated to mystify the Master not, it may be guessed, him- self a very close observer of specific distinctions for the creature in question, though undoubtedly a dog, did to an in- attentive eye bear no slight external resemblance to the other- named animal. He advanced at Oxford the reputation he had brought with him from Harrow, of being one of the best writers of Latin verse of his time ; the Hexameters, with which he obtained the Chancellor's prize in 185 1, 1 still remain one of the most beauti- ful of his many beautiful compositions. It is customary for these prize poems to be printed and pub- lished, with the author's name and that of his college attached. When Calverley's manuscript was sent to the press, it bore, in anticipation of his impending doom, the following signature : CAROLUS STUART BI.AYDS C COLL BALLIOL. prope ejecti:s. It was actually so printed, and it was only through the oppor- tune interference of one of the college tutors that it was not so given to the world. When called upon for an explanation, Calverley is said to have declared that " those tiresome printers would do anything" III. Calverley quitted Oxford in the beginning of 1852, and in the following October was admitted as a freshman at Christ's College, Cambridge. It was here that the present writer first became acquainted with him. He was then at the zenith of his powers, both mental and bodily. Short of stature, with a powerful head of the Greek type, covered thickly with crisp, curling masses of dark brown hair, and closely set upon a frame whose supple joints and well-built proportions betokened 1 Subject, Parlhenonis ruitia. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xxiii both speed and endurance he presented a picture of health, strength, and activity. In disposition he was unselfish, and generous to a fault ; without a trace of vanity or self-esteem ; somewhat reserved amongst strangers, though bearing himself at all times with a charming simplicity and frankness of de- meanour; slow to form friendships, but most loyal and con- stant to them when formed ; a faithful, affectionate, whole- hearted, thoroughly lovable human soul ; with an intellect as keen, swift, and subtle as any that ever tenanted a human body. It is not at all easy, indeed, it is hardly possible, to convey by description an adequate idea of the singular charm of his conversation. It must always be understood that though he said many good things, he was by no means an inventor and utterer of bons mots. Instead of expending itself in a succession of flashes, his wit was, as it were, a luminous glow, pervading and informing his entire speech, investing the thing spoken of with a novel and peculiar interest, and not seldom placing it in a vivid light, at once wholly unexpected and wholly appropriate. There was also in him a great quickness both of sympathy and of apprehension, enabling him to seize upon your point of view with rapidity and precision ; and when to this is added a perfect honesty of intellect, free from any warpings of prejudice, egotism, or other pregnant source of self-mystification, the result is a set of conditions for rational intercourse of a rare and very special kind, the pervading feature of which is a wholesome atmosphere of security, an almost physical sense of comfort and bien-etre like the feeling of warmth and good cheer which those who have experienced it will acknowledge to be as attractive as it is uncommon. Cambridge discipline is, or is said to be, of a more liberal and less coercive character than that which obtains at the sister University, and Calverley, who moreover had gathered wisdom from experience, fell readily enough into the ways of conformity and obedience to rules. Though not, perhaps, exactly a favourite with the older and severer type of Don, who never quite knew how to take him, he was cordially appreciated by the authorities of his own college, themselves mostly men of a younger genera- tion than the academic petrifactions of an earlier school. At no time, indeed, during the whole of his Cambridge course, xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE did Calverley evince the slightest inclination to embroil himself with the ruling powers ; and it is altogether a mistake to suppose that, careless as he may have been of conventionalities, he had in his nature anything of the real Bohemian. Nor was he, either then or at any other period, a mere unprofitable idler ; and if not what is usually termed a reading man that, namely, and nothing else he was emphatically a man of reading ; a genuine lover of literature, and with a considerable knowledge of books. Composition in Latin and Greek was his favourite intellectual exercise, or, it might rather be said, recreation ; the famous " Carmen Sseculare," the translation of Milton's " Lycidas " into Latin hexameters, a beautiful version of " John Anderson " in Greek Anacreontics, and several other of his most successful efforts, dating from this period. At this time, too, he was developing that incomparable vein of humour, that inimitable compound of serious irony and pure fun, blended with subtle and delicate banter, by which afterwards, in " Verses and Trans- lations," and still more decisively in " Fly-leaves," he " took the town by storm," and affected the reading world with the enjoy- ment of a new sensation. The Byronian stanzas in which he celebrates the praises and the works of Allsopp and of Bass, were in manuscript before he had taken his degree ; and it is curiously characteristic of his many-sided genius to note that at the very time when, with keen appreciative insight, he was penetrating the secret of Milton's majestic verse, and was re- producing those mournful, tender, or triumphant strains, in diction not less stately, and in numbers not less harmonious than the master's own, he could also let his sportive fancy play in airy raillery around the same pathetic theme, depicting, in a few telling strokes of mirthful mockery " How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay, And how rock told to rock the dreadful story That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory. " Amongst his humorous compositions of this date, the "Pick- wick Examination Paper" has obtained a notoriety which entitles it to a passing mention. Probably no one amongst the Cambridge men of that day BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE xxv (excepting, perhaps, the late James Lempriere Hammond) equalled Calverley in close and comprehensive familiarity with the writings of Dickens. The notion (conceived at first as a pure joke) of making a great living author the subject of a competitive examination, would suggest itself naturally enough to one who had all his life been winning prizes for proficiency in the lore of ancient bards and sages, some of whom, per- chance, held a far lower place in his affections than did the creator of the immortal Weller. The ingenious syllabus of questions which has attracted so much attention is not, how- ever, interesting only as a measure of Calverley's curiously minute acquaintance with the masterpiece of Dickens ; it deserves also to be noticed on account of the winners of the two prizes which were offered to the successful candidates. The first prize in the competition, which was open to all members of Christ's College, was taken by Mr. (now Sir) Walter Besant, the second by Mr. (now Professor) Skeat. Calverley's appetite for humour, and his faculty of extracting it even from the most unpromising material, are oddly illustrated by the following "Notes," taken after he became a fellow of his college, and accidentally preserved amongst his papers : "NOTES TAKEN AT COLLEGE MEETINGS. At Meeting, February 28th, n^ 2. Remarked by the Master. That no people give you so much trouble, if you try to extract money from them, as solicitors. By thejun. Dean, Except, perhaps, parsons. By the Senior Dean. The latter possibly because they have not got the money. By Mr. A. That a ton weight is a great deal of books. By Mr. B. That it is just one o'clock. By Mr. C. That that is likely, and that in an hour it will be just two." This record of the proceedings of a learned deliberative body is worthy of a place beside Mr. Punch's "Essence of Parlia- ment." To the above specimen of Calverley's humour may be added the folio wing jeu HIC EST" When within my veins the blood ran, And the curls were on my brow, I did, oh ye undergraduates, Much as ye are doing now. Wherefore bless ye, O beloved ones :- Now unto mine inn must I, Your " poor moralist," l betake me, In my " solitary fly." BEER IN those old days which poets say were golden (Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves : And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves, Who talk to me " in language quaint and olden " Of gods and demigods and fauns and elves, Pan with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards, And staid young goddesses who flirt with shepherds :) In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette (Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born. They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet, No fashions varying as the hues of morn. Just as they pleased they dressed and drank and ate, Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn) And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked, And were no doubt extremely incorrect. 1 " Poor moralist, and what art thou ? A solitary fly." GRAY. BEER 25 Yet do I think their theory was pleasant : And oft, I own, my " wayward fancy roams " Back to those times, so different from the present ; When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes, Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant, Nor "did " her hair by means of long-tailed combs, Nor migrated to Brighton once a year, Nor most astonishing of all drank Beer. No, they did not drink Beer, " which brings me to " (As Gilpin said) " the middle of my song." Not that " the middle " is precisely true, Or else I should not tax your patience long : If I had said " beginning," it might do ; But I have a dislike to quoting wrong : I was unlucky sinned against, not sinning When Cowper wrote down " middle " for " beginning." So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt Has always struck me as extremely curious. The Greek mind must have had some vital fault, That they should stick to liquors so injurious (Wine, water, tempered p'raps with Attic salt) And not at once invent that mild, luxurious, And artful beverage, Beer. How the digestion Got on without it, is a startling question. Had they digestions ? and an actual body Such as dyspepsia might make attacks on ? Were they abstract ideas (like Tom Noddy And Mr. Briggs) or men, like Jones and Jackson ? Then nectar was that beer, or whisky-toddy ? Some say the Gaelic mixture, / the Saxon : 26 BEER I think a strict adherence to the latter Might make some Scots less pigheaded, and fatter. Besides, Bon Gaultier definitely shows That the real beverage for feasting gods on Is a soft compound, grateful to the nose And also to the palate, known as " Hodgson." I know a man a tailor's son who rose To be a peer : and this I would lay odds on, (Though in his Memoirs it may not appear,) That that man owed his rise to copious Beer. Beer ! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsopp, Bass ! Names that should be on every infant's tongue ! Shall days and months and years and centuries pass, And still your merits be unrecked, unsung? Oh ! I have gazed into my foaming glass, And wished that lyre could yet again be strung Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her Misguided sons that the best drink was water. How would he now recant that wild opinion, And sing as would that I could sing of you ! 1 was not born (alas !) the " Muses' minion," I'm not poetical, not even blue : And he, we know, but strives with waxen pinion, Whoe'er he is that entertains the view Of emulating Pindar, and will be Sponsor at last to some now nameless sea. Oh ! when the green slopes of Arcadia burned With all the lustre of the dying day, And on Cithseron's brow the reaper turned, (Humming, of course, in his delightful way, BEER 27 How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay ; And how rock told to rock the dreadful story That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory :) What would that lone and labouring soul have given, At that soft moment for a pewter pot ! How had the mists that dimmed his eye been riven, And Lycidas and sorrow all forgot ! If his own grandmother had died unshriven, In two short seconds he'd have recked it not ; Such power hath Beer. The heart which Grief hath canker'd Hath one unfailing remedy the Tankard. Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa ; Tea did for Johnson and the Chinamen : When " Dulce est desipere in loco " Was written, real Falernian winged the pen. When a rapt audience has encored " Fra Poco " Or " Casta Diva," I have heard that then The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout. But what is coffee, but a noxious berry, Born to keep used-up Londoners awake ? What is Falernian, what is Port or Sherry, But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache ? Nay stout itself (though good with oysters, very) Is not a thing your reading man should take. He that would shine, and petrify his tutor, Should drink draught Allsopp in its " native pewter." But hark ! a sound is stealing on my ear A soft and silvery sound I know it well. 3 BEER Its tinkling tells me that a time is near Precious to me it is the Dinner Bell. blessed Bell ! Thou bringest beef and beer, Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell Seared is, of course, my heart but unsubdued Is, and shall be, my appetite for food. 1 go. Untaught and feeble is my pen : But on one statement I may safely venture : That few of our most highly gifted men Have more appreciation of the trencher. I go. One pound of British beef, and then What Mr. Swiveller called a " modest quencher " ; That home-returning, I may " soothly say," " Fate cannot touch me : I have dined to-day." ODE TO TOBACCO THOU who, when fears attack, Bidst them avaunt, and Black Care, at the horseman's back Perching, unseatest ; Sweet, when the morn is gray ; Sweet, when they've cleared away Lunch ; and at close of day Possibly sweetest : I have a liking old For thee, though manifold Stories, I know, are told, Not to thy credit ; ODE TO TOBACCO How one (or two at most) Drops make a cat a ghost Useless, except to roast Doctors have said it : How they who use fusees All grow by slow degrees Brainless as chimpanzees, Meagre as lizards : Go mad, and beat their wives ; Plunge (after shocking lives) Razors and carving knives Into their gizzards. Confound such knavish tricks ! Yet know I five or six Smokers who freely mix Still with their neighbours ; Jones (who, I'm glad to say, Asked leave of Mrs. J.) Daily absorbs a clay After his labours. Cats may have had their goose Cooked by tobacco-juice ; Still why deny its use Thoughtfully taken ? We're not as tabbies are : Smith, take a fresh cigar ! Jones, the tobacco-jar ! Here 's to thee, Bacon ! 29 DOVER TO MUNICH FAREWELL, farewell ! Before our prow Leaps in white foam the noisy channel ; A tourist's cap is on my brow, My legs are cased in tourist's flannel : Around me gasp the invalids The quantity to-night is fearful I take a brace or so of weeds, And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful. The night wears on : my thirst I quench With one imperial pint of porter ; Then drop upon a casual bench (The bench is short, but I am shorter) Place 'neath my head the havre-sac Which I have stowed my little all in, And sleep, though moist about the back, Serenely in an old tarpaulin. Bed at Ostend at 5 A.M. Breakfast at 6, and train 6*30, Tickets to Konigswinter (mem. The seats unutterably dirty). And onward thro' those dreary flats We move, and scanty space to sit on, Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats, And waists that paralyse a Briton ; DOVER TO MUNICH By many a tidy little town, Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting ; (The men's pursuits are, lying down, Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting ;) And doze, and execrate the heat, And wonder how far off Cologne is, And if we shall get aught to eat, Till we get there, save raw polonies : Until at last the "gray old pile" Is seen, is past, and three hours later We're ordering steaks, and talking vile Mock-German to an Austrian waiter. Konigswinter, hateful Konigswinter ! Burying-place of all I loved so well ! Never did the most extensive printer Print a tale so dark as thou could'st tell ! In the sapphire West the eve yet lingered, Bathed in kindly light those hill-tops cold ; Fringed each cloud, and, stooping rosy-fingered, Changed Rhine's waters into molten gold ; While still nearer did his light waves splinter Into silvery shafts the streaming light ; And I said I loved thee, Konigswinter, For the glory that was thine that night. And we gazed, till slowly disappearing, Like a day-dream, passed the pageant by, And I saw but those lone hills, uprearing Dull dark shapes against a hueless sky. 32 DOVER TO MUNICH Then I turned, and on those bright hopes pondered Whereof yon gay fancies were the type ; And my hand mechanically wandered Towards my left-hand pocket for a pipe. Ah ! why starts each eyeball from its socket, As, in Hamlet, start the guilty Queen's ? There, deep-hid in its accustomed pocket, Lay my sole pipe, smashed to smithereens ! On, on the vessel steals ; Round go the paddle-wheels, And now the tourist feels As he should ; For king-like rolls the Rhine, And the scenery 's divine, And the victuals and the wine Rather good. From every crag we pass '11 Rise up some hoar old castle ; The hanging fir-groves tassel Every slope ; And the vine her lithe arm stretches Over peasants singing catches And you'll make no end of sketches, I should hope. We've a nun here (called Therese), Two couriers out of place, One Yankee with a face Like a ferret's : DOVER TO MUNICH 33 And three youths in scarlet caps Drinking chocolate and schnapps A diet which perhaps Has its merits. And day again declines : In shadow sleep the vines, And the last ray thro' the pines Feebly glows, Then sinks behind yon ridge ; And the usual evening midge Is settling on the bridge Of my nose. And keen 's the air and cold, And the sheep are in the fold, And Night walks sable-stoled Thro' the trees ; And on the silent river The floating starbeams quiver; And now, the saints deliver Us from fleas. Avenues of broad white houses, Basking in the noontide glare ; Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from, As on hot plates shrinks the bear ; Elsewhere lawns, and vista'd gardens, Statues white, and cool arcades, Where at eve the German warrior Winks upon the German maids ; 34 DOVER TO MUNICH Such is Munich : broad and stately, Rich of hue, and fair of form ; But, towards the end of August, Unequivocally warm. There, the long dim galleries threading, May the artist's eye behold Breathing from the " deathless canvas " Records of the years of old : Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno, " Take " once more their " walks abroad," Under Titian's fiery woodlands And the saffron skies of Claude : There the Amazons of Rubens Lift the failing arm to strike, And the pale light falls in masses On the horsemen of Vandyke ; And in Berghem's pools reflected Hang the cattle's graceful shapes, And Murillo's soft boy-faces Laugh amid the Seville grapes ; And all purest, loveliest fancies That in poets' souls may dwell Started into shape and substance At the touch of Raphael. Lo ! her wan arms folded meekly, And the glory of her hair Falling as a robe around her, Kneels the Magdalen in prayer ; DOVER TO MUNICH 35 And the white-robed Virgin-mother Smiles, as centuries back she smiled, Half in gladness, half in wonder, On the calm face of her Child : And that mighty Judgment-vision Tells how man essayed to climb Up the ladder of the ages, Past the frontier- walls of Time ; Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling Thro' the phantom-peopled sky, And the still voice bid this mortal Put on immortality. Thence we turned, what time the blackbird Pipes to vespers from his perch, And from out the clattering city Pass'd into the silent church ; Mark'd the shower of sunlight breaking Thro' the crimson panes o'erhead, And on pictured wall and window Read the histories of the dead : Till the kneelers round us, rising, Crossed their foreheads and were gone ; And o'er aisle and arch and cornice, Layer on layer, the night came on. CHARADES I SHE stood at Greenwich, motionless amid The ever-shifting crowd of passengers. I mark'd a big tear quivering on the lid Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers Were days of bitterness. But, " Oh ! what stirs," I said, " such storm within so fair a breast ? " Even as I spoke, two apoplectic curs Came feebly up : with one wild cry she prest Each singly to her heart, and faltered, " Heaven be blest ! " Yet once again I saw her, from the deck Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall. She walked upon my first. Her stately neck Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl : I could not see the tears the glad tears fall, Yet knew they fell. And " Ah," I said, " not puppies, Seen unexpectedly, could lift the pall From hearts who know what tasting misery's cup is As Niobe's, or mine, or blighted William Guppy's." Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to ElizaSpinks thecook: " Mrs. Spinks," says he, " I've founder'd : 'Liza dear, I'm over- took. Druv into a corner reglar, puzzled as a babe unborn ; Speak the word, my blessed 'Liza; speak, and John the coachman 's yourn." CHARADES 37 Then Eliza Spinks made answer, blushing, to the coachman John: " John, I'm born and bred a spinster : I've begun and I'll go on. Endless cares and endless worrits, well I knows it, has a wife : Cooking for a genteel family, John, it 's a goluptious life ! " I gets 2 o per annum tea and thin gs o' course not reckoned, There 's a cat that eats the butter, takes the coals, and breaks my second: There 's soci'ty James the footman ; (not that I look after him ; But he 's aff 'ble in his manners, with amazing length of limb ;) " Never durst the missis enter here until I've said ' Come in ': If I saw the master peeping, I'd catch up the rolling-pin. Christmas-boxes, that 's a something ; perkisites, that 's some- thing too ; And I think, take all together, John, I won't be on with you." John the coachman took his hat up, for he thought he'd had enough ; Rubb'd an elongated forehead with a meditative cuff; Paused before the stable doorway ; said, when there, in accents mild, "She's a fine young 'oman, cook is; but that's where it is, she 's spiled." I have read in some not marvellous tale, (Or if I have not, I've dreamed) Of one who filled up the convivial cup Till the company round him seemed 3 8 CHARADES To be vanished and gone, tho' the lamps upon Their face as aforetime gleamed : And his head sunk down, and a Lethe crept O'er his powerful brain, and the young man slept. Then they laid him with care in his moonlit bed : But first having thoughtfully fetched some tar Adorn'd him with feathers, aware that the weather's Uncertainty brings on at nights catarrh. They staid in his room till the sun was high : But still did the feathered one give no sign Of opening a peeper he might be a sleeper Such as rests on the Northern or Midland line. At last he woke, and with profound Bewilderment he gazed around ; Dropped one, then both feet to the ground, But never spake a word : Then to my whole he made his way \ Took one long lingering survey ; And softly, as he stole away, Remarked, " By Jove, a bird ! " II IF you've seen a short man swagger tow'rds the footlights at Shoreditch, Sing out " Heave aho ! my hearties," and perpetually hitch Up, by an ingenious movement, trousers innocent of brace, Briskly flourishing a cudgel in his pleased companion's face; CHARADES 39 If he preluded with hornpipes each successive thing he did, From a sun-browned cheek extracting still an ostentatious quid ; And expectorated freely, and occasionally cursed : Then have you beheld, depicted by a master's hand, my first. O my countryman ! if ever from thy arm the bolster sped, In thy school-days, with precision at a young companion's head ; If 'twas thine to lodge the marble in the centre of the ring, Or with well-directed pebble make the sitting hen take wing : Then do thou each fair May morning, when the blue lake is as glass, And the gossamers are twinkling star-like in the beaded grass ; When the mountain-bee is sipping fragrance from the bluebell's lip, And the bathing-woman tells you, " Now 's your time to take a dip " : When along the misty valleys fieldward winds the lowing herd, And the early worm is being dropped on by the early bird^ And Aurora hangs her jewels from the bending rose's cup, And the myriad voice of Nature calls thee to my second up : Hie thee to the breezy common, where the melancholy goose Stalks, and the astonished donkey finds that he is really loose ; There amid green fern and furze-bush shalt thou soon my whole behold, Rising " bull-eyed and majestic " as Olympus' queen of old : Kneel, at a respectful distance, as they kneeled to her, and try With judicious hand to put a ball into that ball-less eye : Till a stiffness seize thy elbows, and the general public wake Then return, and, clear of conscience, walk into thy well-earned steak. 40 CHARADES III ERE yet " knowledge for the million " Came out "neatly bound in boards"; When like Care upon a pillion Matrons rode behind their lords : Rarely, save to hear the Rector, Forth did younger ladies roam ; Making pies, and brewing nectar From the gooseberry-trees at home. They'd not dreamed of Pau or Vevay ; Ne'er should into blossom burst At the ball or at the leve*e ; Never come, in fact, my first : Nor illumine cards by dozens With some labyrinthine text, Nor work smoking-caps for cousins Who were pounding at my next. Now have skirts, and minds, grown ampler ; Now not all they seek to do Is create upon a sampler Beasts which Buffon never knew : But their venturous muslins rustle O'er the cragstone and the snow, Or at home their biceps muscle Grows by practising the bow. Worthy they those dames who, fable Says, rode " palfreys " to the war With some giant Thane, whose " sable Destrier caracoled " before ; CHARADES 41 Smiled, as springing from the war-horse As men spring in modern "cirques" He plunged, ponderous as a four-horse Coach, among the vanished Turks : In the good times when the jester Asked the monarch how he was, And the landlady addrest her Guests as " gossip " or as " coz " ; When the Templar said, " Gramercy," Or, " Twas shrewdly thrust, i' fegs," To Sir Halbert or Sir Percy As they knocked him off his legs : And, by way of mild reminders That he needed coin, the Knight Day by day extracted grinders From the howling Israelite : And my wJwle in merry Sherwood Sent, with preterhuman luck, Missiles not of steel but firwood Thro' the two-mile-distant buck. IV EVENING threw soberer hue Over the blue sky, and the few Poplars that grew just in the view Of the Hall of Sir Hugo de Wynkle : " Answer me true," pleaded Sir Hugh, 42 CHARADES (Striving some hardhearted maiden to woo,) " What shall I do, Lady, for you ? 'Twill be done, ere your eye may twinkle. Shall I borrow the wand of a Moorish enchanter, And bid a decanter contain the Levant, or The brass from the face of a Mormonite ranter ? Shall I go for the mule of the Spanish Infantar (That r, for the sake of the line, we must grant her,) And race with the foul fiend, and beat in a canter, Like that first of equestrians Tam o' Shanter ? I talk not mere banter say not that I can't, or By this my first (a Virginia planter Sold it me to kill rats) I will die instanter." The Lady bended her ivory neck, and Whispered mournfully, " Go for my second." She said, and the red from Sir Hugh's cheek fled, And " Nay," did he say, as he stalked away The fiercest of injured men : " Twice have I humbled my haughty soul, And on bended knee have I pressed my whole But I never will press it again ! " ON pinnacled St. Mary's Lingers the setting sun ; Into the streets the blackguards Are skulking one by one : Butcher and Boots and Bargeman Lay pipe and pewter down ; And with wild shout come tumbling out To join the Town and Gown. CHARADES 43 And now the undergraduates Come forth by twos and threes, From the broad tower of Trinity, From the green gate of Caius : The wily bargeman marks them, And swears to do his worst ; To turn to impotence their strength, And their beauty to my first, But before Corpus gateway My second first arose, When Barnacles the Freshman Was pinned upon the nose : Pinned on the nose by Boxer, Who brought a hobnailed herd From Barnwell, where he kept a van, Being indeed a dogsmeat man, Vendor of terriers, blue or tan, And dealer in my third. Twere long to tell how Boxer Was " countered " on the cheek, And knocked into the middle Of the ensuing week : How Barnacles the Freshman Was asked his name and college ; And how he did the fatal facts Reluctantly acknowledge. He called upon the Proctor Next day at half-past ten ; Men whispered that the Freshman cut A different figure then : 44 CHARADES That the brass forsook his forehead, The iron fled his soul, As with blanched lip and visage wan Before the stony-hearted Don He kneeled upon my whole. VI SIKES, housebreaker, of Houndsditch, Habitually swore ; But so surpassingly profane He never was before, As on a night in winter, When softly as he stole In the dim light from stair to stair, Noiseless as boys who in her lair Seek to surprise a fat old hare He barked his shinbone, unaware Encountering my whole. As pours the Anio plainward, When rains have swollen the dykes, So, with such noise, poured down my first Stirred by the shins of Sikes. The Butler Bibulus heard it ; And straightway ceased to snore, And sat up, like an egg on end, While men might count a score : Then spake he to Tigerius, A Buttons bold was he : CHARADES 45 " Buttons, I think there 's thieves about ; Just strike a light and tumble out ; If you can't find one go without, And see what you may see." But now was all the household, Almost, upon its legs, Each treading carefully about As if they trod on eggs. With robe far-streaming issued Paterfamilias forth ; And close behind him, stout and true And tender as the North, Came Mrs. P., supporting On her broad arm her fourth. Betsy the nurse, who never From largest beetle ran, And conscious p'raps of pleasing caps The housemaids, formed the van : And Bibulus the butler, His calm brows slightly arched ; (No mortal wight had ere that night Seen him with shirt unstarched ;) And Bob the shockhaired knifeboy, Wielding two Sheffield blades, And James Plush of the sinewy legs, The love of lady's maids : And charwoman and chaplain Stood mingled in a mass, And " Things," thought he of Houndsditch, " Is come to a pretty pass." 46 CHARADES Beyond all things a baby Is to the schoolgirl dear ; Next to herself the nursemaid loves Her dashing grenadier ; Only with life the sailor Parts from the British flag ; While one hope lingers, the cracksman's fingers Drop not his hard-earned swag. But, as hares do my second Thro' green Calabria's copses, As females vanish at the sight Of short-horns and of wopses ; So, dropping forks and teaspoons, The pride of Houndsditch fled, Dumbfoundered by the hue and cry He'd raised up overhead. They gave him did the judges As much as was his due. And, Saxon, shouldst thou e'er be led To deem this tale untrue ; Then any night in winter, When the cold north wind blows, And bairns are told to keep out cold By tallowing the nose : When round the fire the elders Are gathered in a bunch, And the girls are doing crochet, And the boys are reading Punch : Go thou and look in Leech's book ; There haply shalt thou spy PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY 47 A stout man on a staircase stand, With aspect anything but bland, And rub his right shin with his hand, To witness if I lie. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY ART thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the budding rose of April ? Are all thy motions music, and is poetry throned in thine eye ? Then hearken unto me ; and I will make the bud a fair flower, I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance, and water it with the water of Cologne ; And in the season it shall " come out," yea bloom, the pride of the parterre ; Ladies shall rnarvelat its beauty, anda Lord shall pluck it at the last. Study first Propriety : for she is indeed the Polestar Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity Fair; Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society ; The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach un- blamed her Eros. Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being naked ; Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of artifice : And when she is drest, behold ! she knoweth not herself again. I walked in the Forest ; and above me stood the Yew, Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade; 48 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY Then I pass'd into the citizen's garden, and marked a tree dipt into shape, (The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilah-shears of Decorum ;) And I said, " Surely Nature is goodly ; but how much goodlier is Art ! " I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky, And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo ! I blessed him as he rose ; Foolish ! for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch, Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draw- eth up water : And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be clothed with thunder, Must yield to him that danceth and " moveth in the circles " at Astley's. For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade, And God made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thy- self another : A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upwards, And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety : He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth of the cork. flDf frfenti^fp Choose judiciously thy friends ; for to discard them is un- desirable, Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop thy H's. PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY 49 Dost thou know a wise woman ? yea, wiser than the children of light ? Hath she a position ? and a title ? and are her parties in the Morning Post ? If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and mind; Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding : So shalt thou become like unto her ; and thy manners shall be " formed," And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great shall fly open : Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation, His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth remove : Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo ! in next morning's papers, Side by side with rumours of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and sieges, Shall appear thy name, and the minutiae of thy head-dress and petticoat, For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin. Read not Milton, for he is dry ; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life : Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet in- telligible : Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth not : 50 PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream, but do. Read incessantly thy Burke ; that Burke who, nobler than he of old, Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sublime and Beautiful : Likewise study the "creations" of "the Prince of modern Romance ; " Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on Pelham the puppy : Learn how " love is the dram-drinking of existence ; " And how we " invoke, in the Gadara of our still closets, The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple wand of the pen." Listen how Maltravers and the orphan " forgot all but love," And how Devereux's family chaplain " made and unmade kings : " How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and a murderer, Yet, being intellectual, was amongst the noblest of mankind. So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and master- spirits ; And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shalt at least idealize the Real. CARMEN S^CULARE MDCCCLIII "Quicquid agunt homines, nostri est farrago libelli." ACRIS hyems jam venit : hyems genus omne perosa Fcemineum, et senibus glacies non aequa rotundis : Apparent rari stantes in tramite glauco ; Radit iter, cogitque nives, sua tela, juventus CARMEN S^CULARE 51 Trux matrona ruit, multos dominata per annos, Digna indigna minans, glomeratque volumina crurum ; Parte senex alia, praerepto forte galero, Per plateas bacchatur ; eum chorus omnis agrestum Ridet anhelantem frustra, et jam jamque tenentem Quod petit ; illud agunt venti prensumque resorbent. Post, ubi compositus tandem votique potitus Sedit humi ; flet crura tuens nive Candida lenta, Et vestem laceram, et Venturas conjugis iras : Itque domum tendens duplices ad sidera palmas, Corda miser, desiderio perfixa galeri. At juvenis (sed cruda viro viridisque juventus) Quoerit bacciferas, tunica pendente, 1 tabernas : Pervigil ecce Baco furva depromit ab area Splendidius quiddam solito, plenumque saporem Laudat, et antiqua jurat de stirpe Jamaicse. O fumose puer, nimium ne crede Baconi : Manillas vocat ; hoc prsetexit nomine caules. Te vero, cui forte dedit maturior aetas Scire potestates herbarum, te quoque quanti Circumstent casus, paucis (adverte) docebo. Praecipue, seu raptat amor te simplicis herbse, 2 Seu potius tenui Musam meditaris avena, Procuratorem fugito, nam ferreus idem est. Vita semiboves catulos, redimicula vita Candida : de ccelo descendit O-WE aiavrbv. Nube vaporis item conspergere praater euntes 1 tunica pendente : h.e. "suspensa ebrachio." Quod procuratoribus illis valde, ut ferunt, displicebat. Dicunt vero morem a barbaris tractum, urbem Bosporiam in fl. Iside habitantibus. Bacciferas tabernas: id. q. nostri vocant " tobacco-shops." 2 herbce avena. Duo quasi genera artis poeta videtur distingucre. " Weed," " pipe," recte Scaliger. 52 CARMEN S^CULARE Jura vetant, notumque furens quid femina possit : Odit enim dulces succos anus, odit odorem ; Odit Lethsei diffusa volumina fumi. Mille modis reliqui fugiuntque feruntque laborem. Hie vir ad Eleos, pedibus talaria gestans, Fervidus it latices, et nil acquirit eundo : l Ille petit virides (sed non e gramine) mensas, Pollicitus meliora patri, tormentaque 2 flexus Per labyrintheos plus quam mortalia tentat, Acre tuens, loculisque pilas immittit et aufert. Sunt alii, quos frigus aquae, tenuisque phaselus Captat, et sequali surgentes ordine remi. His edura cutis, nee ligno rasile tergum ; Par saxi sinus : esca boves cum robore Bassi. Tollunt in numerum fera brachia, vique feruntur Per fluctus : sonuere viae clamore secundo : At picea de puppe fremens immane bubulcus Invocat exitium cunctis, et verbera rapto Stipite defessis onerat graviora caballis. Nil humoris egent alii. Labor arva vagari. Flectere ludus equos, et amantem devia 3 currum. Nosco purpureas vestes, clangentia nosco Signa tubae, et caudas inter virgulta caninas. Stat venator equus, tactoque ferocior armo Surgit in arrectum, vix auditurus habenam ; Et jam prata fuga superat, jam flumina saltu. 1 nil acquirit eundo. Aqua enim aspera, et radentibus parum habilis. Immersum hie aliquem et vix aut ne vix quidem extractum refert schol. 2 lormenta p. q. mortalia. Eleganter, ut solet, Peile, "unearthly cannons." (Cf. Ainsw. D. s. v.) Perrecondita autem est qusestio de lusubus illorum temporum, neque in Smithii Diet. Class, satis elucidata. Consule omnino Kentf. de Bill. Loculis, bene vertas "pockets." 8 amantem devia. Quorsum hoc, quaerunt Interpretes. Suspicor equidem respiciendos vv. 19 23, de procuratoribus. CARMEN S^CULARE 53 Aspicias alios ab iniqua sepe rotari In caput, ut scrobibus quae sint fastigia quserant ; Eque rubis aut amne pigro trahere humida crura, Et fcedam faciem, defloccatumque galerum. Sanctius his animal, cui quadravisse rotundum 1 Musse suadet amor, Camique ardentis imago, Inspicat calamos contracta fronte malignos, Perque Mathematicum pelagus, loca turbida, anhelat. Circum dirus " Hymers," nee pondus inutile, " Lignum," " Salmoque," et pueris tu detestate, " Colenso," Horribiles visu formse ; livente notatae Ungue omnes, omnes insignes aure canina. 2 Fervet opus ; taciturn pertentant gaudia pectus Tutorum; "pulchrumque mori," dixere, "legendo." Nee vero juvenes facere omnes omnia possunt. Atque unum memini ipse, deus qui dictus amicis, Et multum referens de rixatore 3 secundo, Nocte terens ulnas ac scrinia, solus in alto Degebat tripode ; arcta viro vilisque supellex ; Et sic torva tuens, pedibus per mutua nexis, Sedit, lacte mero mentem mulcente tenellam. Et fors ad summos tandem venisset honores ; Sed rapidi juvenes, queis gratior usus equorum, Subveniunt, siccoque vetant inolescere libro. Improbus hos Lector pueros, mentumque virili Lsevius, et durse gravat inclementia Mortis : * 1 quadr. rot. Cami ard. im. Quadrando enim rotundum (Ang. "squaring the circle") Camum accendere, juvenes ingenui semper nite- bantur. Fecisse vero quemquam non liquet. 2 aure canina. Iterum audi Peile, " dog's-eared." 3 rixatore. Non male Heins. cum Aldina, "wrangler." 4 Mortis. Verbum generali fere sensu dictum inveni. Suspicor autem poetam viium quendam innuisse, qui currus, caballos, id genus omne, mercede non minima locaret. 54 CARMEN S^CULARE Suetos (agmen iners), aliena vivere quadra, 1 Et lituo vexare viros, calcare caballos. Tales mane novo ssepe admiramur euntes Torquibus in rigidis et pelle Libystidis ursse ; Admiramur opus 2 tunicae, vestemque 3 sororem Iridis, et crurum non enarrabile tegmen. Hos inter comites implebat pocula sorbis Infelix puer, et sese recreabat ad ignem, " EVOE, BASSE," 4 fremens : dum velox prseterit setas ; Venit summa dies ; et Junior Optimus exit. Saucius at juvenis nota intra tecta refugit, Horrendum ridens, lucemque miserrimus odit : Informem famulus laqueum pendentiaque ossa Mane videt, refugitque feri meminisse magistri. Di nobis meliora ! Modum re servat in omni Qui sapit : haud ilium semper recubare sub umbra, Haud semper madidis juvat impallescere chartis. Nos numerus sumus, et libros consumere nati ; Sed requies sit rebus ; amant alterna Camenae. Nocte dieque legas, cum tertius advenit annus : Turn libros cape ; claude fores, et prandia defer. Quartus venit : ini, 5 rebus jam rite paratis, 1 aliena quadra. Sunt qui de pileis Academicis accipiunt. Rapidiores enim suas fere amittebant. Sed judicet sibi lector. 2 opus tunicce, "shirt-work." Alii opes. Perperam. 3 -uestem. Nota proprietatem verbi. " Vest," enim apud politos id. q. vulgo " waistcoat " appellatur. Quod et feminae usurpabant, ut hodiernse, fibula revinctum, teste Virgilio : "crines nodantur in aurum, Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem." 4 Basse, eft. Interpretes illud Horatianum, "Bassum Threicia vincat amystide." Non perspexere viri docti alterum hie alludi, Anglicanse ori- ginis, neque ilium, ut perhibent, a potu aversum. 5 ini. Sic nostri, " Go in and win." rebus, " subjects." CARMEN S^ECULARE 55 Exultans, et coge gradum conferre magistros. His animadversis, fugies immane Barathrum. His, operose puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas, Tu rixator eris. Saltern non crebra revises Ad stabulum, 1 et tota mcerens carpere juventa ; Classe nee amisso nil profectura dolentem Tradet ludibriis te plena leporis HiRUDO. 2 1 crebra r. a. sialnilum. " Turn up year after year at the old diggings, (i.e., the Senate House,) and be plucked," etc., Peile. Quo quid jejunius ? 2 Classe Hirudo. Obscurior allusio ad picturam quandam (in col- lectione viri, vel plusquam viri, Punchii repositam,) in qua juvenis custodem stationis moerens alloquitur. FLY LEAVES MORNING S the hour when white-horsed Day Chases Night her mares away ; When the Gates of Dawn (they say) Phcebus opes : And I gather that the Queen May be uniformly seen, Should the weather be serene, On the slopes. When the ploughman, as he goes Leathern-gaitered o'er the snows, From his hat and from his nose Knocks the ice ; And the panes are frosted o'er And the lawn is crisp and hoar, As has been observed before Once or twice. When arrayed in breastplate red Sings the robin, for his bread, On the elmtree that hath shed Every leaf; EVENING 57 While, within, the frost benumbs The still sleepy schoolboy's thumbs, And in consequence his sums Come to grief. But when breakfast-time hath come, And he's crunching crust and crumb, He'll no longer look a glum Little dunce; But be brisk as bees that settle On a summer rose's petal : Wherefore, Polly, put the kettle On at once. EVENING ~\7' ATE ! if e'er thy light foot lingers X\_ On the lawn, when up the fells Steals the Dark, and fairy fingers Close unseen the pimpernels : When, his thighs with sweetness laden, From the meadow comes the bee, And the lover and the maiden Stand beneath the trysting tree : Lingers on, till stars unnumber'd Tremble in the breeze-swept tarn, And the bat that all day slumber 'd Flits about the lonely barn ; And the shapes that shrink from garish Noon are peopling cairn and lea ; 5 8 EVENING And thy sire is almost bearish If kept waiting for his tea : And the screech-owl scares the peasant As he skirts some churchyard drear ; And the goblins whisper pleasant Tales in Miss Rossetti's ear ; Importuning her in strangest, Sweetest tones to buy their fruits : O be careful that thou changes!, On returning home, thy boots. SHELTER BY the wide lake's margin I mark'd her lie The wide, weird lake where the alders sigh- A young fair thing, with a shy, soft eye ; And I deem'd that her thoughts had flown To her home, and her brethren, and sisters dear, As she lay there watching the dark, deep mere, All motionless, all alone. Then I heard a noise, as of men and boys, And a boisterous troop drew nigh. Whither now will retreat those fairy feet ? Where hide till the storm pass by ? One glance the wild glance of a hunted thing She cast behind her ; she gave one spring ; And there follow'd a splash and a broadening ring On the lake where the alders sigh. IN THE GLOAMING 59 She had gone from the ken of ungentle men ! Yet scarce did I mourn for that ; For I knew she was safe in her own home then, And, the danger past, would appear again, For she was a water-rat. IN THE GLOAMING IN the Gloaming to be roaming, where the crested waves are foaming, And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet; When the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavour To discover but whatever were the hour, it would be sweet " To their feet," I say, for Leech's sketch indisputably teaches That the mermaids of our beaches do not end in ugly tails, Nor have homes among the corals; but are shod with neat balmorals, An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many might with scales. Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course with some young lady, Lalage, Neaera, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary Ann : Love, you dear delusive dream, you ! Very sweet your victims deem you, When, heard only by the seamew, they talk all the stuff one can. Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinkerton the glover, Having managed to discover what is dear Nesera's "size" : P'raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your tiny gift you tender, And to read you're no offender, in those laughing hazel eyes. 60 IN THE GLOAMING Then to hear her call you " Harry," when she makes you fetch and carry O young men about to marry, what a blessed thing it is ! To be photograph'd together cased in pretty Russia leather Hear her gravely doubting whether they have spoilt your honest phiz ! Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring a rich and rare one Next a bracelet, if she'll wear one, and a heap of things beside; And serenely bending o'er her, to inquire if it would bore her To say when her own adorer may aspire to call her bride ! Then, the days of courtship over, with your WIFE to start for Dover Or Dieppe and live in clover evermore, whate'er befalls : For I've read in many a novel that, unless they've souls that grovel, Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls : To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover's Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn, Or dissects the lucky pheasant that, I think, were passing pleasant ; As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun. 6i THE PALACE THEY come, they come, with fife and drum, And gleaming pikes and glancing banners ; Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb ; To talk in rank would not be manners. Onward they stride, as Britons can ; The ladies following in the Van. Who, who be these that tramp in threes Through sumptuous Piccadilly, through The roaring Strand, and stand at ease At last 'neath shadowy Waterloo ? Some gallant Guild, I ween, are they ; Taking their annual holiday. To catch the destin'd train to pay Their willing fares, and plunge within it Is, as in old Romaunt they say, With them the work of half-a-minute. Then off they're whirl'd, with songs and shouting, To cedared Sydenham for their outing. I mark'd them light, with faces bright As pansies or a new coin'd florin, And up the sunless stair take flight, Close-pack'd as rabbits in a warren. Honour the Brave, who in that stress Still trod not upon Beauty's dress ! Kerchief in hand I saw them stand ; In every kerchief lurk'd a lunch ; 62 THE PALACE When they unfurPd them, it was grand To watch bronzed men and maidens crunch The sounding celery-stick, or ram The knife into the blushing ham. Dash'd the bold fork through pies of pork ; O'er hard-boiPd eggs the saltspoon shook ; Leapt from its lair the playful cork : Yet some there were, to whom the brook Seem'd sweetest beverage, and for meat They chose the red root of the beet. Then many a song, some rather long, Came quivering up from girlish throats ; And one young man he came out strong, And gave "The Wolf" without his notes. While they who knew not song or ballad Still munch'd, approvingly, their salad. But ah ! what bard could sing how hard, The artless banquet o'er, they ran Down the soft slope with daisies starr'd And kingcups ! onward, maid with man, They flew, to scale the breezy swing, Or court frank kisses in the ring. Such are the sylvan scenes that thrill This heart ! The lawns, the happy shade, Where matrons, whom the sunbeams grill, Stir with slow spoon their lemonade ; And maidens flirt (no extra charge) In comfort at the fountain's marge ! Others may praise the " grand displays * Where "fiery arch," " cascade," and "comet," PEACE 63 Set the whole garden in a " blaze " ! Far, at such times, may I be from it j Though then the public may be " lost In wonder " at a trifling cost. Fann'd by the breeze, to puff at ease My faithful pipe is all I crave : And if folks rave about the " trees Lit up by fireworks," let them rave. Your monster fetes, I like not these ; Though they bring grist to the lessees. PEACE A STUDY HE stood, a worn-out City clerk Who'd toil'd, and seen no holiday, For forty years from dawn to dark Alone beside Caermarthen Bay. He felt the salt spray on his lips ; Heard children's voices on the sands ; Up the sun's path he saw the ships Sail on and on to other lands ; And laugh'd aloud. Each sight and sound To him was joy too deep for tears ; He sat him on the beach, and bound A blue bandana round his ears, And thought how, posted near his door, His own green door on Camden Hill, 64 PEACE Two bands at least, most likely more, Were mingling at their own sweet will Verdi with Vance. And at the thought He laugh'd again, and softly drew That Morning Herald that he'd bought Forth from his breast, and read it through. THE ARAB ON, on, my brown Arab, away, away ! Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day, And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw-piled lair, To tread with those echoless unshod feet Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat, Where no palmtree proffers a kindly shade And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade ; And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough Oh ! it goes to my heart but away, friend, off! And yet, ah ! what sculptor who saw thee stand, As thou standest now, on thy Native Strand, With the wild wind ruffling thine uncomb'd hair, And thy nostril upturn'd to the od'rous air, Would not woo thee to pause till his skill might trace At leisure the lines of that eager face ; The collarless neck and the coal-black paws And the bit grasp'd tight in the massive jaws ; The delicate curve of the legs, that seem Too slight for their burden and, O, the gleam LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN 65 Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay ! Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away ! Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay ; Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day. For thy hand is not Echoless there they are Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star : And thou hintest withal that thou fain would'st shine, As I con them, these bulgy old boots of mine. But I shrink from thee, Arab ! Thou eat'st eel-pie, Thou evermore hast at least one black eye ; There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues Are due not to nature but handling shoes ; And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see, Is a bit of tobacco-pipe Flee, child, flee ! LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN RINDER, who serenely grindest At my door the Hundredth Psalm, Till thou ultimately findest Pence in thy unwashen palm : Grinder, jocund-hearted Grinder, Near whom Barbary's nimble son, Poised with skill upon his hinder Paws, accepts the proffered bun : Dearly do I love thy grinding ; Joy to meet thee on thy road Where thou prowlest through the blinding Dust with that stupendous load, 66 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN 'Neath the baleful star of Sirius, When the postmen slowlier jog, And the ox becomes delirious, And the muzzle decks the dog. Tell me by what art thou bindest On thy feet those ancient shoon : Tell me, Grinder, if thou grindest Always, always out of tune. Tell me if, as thou art buckling On thy straps with eager claws, Thou forecastest, inly chuckling, All the rage that thou wilt cause. Tell me if at all thou mindest When folks flee, as if on wings, From thee as at ease thou grindest : Tell me fifty thousand things. Grinder, gentle-hearted Grinder ! Ruffians who lead evil lives, Soothed by thy sweet strains, are kinder To their bullocks and their wives : Children, when they see thy supple Form approach, are out like shots Half-a-bar sets several couple Waltzing in convenient spots ; Not with clumsy Jacks or Georges Unprofaned by grasp of man LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN 67 Maidens speed those simple orgies, Betsey Jane with Betsey Ann. As they love thee in St. Giles's Thou art loved in Grosvenor Square : None of those engaging smiles is Unreciprocated there. Often, ere yet thou hast hammer'd Through thy four delicious airs, Coins are flung thee by enamour'd Housemaids upon area stairs : E'en the ambrosial-whisker'd flunkey Eyes thy boots and thine unkempt Beard and melancholy monkey More in pity than contempt. Far from England, in the sunny South, where Anio leaps in foam, Thou wast rear'd, tilHack of money Drew thee from thy vineclad home : And thy mate, the sinewy Jocko, From Brazil or Afric came, Land of simoom and sirocco And he seems extremely tame. There he quaff'd the undefiled Spring, or hung with apelike glee, By his teeth or tail or eyelid, To the slippery mango-tree : 68 LINES ON HEARING THE ORGAN There he woo'd and won a dusky Bride, of instincts like his own ; Talk'd of love till he was husky In a tongue to us unknown : Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage The potato ground, or cut Down the unsuspecting savage With the well-aim'd cocoa-nut : Till the miscreant Stranger tore him Screaming from his blue-faced fair ; And they flung strange raiment o'er him, Raiment which he could not bear : Sever'd from the pure embraces Of his children and his spouse, He must ride fantastic races Mounted on reluctant sows : But the heart of wistful Jocko Still was with his ancient flame In the nutgroves of Morocco ; Or if not it 's all the same. Grinder, winsome grinsome Grinder ) They who see thee and whose soul Melts not at thy charms, are blinder Than a trebly-bandaged mole : They to whom thy curt (yet clever) Talk, thy music and thine ape, CHANGED 69 Seem not to be joys for ever, Are but brutes in human shape. 'Tis not that thy mien is stately, Tis not that thy tones are soft ; 'Tis not that I care so greatly For the same thing play'd so oft : But I've heard mankind abuse thee ; And perhaps it 's rather strange, But I thought that I would choose thee For encomium, as a change. CHANGED I KNOW not why my soul is rack'd : Why I ne'er smile as was my wont : I only know that, as a fact, I don't. I used to roam o'er glen and glade Buoyant and blithe as other folk : And not unfrequently I made A joke. A minstrel's fire within me burn'd. I'd sing, as one whose heart must break, Lay upon lay : I nearly learn'd To shake. All day I sang ; of love, of fame, Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost became A bore. CHANGED I cannot sing the old songs now ! It is not that I deem them low ; Tis that I can't remember how They go. I could not range the hills till high Above me stood the summer moon : And as to dancing, I could fly As soon. The sports, to which with boyish glee I sprang erewhile, attract no more ; Although I am but sixty-three Or four. Nay, worse than that, I've seem'd of late To shrink from happy boyhood boys Have grown so noisy, and I hate A noise. They fright me, when the beech is green, By swarming up its stem for eggs : They drive their horrid hoops between My legs : It 's idle to repine, I know ; I'll tell you what I'll do instead : I'll drink my arrowroot, and go To bed. FIRST LOVE OMY earliest love, who, ere I number'd Ten sweet summers, made my bosom thrill ! Will a swallow or a swift, or some bird Fly to her and say, I love her still ? FIRST LOVE Say my life 's a desert drear and arid, To its one green spot I aye recur : Never, never although three times married Have I cared a jot for aught but her. No, mine own ! though early forced to leave you, Still my heart was there where first we met ; In those " Lodgings with an ample sea-view," Which were, forty years ago, " To Let." There I saw her first, our landlord's oldest Little daughter. On a thing so fair Thou, O Sun, who (so they say) beholdest Everything, hast gazed, I tell thee, ne'er. There she sat so near me, yet remoter Than a star a blue-eyed bashful imp: On her lap she held a happy bloater, 'Twixt her lips a yet more happy shrimp. And I loved her, and our troth we plighted On the morrow by the shingly shore : In a fortnight to be disunited By a bitter fate for evermore. O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed ! To be young once more, and bite my thumb At the world and all its cares with you, I'd Give no inconsiderable sum. Hand in hand we tramp'd the golden seaweed, Soon as o'er the gray cliff peep'd the dawn : FIRST LOVE Side by side, when came the hour for tea, we'd Crunch the mottled shrimp and hairy prawn :- Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper, That sweet mite with whom I loved to play ? Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper, That bright being who was always gay ? Yes she has at least a dozen wee things ! Yes I see her darning corduroys, Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things. For a howling herd of hungry boys, In a home that reeks of tar and sperm-oil ! But at intervals she thinks, I know, Of those days which we, afar from turmoil, Spent together forty years ago. O my earliest love, still unforgotten, With your downcast eyes of dreamy blue ! Never, somehow, could I seem to cotton To another as I did to you ! WANDERERS AS o'er the hill we roam'd at will, My dog and I together, We mark'd a chaise, by two bright bays Slow-moved along the heather : Two bays arch neck'd, with tails erect And gold upon their blinkers ; WANDERERS And by their side an ass I spied ; It was a travelling tinker's. The chaise went by, nor aught cared I ; Such things are not in my way ; I turn'd me to the tinker, who Was loafing down a by-way : I ask'd him where he lived a stare Was all I got in answer, As on he trudged : I rightly judged The stare said, " Where I can, sir." I ask'd him if he'd take a whiff Of 'bacco ; he acceded ; He grew communicative too, (A pipe was all he needed,) Till of the tinker's life, I think, I knew as much as he did. "I loiter down by thorp and town, For any job I'm willing ; Take here and three a dusty brown, And here and there a shilling. " I deal in every ware in turn, I've rings for buddin' Sally That sparkle like those eyes of her'n ; I've liquor for the valet. " I steal from th' parson's strawberry -plots, I hide by th' squire's covers ; I teach the sweet young housemaids what's The art of trapping lovers. " The things I've done 'neath moon and stars Have got me into messes : 74 WANDERERS I've seen the sky through prison bars, I've torn up prison dresses : " I've sat, I've sigh'd, I've gloom'd, I've glanced With envy at the swallows That through the window slid, and danced (Quite happy) round the gallows ; 11 But out again I come, and show My face nor care a stiver For trades are brisk and trades are slow, But mine goes on for ever." Thus on he prattled like a babbling brook. Then I, " The sun hath slipt behind the hill, And my aunt Vivian dines at half-past six." So in all love we parted ; I to the Hall, They to the village. It was noised next noon That chickens had been miss'd at Syllabub Farm. SAD MEMORIES THEY tell me I am beautiful: they praise my silken hair, My little feet that silently slip on from stair to stair : They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent gray eye ; Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would that I might die ! Why was I born to be abhorr'd of man and bird and beast ? The bullfinch marks me stealing by, and straight his song hath ceased ; The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then flees ; and, worse than that, The housedog he flees after me why was I born a cat ? SAD MEMORIES 75 Men prize the heartless hound who quits dried-eyed his native land ; Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant hand. The leal true cat they prize not, that if e'er compell'd to roam Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipitately home. They call me cruel. Do I know if mouse or song-bird feels ? I only know they make me light and salutary meals : And if, as 'tis my nature to, ere I devour I tease 'em, Why should a low-bred gardener's boy pursue me with a besom ? Should china fall or chandeliers, or anything but stocks Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots the cat expects hard knocks : Should ever anything be missed milk, coals, umbrellas, brandy The cat 's pitched into with a boot or any thing that 's handy. "I remember, I remember," how one night I "fleeted by," And gain'd the blessed tiles and gazed into the cold clear sky. " I remember, I remember, how my little lovers came ; " And there, beneath the crescent moon, play'd many a little game. They fought by good St. Catharine, 'twas a fearsome sight to see The coal-black crest, the glowering orbs, of one gigantic He. Like bow by some tall bowman bent at Hastings or Poictiers, His huge back curved, till none observed a vestige of his ears : He stood, an ebon crescent, flouting that ivory moon ; Then raised the pibroch of his race, the Song without a Tune ; Gleam'd his white teeth, his mammoth tail waved darkly to and fro, As with one complex yell he burst, all claws, upon the foe. 76 SAD MEMORIES It thrills me now, that final Miaow that wierd unearthly din : Lone maidens heard it far away, and leap'd out of their skin. A potboy from his den o'erhead peep'd with a scared wan face ; Then sent a random brickbat down, which knock'd me into space. Nine days I fell, or thereabouts : and, had we not nine lives, I wis I ne'er had seen again thy sausage-shop, St. Ives ! Had I, as some cats have, nine tails, how gladly I would lick The hand, and person generally, of him who heaved that brick ! For me they fill the milkbowl up, and cull the choice sardine : But ah ! I nevermore shall be the cat I once have been ! The memories of that fatal night they haunt me even now : In dreams I see that rampant He, and tremble at that Miaow. COMPANIONS A TALE OF A GRANDFATHER BY THE AUTHOR OF " DEWY MEMORIES," &c. I KNOW not of what we ponder'd Or made pretty pretence to talk, As, her hand within mine, we wander'd Tow'rd the pool by the limetree walk, While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers And the blush-rose bent on her stalk. I cannot recall her figure : Was it regal as Juno's own ? Or only a trifle bigger Than the elves who surround the throne Of the Faery Queen, and are seen, I ween, By mortals in dreams alone ? COMPANIONS What her eyes were like, I know not : Perhaps they were blurr'd with tears ; And perhaps in your skies there glow not (On the contrary) clearer spheres. No ! as to her eyes I am just as wise As you or the cat, my dears. Her teeth, I presume, were " pearly " : But which was she, brunette or blonde ? Her hair, was it quaintly curly, Or as straight as a beadle's wand ? That I fail'd to remark ; it was rather dark And shadowy round the pond. Then the hand that reposed so snugly In mine was it plump or spare ? Was the countenance fair or ugly ? Nay, children, you have me there ! My eyes were p'raps blurr'd ; and besides I'd heard That it 's horribly rude to stare. And I was I brusque and surly? Or oppressively bland and fond ? Was I partial to rising early ? Or why did we twain abscond, All breakfastless too, from the public view To prowl by a misty pond ? What pass'd, what was felt or spoken Whether anything pass'd at all And whether the heart was broken That beat under that shelt'ring shawl (If shawl she had on, which I doubt) has gone, Yes, gone from me past recall. 7 8 COMPANIONS Was I haply the lady's suitor ? Or her uncle ? I can't make out Ask your governess, dears, or tutor. For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt As to why we were there, who on earth we were, And what this is all about. BALLAD THE auld wife sat at her ivied door, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) A thing she had frequently done before ; And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees. The piper he piped on the hill-top high, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) Till the cow said "I die," and the goose ask'd "Why?" And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas. The farmer he strode through the square farmyard ; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) His last brew of ale was a trifle hard The connexion of which with the plot one sees. The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes ; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips ; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. BALLAD The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, Which wholly consisted of lines like these. PART II She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And spake not a word. While a lady speaks There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks ; (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) She gave up mending her father's breeks, And let the cat roll in her new chemise. She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks ; Then she follow'd him out o'er the misty leas. Her sheep follow'd her, as their tails did them. (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And this song is consider'd a perfect gem, And as to the meaning, it 's what you please. 79 8o PRECIOUS STONES AN INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY MY Cherrystones ! I prize them, No tongue can tell how much ! Each lady caller eyes them, And madly longs to touch ! At eve I lift them down, I look Upon them, and I cry ; Recalling how my Prince " partook " (Sweet word !) of cherry-pie ! To me it was an Era In life, that Dejeuner ! They ate, they sipp'd Madeira Much in the usual way. Many a soft item there would be, No doubt, upon the carte : But one made life a heaven to me : It was the cherry-tart. Lightly the spoonfuls enter'd That mouth on which the gaze Of ten fair girls was centred In rapturous amaze. Soon that august assemblage clear'd The dish ; and as they ate The stones, all coyly, re-appear'd On each illustrious plate. And when His Royal Highness Withdrew to take the air, PRECIOUS STONES 81 Waiving our natural shyness, We swoop'd upon his chair. Policemen at our garments clutch'd : We mock'd those feeble powers ; And soon the treasures that had touch'd Exalted lips were ours ! One large one at the moment It seem'd almost divine Was got by that Miss Beaumont : And three, O three, are mine ! Yes ! the three stones that rest beneath Glass, on that plain deal shelf, Stranger, once dallied with the teeth Of Royalty itself. Let Parliament abolish Churches and States and Thrones : With reverent hand I'll polish Still, still my Cherrystones ! A clod a piece of orange-peel An end of a cigar Once trod on by a Princely heel, How beautiful they are ! Years since, I climb'd Saint Michael His Mount : you'll all go there Of course, and those who like'll Sit in Saint Michael's Chair : For there I saw, within a frame, The pen O heavens ! the pen With which a Duke had signed his name, And other gentlemen, o 82 PRECIOUS STONES " Great among geese," I faltered, " Is she who grew that quill ! " And, Deathless Bird, unalter'd Is mine opinion still. Yet sometimes, as I view my three Stones with a thoughtful brow, I think there possibly might be E'en greater geese than thou. DISASTER "~T"*WAS ever thus from childhood's hour ! JL My fondest hopes would not decay : I never loved a tree or flower Which was the first to fade away ! The garden, where I used to delve Short-frock'd, still yields me pinks in plenty : The peartree that I climb'd at twelve I see still blossoming, at twenty. I never nursed a dear gazelle ; But I was given a parroquet (How I did nurse him if unwell !) He 's imbecile, but lingers yet. He 's green, with an enchanting tuft ; He melts me with his small black eye : He'd look inimitable stuff 'd, And knows it but he will not die ! I had a kitten I was rich In pets but all too soon my kitten Became a full-sized cat, by which I've more than once been scratch'd and bitten. CONTENTMENT 83 And when for sleep her limbs she curl'd One day beside her untouch'd plateful, And glided calmly from the world, I freely own that I was grateful. And then I bought a dog a queen ! Ah Tiny, dear departing pug ! She lives, but she is past sixteen And scarce can crawl across the rug. I loved her beautiful and kind ; Delighted in her pert Bow-wow : But now she snaps if you don't mind ; 'Twere lunacy to love her now. I used to think, should e'er mishap Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, In shape of prowling thief, or trap, Or coarse bull-terrier I should die. But ah ! disasters have their use ; And life might e'en be too sunshiny : Nor would I make myself a goose, If some big dog should swallow Tiny. CONTENTMENT AFTER THE MANNER OF HORACE 1 ^RIEND, there be they on whom mishap JL Or never or so rarely comes, That, when they think thereof, they snap Derisive thumbs : 8 4 CONTENTMENT And there be they who lightly lose Their all, yet feel no aching void ; Should aught annoy them, they refuse To be annoy'd : And fain would I be e'en as these ! Life is with such all beer and skittles ; They are not difficult to please About their victuals : The trout, the grouse, the early pea, By such, if there, are freely taken ; If not, they munch with equal glee Their bit of bacon : And when they wax a little gay And chaff the public after luncheon, If they're confronted with a stray Policeman's truncheon, They gaze thereat with outstretch'd necks, And laughter which no threats can smother, And tell the horror-stricken X That he 's another. In snowtime if they cross a spot Where unsuspected boys have slid, They fall not down though they would not Mind if they did : When the spring rosebud which they wear Breaks short and tumbles from its stem, No thought of being angry e'er Dawns upon them ; THE SCHOOLMASTER 85 Though 'twas Jemima's hand that placed, (As well you ween) at evening's hour, In the loved button-hole that chaste And cherish'd flower. And when they travel, if they find That they have left their pocket-compass Or Murray or thick boots behind, They raise no rumpus, But plod serenely on without : Knowing it 's better to endure The evil which beyond all doubt You cannot cure. When for that early train they're late, They do not make their woes the text Of sermons in the Times, but wait On for the next ; And jump inside, and only grin Should it appear that that dry wag, The guard, omitted to put in Their carpet-bag. THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON OWHAT harper could worthily harp it, Mine Edward ! this wide-stretching wold (Look out wold) with its wonderful carpet Of emerald, purple, and gold ! 86 THE SCHOOLMASTER Look well at it also look sharp, it Is getting so cold. The purple is heather (erica) ; The yellow, gorse call'd sometimes " whin." Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a Green beetle as if on a pin. You may roll in it, if you would like a Few holes in your skin. You wouldn't ? Then think of how kind you Should be to the insects who crave Your compassion and then, look behind you At yon barley-ears ! Don't they look brave As they undulate (undulate, mind you, From unda, a wave). The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it Sounds here (on account of our height) ! And this hillock itself who could paint it, With its changes of shadow and light ? Is it not (never, Eddy, say " ain't it ") A marvellous sight ? Then yon desolate eerie morasses, The haunts of the snipe and the hern (I shall question the two upper classes On aquatiles, when we return) Why, I see on them absolute masses Oifilix or fern. How it interests e'en a beginner (Or tiro) like dear little Ned ! ARCADES AMBO 87 Is he listening ? As I am a sinner He 's asleep he is wagging his head. Wake up ! I'll go home to my dinner, And you to your bed. The boundless ineffable prairie ; The splendour of mountain and lake With their hues that seem ever to vary ; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake ; And this wold with its heathery garment Are themes undeniably great. But although there is not any harm in't- It 's perhaps little good to dilate On their charms to a dull little varmint Of seven or eight. ARCADES AMBO WHY are ye wandering aye 'twixt porch and porch, Thou and thy fellow when the pale stars fade At dawn, and when the glowworm lights her torch, O Beadle of the Burlington Arcade ? Who asketh why the Beautiful was made ? A wan cloud drifting o'er the waste of blue, The thistledown that floats above the glade, The lilac-blooms of April fair to view, And naught but fair are these ; and such, I ween, are you. 3 ARCADES AMBO Yes, ye are beautiful. The young street boys Joy in your beauty. Are ye there to bar Their pathway to that paradise of toys, Ribbons and rings ? Who'll blame ye if ye are ? Surely no shrill and clattering crowd should mar The dim aisle's stillness, where in noon's midglow Trip fair-hair'd girls to boot-shop or bazaar ; Where, at soft eve, serenely to and fro The sweet boy-graduates walk, nor deem the pastime slow. And O ! forgive me, Beadles, if I paid Scant tribute to your worth, when first ye stood Before me robed in broadcloth and brocade And all the nameless grace of Beadlehood ! I would not smile at ye if smile I could Now as erewhile, ere I had learn'd to sigh : Ah, no ! I know ye beautiful and good, And evermore will pause as I pass by, And gaze, and gazing think, how base a thing am I. WAITING. " /^\ COME, O come," the mother pray'd V__y And hush'd her babe : " let me behold Once more thy stately form array'd Like autumn woods in green and gold ! " I see thy brethren come and go ; Thy peers in stature, and in hue Thy rivals. Some like monarchs glow With richest purple : some are blue PLAY 89 As skies that tempt the swallow back ; Or red as, seen o'er wintry seas, The star of storm ; or barr'd with black And yellow, like the April bees. " Come they and go ! I heed not, I. Yet others hail their advent, cling All trustful to their side, and fly Safe in their gentle piloting " To happy homes on heath or hill, By park or river. Still I wait And peer into the darkness : still Thou com'st not I am desolate. " Hush ! hark ! I see a towering form ! From the dim distance slowly roll'd It rocks like lilies in a storm, And O, its hues are green and gold : " It comes, it comes ! Ah rest is sweet, And there is rest, my babe, for us ! " She ceased, as at her very feet Stopp'd the St. John's Wood omnibus. PLAY PLAY, play, while as yet it is day : While the sweet sunlight is warm on the brae ! Hark to the lark singing lay upon lay, While the brown squirrel eats nuts on the spray, 90 PLAY And in the apple-leaves chatters the jay ! Play, play, even as they ! What though the cowslips ye pluck will decay, What though the grass will be presently hay ? What though the noise that ye make should dismay Old Mrs. Clutterbuck over the way ? Play, play, for your locks will grow gray ; Even the marbles ye sport with are clay. Play, ay in the crowded highway : Was it not made for you ? Yea, my lad, yea. True that the babes you were bid to convey Home may fall out or be stolen or stray ; True that the tip-cat you toss about may Strike an old gentleman, cause him to sway, Stumble, and p'raps be run o'er by a dray : Still why delay ? Play, my son, play ! Barclay and Perkins, not you, have to pay. Play, play, your sonatas in A, Heedless of what your next neighbour may say ! Dance and be gay as a faun or a fay, Sing like the lad in the boat on the bay ; Sing, play if your neighbours inveigh Feebly against you, they're lunatics, eh ? Bang, twang, clatter and clang, Strum, thrum, upon fiddle and drum ; Neigh, bray, simply obey All your sweet impulses, stop not or stay ! Rattle the " bones," hit a tinbottom'd tray Hard with the fireshovel, hammer away ! Is not your neighbour your natural prey ? Should he confound you, it 's only in play. LOVE CANST thou love me, lady ? I've not learn'd to woo : Thou art on the shady Side of sixty too. Still I love thee dearly ! Thou hast lands and pelf: But I love thee merely Merely for thyself. Wilt thou love me, fairest ? Though thou art not fair ; And I think thou wearest Someone-else's hair. Thou could'st love, though, dearly ; And, as I am told, Thou art very nearly Worth thy weight, in gold. Dost thou love me, sweet one ? Tell me that thou dost ! Women fairly beat one, But I think thou must. Thou art loved so dearly : I am plain, but then Thou (to speak sincerely) Art as plain again. Love me, bashful fairy ! I've an empty purse : 9 2 LOVE And I've " moods," which vary ; Mostly for the worst. Still, I love thee dearly : Though I make (I feel) Love a little queerly, I'm as true as steel. Love me, swear to love me (As, you know, they do) By yon heaven above me And its changeless blue. Love me, lady, dearly, If you'll be so good ; Though I don't see clearly On what ground you should. Love me ah ! or love me Not, but be my bride ! Do not simply shove me (So to speak) aside ! P'raps it would be dearly Purchased at the price ; But a hundred yearly Would be very nice. THOUGHTS AT A RAILWAY STATION ""T~MS but a box, of modest deal ; J. Directed to no matter where : Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal Yes, I am blubbering like a seal ; For on it is this mute appeal, " With care." THOUGHTS AT A RAILWAY STATION 93 I am a stern cold man, and range Apart : but those vague words " With care" Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange : Drawn from my moral Moated Grange, I feel I rather like the change Of air. Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen spy Some simple English phrase " With care " Or " This side uppermost" and cry Like children ? No ? No more have I. Yet deem not him whose eyes are dry A bear. But ah ! what treasure hides beneath That lid so much the worse for wear ? A ring perhaps a rosy wreath A photograph by Vernon Heath Some matron's temporary teeth Or hair ! Perhaps some seaman, in Peru Or Ind, hath stow'd herein a rare Cargo of birds' eggs for his Sue ; With many a vow that he'll be true, And many a hint that she is too, Too fair. Perhaps but wherefore vainly pry Into the page that 's folded there ? I shall be better by and by: The porters, as I sit and sigh, Pass and repass I wonder why They stare ! 94 ON THE BRINK IWATCH'D her as she stoop'd to pluck A wildflower in her hair to twine ; And wish'd that it had been my luck To call her mine. Anon I heard her rate with mad Mad words her babe within its cot ; And felt particularly glad That it had not. I knew (such subtle brains have men) That she was uttering what she shouldn't ; And thought that I would chide, and then I thought I wouldn't : Who could have gazed upon that face, Those pouting coral lips, and chided ? A Rhadamanthus, in my place, Had done as I did : For ire wherewith our bosoms glow Is chain'd there oft by Beauty's spell ; And, more than that, I did not know The widow well. So the harsh phrase pass'd unreproved. Still mute (0 brothers, was it sin ?) I drank, unutterably moved, Her beauty in : ON THE BRINK 95 And to myself I murmur'd low, As on her upturn'd face and dress The moonlight fell, "Would she say No, By chance, or Yes ? " She stood so calm, so like a ghost Betwixt me and that magic moon, That I already was almost A finish'd coon. But when she caught adroitly up And soothed with smiles her little daughter ; And gave it, if I'm right, a sup Of barley-water ; And, crooning still the strange sweet lore Which only mothers' tongues can utter, Snow'd with deft hand the sugar o'er Its bread-and-butter ; And kiss'd it clingingly (Ah, why Don't women do these things in private ?) I felt that if I lost her, I Should not survive it : And from my mouth the words nigh flew The past, the future, I forgat 'em : " Oh ! if you'd kiss me as you do- That thankless atom ! " But this thought came ere yet I spake, And froze the sentence on my lips : "They err, who marry wives that make Those little slips." ON THE BRINK It came like some familiar rhyme, Some copy to my boyhood set ; And that 's perhaps the reason I'm Unmarried yet. Would she have own'd how pleased she was, And told her love with widow's pride ? I never found out that, because I never tried. Be kind to babes and beasts and birds : Hearts may be hard, though lips are coral And angry words are angry words : And that 's the moral. "FOREVER" FOREVER ; 'tis a single word ! Our rude forefathers deem'd it two : Can you imagine so absurd A view? Forever ! What abysms of woe The word reveals, what frenzy, what Despair ! For ever (printed so) 'Did not. It looks, ah me ! how trite and tame ! It fails to sadden or appal Or solace it is not the same At all. " FOREVER " 97 O thou to whom it first occurr'd To solder the disjoin'd, and dower Thy native language with a word Of power : We bless thee ! Whether far or near Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair Thy kingly brow, is neither here Nor there. But in men's hearts shall be thy throne, While the great pulse of England beats Thou coiner of a word unknown To Keats ! And nevermore must printer do As men did longago ; but run " For " into " ever," bidding two Be one. Forever ! passion-fraught, it throws O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour : It 's sweet, it 's strange ; and I suppose It 's grammar. Foiever ! 'Tis a single word ! And yet our fathers deem'd it two : Nor am I confident they err*d ; Are you ? 9 8 UNDER THE TREES " T T NDER the trees ! " Who but agrees V_J That there is magic in words such as these ? Promptly one sees shake in the breeze Stately lime-avenues haunted of bees : Where, looking far over buttercupp'd leas, Lads and " fair shes " (that is Byron, and he 's An authority) lie very much at their ease ; Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas, Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese : Not objecting at all though it 's rather a squeeze And the glass is, I daresay, at 80 degrees. Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries And Sainton, and Tamberlik's thrilling high Cs ; Or if painters, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise, And the tone and the breadth of that landscape of Lee's Or if learned, on nodes and the moon's apogees, Or, if serious, on something of A.K.H.B.'s, Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees ; Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to fleas. Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes, With their innocent lambswool or book on their knees, And talk, and enact, any nonsense you please, As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas ; And you hear an occasional " Harry, don't tease " From the sweetest of lips in the softest of keys, And other remarks, which to me are Chinese. And fast the time flees ; till a ladylike sneeze, Or a portly papa's more elaborate wheeze, Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muftatees, And announce as a fact that it 's going to freeze, MOTHERHOOD 99 And that young people ought to attend to their Ps And their Qs, and not court every form of disease. Then Tommy eats up the three last ratafias, And pretty Louise wraps her robe de cerise Round a bosom as tender as Widow Machree's, And (in spite of the pleas of her lorn vis-a-vis) Goes to wrap up her uncle a patient of Skey's, Who is prone to catch chills, like all old Bengalese : But at bedtime I trust he'll remember to grease The bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupees From the premature clutch of his fond legatees ; Or at least have no fees to pay any M. D.s For the cold his niece caught, sitting under the Trees. MOTHERHOOD SHE laid it where the sunbeams fall Unscann'd upon the broken wall. Without a tear, without a groan, She laid it near a mighty stone, Which some rude swain had haply cast Thither in sport, long ages past, And Time with mosses had o'erlaid, And fenced with many a tall grassblade, And all about bid roses bloom And violets shed their soft perfume. There, in its cool and quiet bed, She set her burden down and fled : Nor flung, all eager to escape, One glance upon the perfect shape That lay, still warm and fresh and fair ; But mo^'onless and soundless there. IOO MOTHERHOOD No human eye had mark'd her pass Across the linden-shadow'd grass Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven : Only the innocent birds of heaven The magpie, and the rook whose nest Swings as the elmtree waves his crest And the lithe cricket, and the hoar And huge-limb'd hound that guards the door, Look'd on when, as a summer wind That, passing, leaves no trace behind, All unapparell'd, barefoot all, She ran to that old ruin'd wall, To leave upon the chill dank earth (For ah ! she never knew its worth) 'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, And dews of night, that precious thing ! And there it might have lain forlorn From morn till eve, from eve to morn : But that, by some wild impulse led, The mother, ere she turn'd and fled, One moment stood erect and high ; Then pour'd into the silent sky A cry so jubilant, so strange, That Alice as she strove to range Her rebel ringlets at her glass Sprang up and gazed across the grass ; Shook back those curls so fair to see, Clapp'd her soft hands in childish glee ; And shriek'd her sweet face all aglow, Her very limbs with rapture shaking " My hen has laid an egg, I know ; And only hear the noise she 's making ! " IOI MYSTERY I KNOW not if in others' eyes She seem'd almost divine ; But far beyond a doubt it lies That she did not in mine. Each common stone on which she trod I did not deem a pearl : Nay it is not a little odd How I abhorr'd that girl. We met at balls and picnics oft, Or on a drawingroom stair ; My aunt invariably cough'd To warn me she was there : At croquet I was bid remark How queenly was her pose, As with stern glee she drew the dark Blue ball beneath her toes, And made the Red fly many a foot : Then calmly she would stoop, Smiling an angel smile, to put A partner through his hoop. At archery I was made observe That others aim'd more near, But none so tenderly could curve The elbow round the ear : Or if we rode, perhaps she did Pull sharply at the curb ; 102 MYSTERY But then the way in which she slid From horseback was superb ! She'd throw off odes, again, whose flow And fire were more than Sapphic ; Her voice was sweet, and very low ; Her singing quite seraphic : She was a seraph, lacking wings, That much I freely own. But, it is one of those queer things Whose cause is all unknown (Such are the wasp, the household fly, The shapes that crawl and curl By men called centipedes) that I Simply abhorr'd that girl. No doubt some mystery underlies All things which are and which are not : And 'tis the function of the Wise Not to expound to us what is what, But let his consciousness play round The matter, and at ease evolve The problem, shallow or profound, Which our poor wits have fail'd to solve, Then tell us blandly we are fools; Whereof we were aware before : That truth they taught us at the schools, And p'raps (who knows ?) a little more. FLIGHT 103 But why did we two disagree ? Our tastes, it may be, did not dovetail ; All I know is, we ne'er shall be Hero and heroine of a love-tale. FLIGHT O MEMORY ! that which I gave thee To guard in thy garner yestreen Little deeming thou e'er could'st behave thee Thus basely hath gone from thee clean ! Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended The yellow leaves flee from the oak I have lost it for ever, my splendid Original joke. What was it ? I know I was brushing My hair when the notion occurred : I know that I felt myself blushing As I thought, " How supremely absurd ! How they'll hammer on floor and on table As its drollery dawns on them how They will quote it " I wish I were able To quote it just now. I had thought to lead up conversation To the subject it 's easily done Then let off, as an airy creation Of the moment, that masterly pun. Let it off, with a flash like a rocket's ; In the midst of a dazzled conclave, Where I sat, with my hands in my pockets, The only one grave. 104 FLIGHT I had fancied young Titterton's chuckles, And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles, His mode of expressing applause : While Jean Bottleby queenly Miss Janet Drew her handkerchief hastily out, In fits at my slyness what can it Have all been about ? I know 'twas the happiest, quaintest Combination of pathos and fun : But I've got no idea the faintest Of what was the actual pun. I think it was somehow connected With something I'd recently read Or heard or perhaps recollected On going to bed. What had I been reading ? The Standard : " Double Bigamy ; " " Speech of the Mayor." And later eh ? yes ! I meandered Through some chapters of Vanity Fair. How it fuses the grave with the festive ! Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine So playfully, subtly suggestive As that joke of mine. Did it hinge upon " parting asunder ? " No, I don't part my hair with my brush. Was the point of it " hair " ? Now I wonder ! Stop a bit I shall think of it hush ! There 's hare, a wild animal Stuff ! It was something a deal more recondite : FLIGHT 105 Of that I am certain enough ; And of nothing beyond it. Hair locks ! There are probably many Good things to be said about those. Give me time that 's the best guess of any " Lock " has several meanings, one knows. Iron locks iron-gray locks a "deadlock" That would set up an everyday wit : Then of course there 's the obvious " wedlock ; " But that wasn't it No ! mine was a joke for the ages ; Full of intricate meaning and pith ; A feast for your scholars and sages How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith ! Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal And, singling him out from the herd, Fling wide immortality's portal But what was the word ? Ah me ! 'tis a bootless endeavour. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke you will never See the same one again, you may swear. Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it ! My darling, my treasure, my own ! This brain and none other devised it And now it has flown. io6 ON THE BEACH LINES BY A PRIVATE TUTOR WHEN the young Augustus Edward Has reluctantly gone bedward (He 's the urchin I am privileged to teach), From my left-hand waistcoat pocket I extract a batter'd locket And I commune with it, walking on the beach. I had often yearn'd for something That would love me, e'en a dumb thing ; But such happiness seem'd always out of reach : Little boys are off like arrows With their little spades and barrows, When they see me bearing down upon the beach ; And although I'm rather handsome, Tiny babes, when I would dance 'em On my arm, set up so horrible a screech That I pitch them to their nurses With (I fear me) mutter'd curses, And resume my lucubrations on the beach. And the rabbits won't come nigh me, And the gulls observe and fly me, And I doubt, upon my honour, if a leech Would stick on me as on others, And I know if I had brothers They would cut me when we met upon the beach. So at last I bought this trinket ; For (although I love to think it) ON THE BEACH 107 'Twasn't given me, with a pretty little speech : No ! I bought it of a pedlar, Brown and wizen'd as a medlar, Who was hawking odds and ends about the beach. But I've managed, very nearly, To believe that I was dearly Loved by Somebody, who (blushing like a peach) Flung it o'er me saying, " Wear it For my sake " and I declare, it Seldom strikes me that I bought it on the beach. I can see myself revealing Unsuspected depths of feeling, As, in tones that half upbraid and half beseech, I aver with what delight I Would give anything my right eye For a souvenir of our stroll upon the beach. ! that eye that never glisten'd And that voice to which I've listen'd But in fancy, how I dote upon them each ! How regardless what o'clock it Is, I pore upon that locket Which does not contain her portrait, on the beach ! As if something were inside it 1 laboriously hide it, And a rather pretty sermon you might preach Upon Fantasy, selecting For your " instance " the affecting Tale of me and my proceedings on the beach. io8 ON THE BEACH I depict her, ah, how charming ! I portray myself alarming Her by swearing I would " mount the deadly breach," Or engage in any scrimmage For a glimpse of her sweet image, Or her shadow, or her footprint on the beach. And I'm ever ever seeing My imaginary Being, And I'd rather that my marrowbones should bleach In the winds, than that a cruel Fate should snatch from me the jewel Which I bought for one and sixpence on the beach. LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean ; Meaning, however, is no great matter) Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween ; Thro' God's own heather we wonn'd together, I and my Willie (O love my love) : I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waver'd alow, above : Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing, (Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And O the sundazzle on bark and bight ! Thro' the rare red heather we danced together, (O love my Willie !) and smelt for flowers : LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION 109 I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours : By rises that flush'd with their purple favours, Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, We walked and waded, we two young shavers, Thanking our stars we were both so green. We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, In fortunate parallels ! Butterflies, Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes : Songbirds darted about, some inky As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds; Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds ! But they skim over bents which the millstream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem ; They need no parasols, no goloshes ; And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather) That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms ; And snapt (it was perfectly charming weather) Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms : And Willie 'gan sing (O, his notes were fluty ; Wafts fluttered them out to the white-wing'd sea) Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty, Rhymes (better to put it) of "ancientry:" Bowers of flowers encounter'd showers In William's carol (O love my Willie !) no LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow I quite forget what say a daffodily : A nest in a hollow, " with buds to follow," I think occurred next in his nimble strain ; And clay that was " kneaden " of course in Eden A rhyme most novel, I do maintain : Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories, And all least furlable things got "furled;" Not with any design to conceal their " glories," But simply and solely to rhyme with " world." O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, Could be furled together, this genial weather, And carted, or carried on " wafts " away, Nor ever again trotted out ah me ! How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be ! THE COCK AND THE BULL YOU see this pebble-stone ? It 's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day- I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur (You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words ?) Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same THE COCK AND THE BULL in By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange " Chop " was my snickering dandiprat's own term One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence you are with me, sir ? What hour it skills not : ten or eleven o' the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was Go shop or sight-see bar a spit o' rain !) In February, eighteen sixty nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei Hm hm how runs the jargon ? being on throne. Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum what you will Of the impending eighty thousand lines. " Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge. But there 's a superstructure. Wait a bit. Mark first the rationale of the thing : Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. That shilling and for matter o' that, the pence I had o' course upo' me wi' me say (Mecum 's the Latin, make a note o' that) When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratch'd ear, wiped snout, (Let everybody wipe his own himself) SnifFd tch ! at snuffbox ; tumbled up, he-heed, Haw-haw'd (not hee-haw'd, that 's another guess thing :) Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat ; And in vestibulo, i' the lobby to-wit, (lacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir,) Donn'd galligaskins, antigropeloes, And so forth ; and, complete with hat and gloves, ii2 THE COCK AND THE BULL One on and one a-dangle i' my hand, And ombrifuge (Lord love you !), case o' rain, I flopp'd forth, 'sbuddikins ! on my own ten toes, (I do assure you there be ten of them), And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing ? Q. E. D. That 's proven without aid from mumping Pope, Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. (Isn't it, old Fatchaps ? You're in Euclid now.) So, having the shilling having i' fact a lot And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, I purchased, as I think I said before, The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh ?) O' the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun, For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again. Now Law steps in, bigwigg'd, voluminous-jaw'd ; Investigates and re-investigates. Was the transaction illegal ? Law shakes head Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. But now (by virtue of the said exchange And barter) vice versa all the coin, Per juris operatiotiem, vests I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom ; (In scecula s, otTeiplg Aluv, .^A- KO$ OTO a/x7rx oy(7 '> ' afJuj 5s, OO-TEOIJ XaaJv evrifia Epya, yap Qvaniav TV Trap' outisv y nafl'evuv J* it TJJ %a/Jj, E? TIJ av 1 University Prize Poero Cambridge, 1855. CARMEN GR^CUM 151 orav x> trot, uaTTEp po<$' ev ripos upa' Tacap Soup} EITTOV o/jiug, og tyvug, XfiV oXj3/a, TTETTTUxsvai, outf ids'iv Joi/Xiov a/tap, ri(A(ji.Ei/QV Ttvfi, KO.V TEyyourav ETT 7TOVTU o xpstuv xu>iuvia$ yog 7TOK EV ffSfAVU 6pOVU' ElfJiaT IvJwj ' olvov d 1 ano daiJaM) itpri 152 CARMEN GRjECUM EITTE ?' owe E7ni9v OVM. fads yap, *yovTOj, avavdo$ audd, Xtip ofto'ia /A.EV fiporu, ou J' bfjtota' ol <$' ap tppii IK y etpa (MXVTI$ QEU' " ou fjia^a o*nv, o?j i>' T o^ ow %a/u KEirEV' OUK axpavroi oiitisv av H'Tiev fleoV yiQavuncu ctffTEuv avacrtra, xtxEvQev ug vauv TO (Mvuv9ai oo" %{ ya' XCZTTTTEO-EV 'Pu/MX TTOXa, XaTTTTECTEV ftcmnp Iav x,opoi, aj 'T^IJI avTpa rg ol ffupQuvog, TTEJ * lotnETTTov hiTTEr, a/tfiporoi "ASavai ; CARMEN GRjECUM 153 dba TTOU xrivuv apa ; TTOU 710% v/j.uv, vcOcroi Aiyauzs a*o$ ', atydirov /ZEV ' ov avyct' offer otTravra VE^O; oux EXE? xflpoyraaiai nat v/jivuv ripen duff bdoi7Topo$ s , OTTO, OUK cutout iV>ij ao'oj a^sva de ore nod a* avayxa v, at vuv aoivai TE ayuuxi' ' TOV fj.v xpovov OVK a TIV ' UV ay ahivog $' savei ffVtdk, . No, ./Egon's. ^Egon left it in my care. M, Unluckiest of flocks ! Your master courts Nesera, wondering if she like me more : Meanwhile a stranger milks you twice an hour, Saps the flocks' strength, and robs the suckling lambs. D. Yet fling more charily such words at men. You while the goats looked goatish we know who, And in what chapel (but the kind Nymphs laughed) M. Then (was it ?) when they saw me Micon's shrubs 10 And young vines hacking with my rascally knife ? Z>. Or when by this old beech you broke the bow And shafts of Daphnis : which you cried to see, You crossgrained lad, first given to the boy ; And harm him somehow you must needs, or die. M. Where will lords stop, when knaves are come to this ? Did not I see you, scoundrel, in a snare Take Damon's goat, Wolf barking all the while ? And when I shouted, " Where 's he off to ? Call, Tityrus, your flock," you skulked behind the sedge. 20 D. Beaten in singing, should he have withheld The goat my pipe had by its music earned ? That goat was mine, you mayn't p'r'aps know : and he Owned it himself ; but said he could not pay. M. He beat by you ? You own a decent pipe ? Used you not, dunce, to stand at the crossroads, Stifling some lean tune in a squeaky straw ? ECL. III.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 225 Z>. Shall we then try in turn what each can do ? I stake yon cow nay hang not back she comes Twice daily to the pail, is suckling twins. 30 Say what_j>0'll lay. M. I durst not wager aught Against you from the flock : for I have at home A father, I have a tyrant stepmother. Both count the flock twice daily, one the kids. But vrha.t you'll own far handsomer, I'll stake (Since you will be so mad) two beechen cups, The carved work of the great Alcimedon. O'er them the chiseller's skill has traced a vine That drapes with ivy pale her wide-flung curls. Two figures in the centre : Conon one, 40 And what 's that other's name, who'd take a wand And show the nations how the year goes round ; When you should reap, when stoop behind the plough ? Ne'er yet my lips came near them, safe hid up. D. For me two cups the selfsame workman made, And clasped with lissom briar the handles round. Orpheus i' the centre, with the woods behind. Ne'er yet my lips came near them, safe hid up. This talk of cups, if on my cow you've fixed Your eye, is idle. M. Nay you'll not this day 50 Escape me. Name your spot, and I'll be there. Our umpire be Palaemon ; here he comes ! I'll teach you how to challenge folks to sing. D. Come on, if aught is in you. I'm not loth, I shrink from no man. Only, neighbour, thou (Tis no small matter) lay this well to heart. P. Say on, since now we sit on softest grass ; And now buds every field and every tree, Q 226 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. III. And woods are green, and passing fair the year. Damoetas, lead. Menalcas, follow next. 60 Sing verse for verse : such songs the Muses love. D. With Jove we open. Jove fills everything, He walks the earth, he listens when I sing. M. Me Phoebus loves. I still have offerings meet For Phoebus ; bay, and hyacinth blushing sweet. D. Me Galatea pelts with fruit, and flies (Wild girl) to the woods : but first would catch my eyes. M. Unbid Amyntas comes to me, my flame ; With Delia's self my dogs are not more tame. D. Gifts have I for my fair : who marked but I 70 The place where doves had built their nest sky-high ? M. I've sent my poor gift, which the wild wood bore, Ten golden apples. Soon I'll send ten more. Z>. Oft Galatea tells me what sweet tales ! Waft to the god's ears just a part, ye gales. M. At heart Amyntas loves me. Yet what then t He mates with hunters, I with servingmen. D. Send me thy Phyllis, good lolas, now. To-day 's my birthday. When I slay my cow To help my harvest come, and welcome, thou. 80 M. Phillis is my love. When we part, she'll cry ; And fain would bid lolas' self good-bye. 1 Z>. Wolves kill the flocks, and storms the ripened corn ; And winds the tree ; and me a maiden's scorn. 1 Putting the vocative "Iolla"in line 79, as Mr. Kennedy does, into the mouth of Menalcas, not of Phyllis, I would substitute these lines for my original ones : Phillis is my dear love. She wept when I (Yes I, lollas,) left her : and " Good-bye", She said, " lollas fair ; a long Good-bye ", ECL. III.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES M. Rain is the land's delight, weaned kids' the vine ; Big ewes' lithe willow ; and one fair face mine. D. Pollio loves well this homely muse of mine. For a new votary fat a calf, ye Nine. M. Pollio makes songs. For him a bull demand, Who butts, whose hoofs already spurn the sand. 90 D. Who loves thee, Pollio, go where thou art gone. For him flow honey, thorns sprout cinnamon. M. Who loathes not Bavius, let him love thy notes, Maevius : and yoke the fox, and milk he-goats. D. Flowers and ground-strawberries while your prize ye make, Cold in the grass fly hence, lads lurks the snake. M. Sheep, banks are treacherous : draw not over-nigh : See, now the lordly ram his fleece doth dry. D. Tityrus, yon she-goats from the river bring. I in due time will wash them at the spring. 100 M. Call, lads, your sheep. Once more our hands, should heat O'ertake the milk, will press in vain the teat. D. How rich these vetches, yet how lean my ox. Love kills alike the herdsman and the flocks. M. My lambs and here love 's not in fault, you'll own Witched by some jealous eye, are skin and bone. D. Say in what land and great Apollo be To me heaven's arch extends just cubits three. M. Say in what lands with kings' names grav'n are grown Flowers and be Phyllis yours and yours alone. no P. Not mine such strife to settle. You have earned A cow, and you: and whoso else shall e'er Shrink from love's sweets or prove his bitterness. Close, lads, the springs. The meads have drunk enough. 228 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [EcL. IV. ECLOGUE IV MUSES of Sicily, a loftier song Wake we ! Some tire of shrubs and myrtles low. Are woods our theme ? Then princely be the woods. Come are those last days that the Sibyl sang : The ages' mighty march begins anew. Now comes the virgin, Saturn reigns again : Now from high heaven descends a wondrous race. Thou on the newborn babe who first shall end That age of iron, bid a golden dawn Upon the broad world chaste Lucina, smile : Now thy Apollo reigns. And, Pollio, thou Shalt be our Prince, when he that grander age Opens, and onward roll the mighty moons : Thou, trampling out what prints our crimes have left, Shalt free the nations from perpetual fear. While he to bliss shall waken ; with the Blest See the Brave mingling, and be seen of them, Ruling that world o'er which his father's arm shed peace. On thee, child, everywhere shall earth, untilled, Show'r, her first baby-offerings, vagrant stems Of ivy, foxglove, and gay briar, and bean ; Unbid the goats shall come big-uddered home, Nor monstrous lions scare the herded kine. Thy cradle shall be full of pretty flowers : Die must the serpent, treacherous poison-plants Must die ; and Syria's roses spring like weeds. ECL. IV.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 229 But, soon as thou canst read of hero-deeds Such as thy father wrought, and understand What is true worth : the champaign day by day Shall grow more yellow with the waving corn ; 3 o From the wild bramble purpling then shall hang The grape ; and stubborn oaks drop honeydew. Yet traces of that guile of elder days Shall linger ; bidding men tempt seas in ships, Gird towns with walls, cleave furrows in the land. Then a new Tiphys shall arise, to man New argosies with heroes ; then shall be New wars ; and once more shall be bound for Troy, A mightier Achilles. After this, When thou hast grown and strengthened into man, 40 The pilot's self shall range the seas no more ; Nor each land teeming with the wealth of all, The floating pines exchange their merchandise. Vines shall not need the pruning-hook, nor earth The harrow : ploughmen shall unyoke their steers. Nor then need wool be taught to counterfeit This hue and that. At will the meadow ram Shall change to saffron, or the gorgeous tints Of Tyre, his fair fleece ; and the grazing lamb At will put crimson on. So grand an age 50 Did those three Sisters bid their spindles spin ; Three, telling with one voice the changeless will of Fate. Oh draw the time is all but present near To thy great glory, cherished child of heaven, Jove's mighty progeny ! And lo ! the world, The round and ponderous world, bows down to thee ; 23 o VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [EcL. IV. The earth, the ocean-tracts, the depths of heaven. Lo ! nature revels in the coming age. Oh ! may the evening of my days last on, May breath be mine, till I have told thy deeds ! 60 Not Orpheus then, not Linus, shall outsing Me : though each vaunts his mother or his sire, Calliopea this, Apollo that. Let Pan strive with me, Arcady his judge ; Pan, Arcady his judge, shall yield the palm. Learn, tiny babe, to read a mother's smile : Already ten long months have wearied her. Learn, tiny babe. Him, who ne'er knew such smiles, Nor god nor goddess bids to board or bed. ECLOGUE V MENALCAS. MOPSUS. Me. MOPSUS, suppose, now two good men have met- You at flute-blowing, as at verses I We sit down here, where elm and hazel mix. Mo. Menalcas, meet it is that I obey Mine elder. Lead, or into shade that shifts At the wind's fancy or (mayhap the best) Into some cave. See here's a cave, o'er which A wild vine flings her flimsy foliage. Me. On these hills one Amyntas vies with you. Mo. Suppose he thought to outsing Phoebus' self? Me. Mopsus, begin. If aught you know of flames That Phyllis kindles ; aught of Alcon's worth, Or Codrus's ill-temper ; then begin : ECL. V.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 231 Tityrus meanwhile will watch the grazing kids. Mo. Ay, I will sing the song which t'other day On a green beech's bark I cut ; and scored The music, as I wrote. Hear that, and bid Amyntas vie with me. Me. As willow lithe Yields to pale olive ; as to crimson beds Of roses yields the lowly lavender j 20 So, to my mind, Amyntas yields to you. Mo. But, lad, no more : we are within the cave. (Sings.} The Nymphs wept Daphnis, slain by ruthless death. Ye, streams and hazels, were their witnesses : When, clasping tight her son's unhappy corpse, "Ruthless," the mother cried, "are gods and stars." None to the cool brooks led in all those days, Daphnis, his fed flocks : no four-footed thing Stooped to the pool, or cropped the meadow-grass. How lions of the desert mourned thy death, 30 Forests and mountains wild proclaim aloud, 'Twas Daphnis taught mankind to yoke in cars The tiger ; lead the winegod's revel on, And round the tough spear twine the bending leaf. Vines are the green wood's glory, grapes the vine's : The bull the cattle's, and the rich land's corn. Thou art thy people's. When thou metst thy doom, Both Pales and Apollo left our fields. In furrows where we dropped big barley seeds, Spring now rank darnel and the barren reed : 40 Not violet soft and shining daffodil, But thistles rear themselves and sharp-spiked thorn. Shepherds, strow earth with leaves, and hang the springs 232 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [EcL. V. With darkness ! Daphnis asks of you such rites : And raise a tomb, and place this rhyme thereon : " Famed in the green woods, famed beyond the skies, A fair flock's fairer lord, here Daphnis lies." Me. Welcome thy song to me, oh sacred bard, As, to the weary, sleep upon the grass : As, in the summer-heat, a bubbling spring 50 Of sweetest water, that shall slake our thirst. In song, as on the pipe, thy master's match, Thou, gifted lad, shall now our master be. Yet will I sing in turn, in my poor way, My song, and raise thy Daphnis to the stars Raise Daphnis to the stars. He loved me too. Mo. Could aught in my eyes such a boon outweigh ? Song-worthy was thy theme : and Stimichon Told me long since of that same lay of thine. Me. (Sings.) Heaven's unfamiliar floor, and clouds and stars, Fair Daphnis, wondering, sees beneath his feet. 61 Therefore gay revelries fill wood and field, Pan, and the shepherds, and the Dryad maids. Wolves plot not harm to sheep, nor nets to deer ; Because kind Daphnis makes it holiday. The unshorn mountains fling their jubilant voice Up to the stars : the crags and copses shout Aloud, " A god, Menalcas, lo ! a god." Oh ! be thou kind and good unto thine own ! Behold four altars, Daphnis : two for thee, 70 Two, piled for Phoebus. Thereupon I'll place Two cups, with new milk foaming, year by year ; Two goblets filled with richest olive-oil : And, first with much wine making glad the feast At the fireside in snowtime, 'neath the trees ECL. VI.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 233 In harvest pour, rare nectar, from the can The wines of Chios. Lyctian ^Egon then Shall sing me songs, and to Damcetas' pipe Alphesiboeus dance his Satyr-dance. And this shalt thou lack never : when we pay 80 The Nymphs our vows, and when we cleanse the fields. While boars haunt mountain-heights, and fishes streams, Bees feed on thyme, and grasshoppers on dew, Thy name, thy needs, thy glory shall abide. As Bacchus and as Ceres, so shalt thou Year after year the shepherd's vows receive ; So bind him to the letter of his vow. Mo. What can I give thee, what, for such a song ? Less sweet to me the coming South-wind's sigh, The sea-wave breaking on the shore, the noise 90 Of rivers, rushing through the stony vales. Me. First I shall offer you this brittle pipe. This taught me how to sing, " For one fair face : " This taught me " Whose flock ? Melibceus's ? " Mo. Take thou this crook ; which oft Antigenes Asked and he then was loveable in vain ; Brass-tipped and even-knotted beautiful ! ECLOGUE VI first stooped to trifle, like the Greek's, In numbers ; and, unblushing, dwelt in woods. I sang embattled kings : but Cynthius plucked My ear, and warned me : " Tityrus, fat should be A shepherd's wethers, but his lays thin-drawn." So for enough and more will strive to tell, 234 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. VI. Varus, thy deeds, and pile up grisly wars On pipe of straw will I my wood-notes sing I sing not all unhid. Yet oh ! should one Smit by great love, should one read this my lay 10 Then with thee, Varus, shall our myrtle-groves, And all these copses, ring. Right dearly loves Phoebus the page that opens with thy name. On, sisters ! Chromis and Mnasylus saw (Two lads) Silenus in a cave asleep : As usual, swoln with yesterday's debauch. Just where it fell his garland lay hard by ; And on worn handle hung his ponderous can. They for the old man oft had cheated each Of promised songs draw near, and make his wreaths 20 Fetters to bind him. ^Egle makes a third, (^Egle, the loveliest of the Naiad maids,) To back their fears : and, as his eyes unclose, Paints brow and temples red with mulberry. He, laughing at the trick, cries, " Wherefore weave These fetters ? Lads, unbind me : 'tis enough But to have seemed to have me in your power. Ye ask a song ; then listen. You I'll pay With song : for her I've other meed in store." And forthwith he begins. Then might you see 30 Move to the music Faun and forest-beast, And tall oaks bow their heads. Not so delights Parnassus in Apollo : not so charmed At Orpheus Rhodope and Ismarus. For this he sang : How, drawn from that vast void, Gathered the germs of earth and air and sea ECL. VI.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 235 And liquid flame. How the Beginning sprang Thence, and the young world waxed into a ball. Then Earth, grown harder, walled the sea-god off In seas, and slowly took substantial form : 40 Till on an awed world dawned the wondrous sun, And straight from heaven, by clouds unbroken, fell The showers : as woods first bourgeoned, here and there A wild beast wandering over hills unknown. Of Pyrrha casting stones, and Saturn's reign, The stolen fire, the eagles of the rock, He sings : and then, beside what spring last seen The sailors called for Hylas till the shore All rang with ' Hylas,' ' Hylas : ' and consoles (Happy if horned herds never had been born,) 50 With some fair bullock's love Pasiphae. Ah ! hapless maid ! What madness this of thine ? Once a king's daughters made believe to low, And ranged the leas : but neither stooped to ask Those base beasts' love : though each had often feared To find the ploughman's gear about her neck, And felt on her smooth brow for budding horns. Ah ! hapless maid ! Thou roam'st from hill to hill : He under some dark oak his snowy side Cushioned on hyacinths chews the pale-green grass, 60 Or woos some favourite from the herd. " Close, Nymphs, Dictaean Nymphs, oh close the forest-glades ! If a bull's random footprints by some chance Should greet me ! Lured, may be, by greener grass, Or in the herd's wake following, vagrant kine May bring him straight into my father's fold ! " Then sings he of that maid who paused to gaze At the charmed apples : and surrounds with moss, Bitter tree-moss, the daughters of the Sun, 236 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [EcL. VI. Till up they spring tall alders. Then he sings 70 How Callus, wandering to Parnassus' stream, A sister led to the Aonian hills, And, in a mortal's honour, straight uprose The choir of Phoebus : How that priest of song, The shepherd Linus, all his hair with flowers And bitter parsley shining, spake to him. " Take lo ! the Muses give it thee this pipe, Once that Ascrsean's old : to this would he Sing till the sturdy mountain-ash came down. Sing thou on this, whence sprang ^Eolia's grove, 80 Till in no wood Apollo glory more." So on and on he sang : How Nisus, famed In story, troubled the Dulichian ships ; And in the deep seas bid her sea-dogs rend The trembling sailors. Tereus' tale he told, How he was changed : what banquet Philomel, What present, decked for him : and how she flew To the far wilderness ; and flying paused (Poor thing) to flutter round her ancient home. All songs which one day Phcebus sang to charmed 90 Eurotas and the laurels learnt them off He sang. The thrilled vales fling them to the stars. Till Hesper bade them house and count their flocks. And journeyed all unwelcome up the sky. ECL. VII.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 237 ECLOGUE VII MELIBCEUS. CORYDON. THYRSIS. M DAPHNIS was seated 'neath a murmurous oak, When Corydon and Thyrsis (so it chanced) Had driv'n their two flocks one of sheep, and one Of teeming goats together : herdsmen both, Both in life's spring, and able well to sing, Or, challenged, to reply. To that same spot I, guarding my young myrtles from the frost, Find my goat strayed, the patriarch of the herd : And straight spy Daphnis. He, espying me In turn, cries, " Meliboeus ! hither, quick ! 10 Thy goat, and kids, are safe. And if thou hast An hour to spare, sit down beneath the shade. Hither unbid will troop across the leas The kine to drink : green Mincius fringes here His banks with delicate bullrush, and a noise Of wild bees rises from the sacred oak." What could I do ? Alcippe I had none, Nor Phyllis, to shut up my new-weaned lambs : Then, there was war on foot a mighty war Thyrsis and Corydon ! So in the end 20 I made my business wait upon their sport. So singing verse for verse that well the Muse Might mark it they began their singing-match. Thus Corydon, thus Thyrsis sang in turn. (They sing.) C. " Ye Fountain Nymphs, my lover Grant me to sing Like Codrus : next Apollo's rank his lines : 238 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. VII. Or here if all may scarce do everything I'll hang my pipe up on these sacred pines." T, " Swains ! a new minstrel deck with ivy now, Till Codrus burst with envy ! Or, should he 30 Flatter o'ermuch, twine foxglove o'er my brow, Lest his knave's-flattery spoil the bard to be." C. " 'To Dian, from young Micon : this boar's head, And these broad antlers of a veteran buck.' Full-length in marble ancle-bound with red Buskins I'll rear her, should to-day bring luck." T. " Ask but this bowl, Priapus, and this cake Each year : for poor the garden thou dost keep. Our small means made thee marble : whom we'll make Of gold, should lambing multiply our sheep." 40 C. " Maid of the seas ! more sweet than Hybla's thyme, Graceful as ivy, white as is the swan ! When home the fed flocks wend at evening's prime, Then come if aught thou car'st for Corydon." T. " Hark ! bitterer than wormwood may I be, Bristling as broom, as drifted sea-weed cheap, If this day seem not a long year to me ! Home, home for very shame, my o'er-fed sheep ! " C. " Ye mossy rills, and lawns more soft than dreams, Thinly roofed over by these leaves of green : 50 From the great heat now summer 's come, now teems The jocund vine with buds my cattle screen." T. "Warm hearth, good faggots, and great fires you'll find In my home : black with smoke are all its planks : We laugh, who're in it, at the chill north wind, As wolves at troops of sheep, mad streams at banks." C. " Here furry chestnuts rise and juniper : Heaped 'neath each tree the fallen apples lie : All smiles. But, once let fair Alexis stir ECL. VIII.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 239 From off these hills and lo ! the streams are dry." 60 T. " Thirsts in parched lands and dies the blighted grass ; Vines lend no shadow to the mountain-height ; But groves shall bloom again, when comes my lass ; And in glad showers Jove descend in might." C. " Poplars Alcides likes, and Bacchus vines ; Fair Venus myrtle, and Apollo bay ; But while to hazel-leaves my love inclines, Nor bays nor myrtles greater are than they." T. " Fair in woods ash ; and pine on garden-grass : On tall cliffs fir ; by pools the poplar-tree. 70 But if thou come here oft, sweet Lycidas, Lawn-pine and mountain-ash must yield to thee." M. All this I've heard before : remember well How Thyrsis strove in vain against defeat. From that day forth 'twas ' Corydon ' for me. ECLOGUE VIII A LPHESIBCEUS'S and Damon's muse ,T\ Charmed by whose strife the steer forgot to graze ; Whose notes made lynxes motionless, and bade Rivers turn back and listen sing we next : Alphesiboeus's and Damon's muse. Winn'st thou the crags of great Timavus now, Or skirtest strands where break Illyrian seas ? I know not. But oh when shall that day dawn When I may tell thy deeds ? give earth thy lays, That match alone the pomp of Sophocles ? With thee began, with thee shall end, my song : Accept what thou didst ask ; and round thy brow 240 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. VIII. Twine this poor ivy with thy victor bays. 'Twas at the hour when night's cold shadow scarce Had left the skies ; when, blest by herdsmen, hangs The dewdrop on the grass ; that Damon leaned On his smooth olive-staff, and thus began. "Wake, morning star ! Prevent warm day, and come ! While, duped and humbled, I because I loved Nisa with all a husband's love complain ; 20 And call the gods, (though naught their cognizance Availed,) at my last hour, a dying man. Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " There forests murmur aye, and pines discourse ; And lovelorn swains, and Pan, who first reclaimed From idleness the reed, hath audience there, Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " Nisa is aught impossible in love ? Is given to Mopsus. Griffins next will mate With mares : our children see the coward deer 30 Come with the hound to drink. Go, shape the torch, Mopsus ! fling, bridegroom, nuts ! Thou lead'st a wife Home, and o'er (Eta peers the evening star. Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " Oh, mated with a worthy husband ! thou Who scorn'st mankind abhorr'st this pipe, these goats Of mine, and shaggy brows, and hanging beard : Nor think'st that gods can see what mortals do ! Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " Within our orchard-walls I saw thee first, 40 A wee chiK with her mother (I was sent To guide you) gathering apples wet with dew, ECL. VIII.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 241 Ten years and one I scarce had numbered then ; Could scarce on tiptoe reach the brittle boughs. I saw, I fell, I was myself no more. Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " Now know I what love is. On hard rocks born Tmaros, or Rhodope, or they who dwell In utmost Africa do father him ; No child of mortal blood or lineage. 50 Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " In her son's blood a mother dipped her hands At fierce love's bidding. Hard was her heart too Which harder ? her heart or that knavish boy's ? Knavish the boy, and hard was her heart too. Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady. " Now let the wolf first turn and fly the sheep : Hard oaks bear golden apples: daffodil Bloom on the alder : and from myrtle-stems Ooze richest amber. Let owls vie with swans ; 60 And be as Orpheus Orpheus in the woods, Arion with the dolphins every swain, (Begin, my flute, a song of Arcady) " And earth become mid ocean. Woods, farewell ! Down from some breezy mountain height to the waves I'll fling me. Take this last gift ere I die. Unlearn, my flute, the songs of Arcady." Thus Damon. How the other made reply Sing, sisters. Scarce may all do everything. A. " Fetch water : wreathe yon altar with soft wool : 70 And burn rich vervain and brave frankincense ; R 242 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [EcL. VIII. That I may try my lord's clear sense to warp With dark rites. Naught is lacking save the songs. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " Songs can bring down the very moon from heaven. Circe with songs transformed Ulysses' crew. Songs shall in sunder burst the cold grass-snake. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. 11 Three threads about thee, of three several hues, I twine ; and thrice (odd numbers please the god) 80 Carry thy image round the altar-stones. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " Weave, Amaryllis, in three knots three hues. Just weave and say 'I'm weaving chains of love.' Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " As this clay hardens, melts this wax, at one And the same flame : so Daphnis 'neath my love. Strew meal, and light with pitch the crackling bay. Daphnis burns me ; for Daphnis burn these bays. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. 90 " Be his such longing as the heifer feels, When, faint with seeking her lost mate through copse And deepest grove, beside some water-brook In the green grass she sinks in her despair, Nor cares to yield possession to the night. Be his such longing : mine no wish to heal. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " Pledges of love, these clothes the traitor once Bequeathed me. I commit them, Earth, to thee ECL. IX.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 243 Here at my threshold. He is bound by these. 100 Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " These deadly plants great Moeris gave to me, In Pontus plucked : in Pontus thousands grow. By their aid have I seen him skulk in woods A wolf, unsepulchre the buried dead, And charm to other fields the standing corn. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " Go, Amaryllis, ashes in thy hand : Throw them and look not backwards o'er thy head Into a running stream. These next I'll try no On Daphnis ; who regards not gods nor songs. Bring, songs, bring Daphnis from the city home. " See ! While I hesitate, a quivering flame Hath clutched the wood, self-issuing from the ash. May this mean good ! Something for Hylas too Barks at the gate it must mean. Is it true ? Or are we lovers dupes of our own dreams ? Cease, songs, cease. Daphnis comes from the city home!" ECLOGUE IX LYCIDAS. MCERIS. Z. MCERIS, on foot ? and on the road to town ? M. Oh Lycidas ! we live to tell how one (Who dreamed of this ?) a stranger holds our farm, And says, " 'Tis mine : its ancient lords, begone ! " Beaten, cast down for Chance is lord of all 244 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. IX. We send him bootlessly mayhap these kids. L. Yet all, I heard, from where we lose yon hills, With gradual bend down-sloping to the brook, And those old beeches, broken columns now, Had your Menalcas rescued by his songs. 10 M. Thou heardst. Fame said so. But our songs avail, Moeris, no more 'mid warspears than, they say, Dodona's doves may, when the eagle stoops. A boding raven from a rifted oak Warned me, by this means or by that to nip This strange strife in the bud : or dead were now Thy Moeris ; dead were great Menalcas too. Z. Could such curse fall on man ? Had we so near Lost thee, Menalcas, and thy pleasantries ? Who then would sing the nymphs ? Who strow with flowers The ground, or train green darkness o'er the springs ? 2 1 And oh ! that song, which I (saying ne'er a word) Copied one day (while thou wert off to see My darling, Amaryllis,) from thy notes : " Feed, while I journey but a few short steps, Tityrus, my goats : and, Tityrus, when they've fed, Lead them to drink : and cross not by the way The he-goat's path : his horns are dangerous." M. But that to Varus, that unfinished one ! " Varus ! thy name, if Mantua still be ours 30 (Mantua ! to poor Cremona all too near,) Shall tuneful swans exalt unto the stars." L. Begin, if in thee 's aught. So may not yews Of Cyrnus lure thy bees : so, clover-fed, Thy cattle teem with milk. Me too the muse Hath made a minstrel : I have songs ; and me The swains call ' poet.' But I heed them not. For scarce yet sing I as the great ones sing, ECL. IX.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 245 But, a goose, cackle among piping swans. M. Indeed, I am busy turning o'er and o'er 4 o In hopes to recollect it in my brain A song, and not a mean one, Lycidas. " Come, Galatea ! sport'st thou in the waves ? Here spring is purpling ; thick by river-banks Bloom the gay flowers ; white poplar climbs above The caves, and young vines plait a roof between. Come ! and let mad seas beat against the shore." Z. What were those lines that once I heard thee sing, All uncompanioned on a summer night I know the music, if I had the words. 50 M. " Daphnis ! why watch those old-world planets rise ? Lo ! onward marches sacred Caesar's star, The star that made the valleys laugh with corn, And grapes grow ruddier upon sunny hills. Sow, Daphnis, pears, whereof thy sons shall eat." Time carries all our memories e'en away. Well I remember how my boyish songs Would oft outlast the livelong summer day. And now they're all forgot. His very voice Hath Mceris lost : on Moans wolves have looked. 60 But oft thou'lt hear them from Menalcas yet. Z. Thy pleas but draw my passion out. And lo ! All hushed to listen is the wide sea-floor, And laid the murmurings of the soughing winds. And now we're half-way there. I can descry Bianor's grave. Here, Mceris, where the swains Are raking off the thick leaves, let us sing. Or, if we fear lest night meanwhile bring up The rain clouds, singing let us journey on (The way will seem less tedious) journey on 7 Singing : and I will ease thee of thy load. 246 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. IX. M. Cease, lad. We'll do what lies before us now : Then sing our best, when comes the Master home. ECLOGUE X GALLUS OH Arethuse, let this last task be mine ! One song a song Lycoris' self may read My Gallus asks : who'd grudge one song to him ? So, when thou slid'st beneath Sicilian seas, May ne'er salt Doris mix her stream with thine : Begin : and sing while yon blunt muzzles search The underwood of Gallus torn by love. We lack not audience : woods take up the notes. Where were ye, Naiad nymphs, in grove or glen, When Gallus died of unrequited love ? Not heights of Pindus or Parnassus, no Aonian Aganippe kept ye then. Him e'en the laurels wept and myrtle-groves. Stretch'd 'neath the lone cliff, piny Masnalus And chill Lycaeum's stones all wept for him. The sheep stood round. They think not scorn of us ; And think not scorn, O priest of song, of them. Sheep fair Adonis fed beside the brooks. The shepherds came. The lazy herdsmen came. Came, from the winter acorns dripping-wet, Menalcas. " Whence," all ask, " this love of thine ? " Apollo came : and, " Art thou mad," he saith, " Gallus ? Thy love, through bristling camps and snows, Tracks now another's steps." Silvanus came, Crowned with his woodland glories : to and fro Rocked the great lilies and the fennel bloom. ECL. X.] VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES 247 Pan came, Arcadia's Pan : (I have seen him, red With elder-berries and with cinnabar :) " Is there no end ? " quoth he : " Love heeds not this : Tears sate not cruel Love : nor rills the leas, 3 o Nor the bees clover, nor green boughs the goat." But he rejoins sad-faced : " Yet sing this song Upon your hills, Arcadians ! none but ye Can sing. Oh ! pleasantly will rest my bones, If pipe of yours shall one day tell my loves. Oh ! had I been as you are ! kept your flocks, Or gleaned, a vintager, your mellow grapes ! A Phyllis, an Amyntas whom you will Had been my passion what if he be dark ? Violets are dark and hyacinths are dark. 40 And now should we be sitting side by side, Willows around us and a vine o'erhead, He carolling, or plucking garlands she. Here are cold springs, Lycoris, and soft lawns, And woods : with thee I'd here decay and die. Now, for grim war accoutred, all for love, In the fray's centre I await the foe : Thou, in a far land out the very thought ! Gazest (ah wilful !) upon Alpine snows And the froz'n Rhine without me all alone ! 50 May that frost harm not thee ! that jagged ice Cut ne'er thy dainty feet ! I'll go, and play My stores of music fashioned for the lyre Of Chalcis on the pipe of Arcady. My choice is made. In woods, 'mid wild beasts' dens, I'll bear my love, and carve it on the trees : That with their growth, my loves may grow and grow. Banded with nymphs I'll roam o'er Maenalus, Or hunt swift boars ; and circle with my dogs, 248 VIRGIL'S ECLOGUES [ECL. X. Unrecking of the cold, Parthenia's glades. 60 Already over crag and ringing grove I am borne in fancy : laugh as I let loose The Cretan arrow from the Parthian bow : Pooh ! will this heal thy madness ? will that god Learn mercy from the agonies of men ? Tis past : again nymphs, music, fail to please. Again I bid the very woods begone. No deed of mine can change him : tho' I drink Hebrus in mid December : tho' I plunge In snows of Thrace, the dripping winter's snows : 70 Tho', when the parched bark dies on the tall elm, 'Neath Cancer's star I tend the ^Ethiop's sheep. Love 's lord of all. Let me too yield to Love. Sung are, oh holy ones, your minstrel's songs : Who sits here framing pipes with slender reed. In Callus' eyes will ye enhance their worth : Callus for whom each hour my passion grows, As swell green alders when the spring is young. I rise. The shadows are the singer's bane : Baneful the shadow of the juniper. 80 E'en the flocks like not shadow. Go the star Of morning breaks go home, my full-fed sheep. 249 FROM HORACE'S ODES BOOK I ODE 9 To THALIARCHUS ONE dazzling mass of solid snow Soracte stands j the bent woods fret Beneath their load ; and, sharpest-set With frost, the streams have ceased to flow. Pile on great faggots and break up The ice : let influence more benign Enter with four-years-treasured wine, Fetched in the ponderous Sabine cup : Leave to the gods all else. When they Have once bid rest the winds that war Over the passionate seas, no more Gray ash and cypress rock and sway. Ask not what future suns shall bring. Count to-day gain, whate'er it chance To be : nor, young man, scorn the dance, Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing, Ere Time thy April youth hath changed To sourness. Park and public walk Attract thee now, and whispered talk At twilight meetings pre-arranged ; 250 HORACE'S ODES [BK. I. Hear now the pretty laugh that tells In what dim corner lurks thy love ; And snatch a bracelet or a glove From wrist or hand that scarce rebels. ODE ii To LEUCON&E SEEK not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be ; Ask not of Chaldaea's science what God wills, Leuconoe : Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast Waits thee still ; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last, Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sand- stone-reef. Be thou wise : fill up the wine-cup ; shortening, since the time is brief, Hopes that reach into the future. While I speak, hath stol'n away Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, catch the blossom of To-day. ODE 14 To A SHIP YET on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride, O ship ? What dost thou ? Seek a hav'n, and there Rest thee : for lo ! thy side Is oarless all and bare, ODE 24.] HORACE'S ODES 251 And the swift south-west wind hath maimed thy mast, And thy yards creak, and, every cable lost, Yield must thy keel at last On tyrannous sea-waves tossed Too rudely. Goodly canvas is not thine, Nor gods, to hear thee when thy need is sorest : True, thou a Pontic pine, Child of a stately forest Boast'st rank and empty name : but little trust The frightened seamen in a painted stern. Stay or be mocked thou must By every wind in turn. Flee what of late sore burden was to me, Now a sad memory and a bitter pain, Those shining Cyclads flee, That stud the far-off main. ODE 24 Tf VIRGIL T T NSHAMED, unchecked, for one so dear We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir, Melpomene, to whom thy sire Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear ! Sleeps He the sleep that knows no morn ? Oh Honour, oh twin-born with Right Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light, When shall again his like be born ? 252 HORACE'S ODES [BK. I. Many a kind heart for Him makes moan ; Thine, Virgil, first. But ah ! in vain Thy love bids heaven restore again That which it took not as a loan : Were sweeter lute than Orpheus given To thee, did trees thy voice obey ; The blood revisits not the clay Which He, with lifted wand, hath driven Into his dark assemblage, who Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer. Hard lot ! Yet light their griefs who BEAR The ills which they may not undo. ODE 28 To ARCHYTAS MEASURER of earth and ocean and the multitudinous sand, Scant the grains of tributary dust, Lack whereof, Archytas, holds thee captive on Apulia's strand. Vainly in his wisdom did he trust, Who could journey disembodied o'er the firmament, and stand At the gates of heaven ; for die he must. Perished thus the sire of Pelops, messmate of the gods above : Thus Tithonus, caught into the air : Minos too, the man admitted to the hidden things of Jove. Panthous' son himself is prisoner there In those shades twice doomed to Orcus : tho' the letters on the shield ODE 28.] HORACE'S ODES 253 Proved how he had lived in Ilion's day, Nor had aught, save skin and sinew, unto grim death deigned to yield. No mean scholar he, e'en thou would'st say, In the lore of truth and nature. But the fate of all is sealed : All must tread, unlighted, death's highway. Into grisly War's arena some are by the Furies flung : 'Neath the hungry sea-wave some lie dead : Fused in undistinguished slaughter die the old man and the young : Spares not Hell's fierce queen a single head. Me too westward-bound Orion's constant mate, the South-west- wind, Whelmed but lately in the Illyrian wave : And, oh mariner, deny not to a dead man's bones unkind, And a head that must not own a grave One scant heap of homeless sea-sand. So whene'er the Eastern gale Chides the South seas, may his fury lay Green Etruria's woods in ruin, sparing thee : so many a bale Drop to thee, whence only drop it may, From great Jove, and Neptune watching o'er Tarentum's holy soil. Wilt commit, unrecking, an offence Which shall harm thy innocent offspring ? On thine own head may recoil Righteous vengeance, and a recompense That shall bow thy pride. Abandoned, unavenged, I will not be: For such crime no offerings shall atone. Though mayhap thy time is precious, small the boon I ask of thee: Throw three handfuls o'er me, and begone. 254 HORACE'S ODES [BK. I. 38. ODE 38 To HIS SLAVE T) ERSIAN grandeur I abhor : JL Linden-wreathed crowns, avaunt : Boy, I bid thee not explore Woods which latest roses haunt : Try on naught thy busy craft Save plain myrtle ; so arrayed Thou shall fetch, I drain, the draught Fitliest 'neath the scant vine-shade. I SCORN and shun the rabble's noise. Abstain from idle talk. A thing That ear hath not yet heard, I sing, The Muses' priest, to maids and boys. To Jove the flocks which great kings sway, To Jove great kings allegiance owe. Praise him : he laid the giants low : All things that are, his nod obey. This man may plant in broader lines His fruit-trees : that, the pride of race Enlists a candidate for place : In worth, in fame, a third outshines BK. III. i.] HORACE'S ODES 255 His mates ; or, thronged with clients, claims Precedence. Even-handed Fate Hath but one law for small and great : That ample urn holds all men's names. He o'er whose doomed neck hangs the sword Unsheathed, the dainties of the South Shall lack their sweetness in his mouth : No note of bird or harpsichord Shall bring him Sleep. Yet Sleep is kind, Nor scorns the huts of labouring men ; The bank where shadows play, the glen Of Tempe dancing in the wind. He, who but asks ' Enough,' defies Wild waves to rob him of his ease ; He fears no rude shocks, when he sees Arcturus set or Haedus rise : When hailstones lash his vines, or fails His farm its promise, now of rains And now of stars that parch the plains Complaining, or unkindly gales. In straitened seas the fish are pent ; For dams are sunk into the deep : Pile upon pile the builders heap, And he, whom earth could not content, The Master. Yet shall Fear and Hate Climb where the Master climbs : nor e'er From the armed trireme parts black Care ; He sits behind, the horseman's mate. 256 HORACE'S ODES [BK; III. And if red marble shall not ease The heartache ; nor the shell that shines Star-bright ; nor all Falernum's vines, All scents that charmed Achsemenes : Why should I rear me halls of rare Design, on proud shafts mounting high ? Why bid my Sabine vale good-bye For doubled wealth and doubled care ? ODE 2 T7RIEND ! with a poor man's straits to fight A Let warfare teach thy stalwart boy : Let him the Parthian's front annoy With lance in rest, a dreaded knight : Live in the field, inure his eye To danger. From the foeman's wall May the armed tyrant's dame, with all Her damsels, gaze on him, and sigh, " Dare not, in war unschooled, to'rouse Yon Lion whom to touch is death, To whom red Anger ever saith, 1 Slay and slay on ' O prince, my spouse ! " Honoured and blest the patriot dies. From death the recreant may not flee : Death shall not spare the faltering knee And coward back of him that flies. ODE 3.] HORACE'S ODES 257 Valour unbeat, unsullied still Shines with pure lustre : all too great To seize or drop the sword of state, Swayed by a people's veering will. Valour to souls too great for death Heav'n op'ning treads the untrodden way : And this dull world, this damp cold clay, On wings of scorn, abandoneth. Let too the sealed lip honoured be. The babbler, who'd the secrets tell Of holy Ceres, shall not dwell Where I dwell ; shall not launch with me A shallop. Heaven full many a time Hath with the unclean slain the just t And halting-footed Vengeance must O'ertake at last the steps of crime. ODE 3 THE just man's single-purposed mind Not furious mobs that prompt to ill May move, nor kings' frowns shake his will Which is as rock ; not warrior winds That keep the seas in wild unrest ; Nor bolt by Jove's own finger hurled : The fragments of a shivered world Would crash round him still self-possest. 25 8 HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. Jove's wandering son reached, thus endowed, The fiery bastions of the skies ; Thus Pollux ; with them Caesar lies Beside his nectar, radiant-browed. Honoured for this, by tigers drawn Rode Bacchus, reining necks before Untamed ; for this War's horses bore Quirinus up from Acheron. To the pleased gods had Juno said In conclave : " Troy is in the dust ; Troy, by a judge accursed, unjust, And that strange woman prostrated. " The day Laomedon ignored His god-pledged word, resigned to me And Pallas ever pure, was she, Her people, and their traitor lord. " Now the Greek woman's guilty guest Dazzles no more : Priam's perjured sons Find not against the mighty ones Of Greece a shield in Hector's breast : " And, long drawn out by private jars, The war sleeps. Lo ! my wrath is o'er : And him the Trojan vestal bore (Sprung of that hated line) to Mars, " To Mars restore I. His be rest In halls of light : by him be drained The nectar-bowl, his place obtained In the calm companies of the blest. ODE 3.] HORACE'S ODES 259 " While betwixt Rome and Ilion raves A length of ocean, where they will Rise empires for the exiles still : While Paris's and Priam's graves " Are trod by kine, and she-wolves breed Securely there, unharmed shall stand Rome's lustrous Capitol, her hand Curb with proud laws the trampled Mede. " Wide-feared, to far-off climes be borne Her story ; where the central main Europe and Libya parts in twain, Where full Nile laves a land of corn : " The buried secret of the mine, (Best left there) let her dare to spurn, Nor unto man's base uses turn, Profane hands laying on things divine. " Earth's utmost end, where'er it be, Let her hosts reach ; careering proud O'er lands where watery rain and cloud, Or where wild suns hold revelry. " But, to the warriors of Rome, Tied by this law, such fates are willed ; That they seek never to rebuild, Too fond, too bold, their grandsires' home. " With darkest omens, deadliest strife, Shall Troy, raised up again, repeat Her history ; I the victor-fleet Shall lead, Jove's sister and his wife. 2 6o HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. " Thrice let Apollo rear the wall Of brass ; and thrice my Greeks shall hew The fabric down : thrice matrons rue In chains their sons', their husbands' fall." Ill my light lyre such notes beseem. Stay, Muse ; nor, wayward still, rehearse Sayings of Gods in meagre verse That may but mar a mighty theme. ODE 4 , Music's Queen, from yonder sphere: Bid thy harp speak : sing high and higher- Or take Apollo's lute and lyre, And play, and cease not. Did ye hear ? Or is some sweet Delusion mine ? I seem to hear, to stray beside Groves that are holy ; whither glide Fair brooks, where breezes are benign. Me, on mount Vultur once a lad, O'ercome with sleepiness and play (I had left Apulia miles away, That nursed me) doves from Fayland clad With leaflets. Marvelled all whose nest Is Acherontia's cliff; who fell The Ban tine forest trees, or dwell On rich Ferentium's lowly breast ; ODE 4 .] HORACE'S ODES 261 How I could sleep, unharmed by bear Or dusky serpent. There I lay, In myrtle hid and holy bay, A lusty babe, the Great ones' care. Yours, Sisters, yours, the Sabine hills I climb : at cool Prseneste yours, Yours by flat Tibur, or the shores Of Baise. I have loved your rills, Your choirs : for this Philippi's slaughter, When fled our captains, harmed not me ; I died not 'neath the cursed tree, Nor sank in Palinurus' water : Be with me still : and, fears at rest, I'll launch on raving Bosphorus, stand Upon Assyria's sultry sand, With Britons mate, who slay the guest, Sit down with Spaniards, wild to sate Their thirst with horses' blood ; or roam Far o'er the quivered Scythian's home By Tanais' banks, inviolate. High Caesar ye (his war-worn braves Safe housed at last in thorp and town) Asking to lay his labours down, Make welcome in Pierian caves. Kind ones ! Ye give sweet counsel, love Its givers. We know how He slew The Titans, and their hideous crew, Hurling his thunder from above, 262 HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. Who the dull earth, the windy sea, The cities, and the realms of woe, And gods above, and men below, Rules, and none other, righteously. In truth Jove's terrors had been great ; So bold a front those warriors showed Those brethren, on his dark abode Striving to pile all Pelion's weight. But Mimas and Typhpeus were As naught, and huge Porphyrion too, And Rhoecus, and the arm that threw, Undaunted, tree-trunks through the air ; With ringing shield when Pallas met Their rush. Hot Vulcan too stood there, And Juno sage, and he, who ne'er Eased from the bow his shoulder yet ; Who bathes in pure Castalian dew His locks ; in Lycian bowers adored, And his own Svoods, Apollo, lord Of Delos and of Patara too. Brute force its own bulk foils. But force By reason led, the gods make great And greater ; while the strong they hate, Whose brain revolves each evil course. This Gyas, hundred-armed, could tell ; And that Orion, who with wild Violence assailed the Undefiled, And by Diana's arrows fell. ODE 5.] HORACE'S ODES Earth, grieved, her monster brood entombed : Mourns them, by Jove's bolts hurled to hell. Still living fires 'neath /Etna dwell, Yet /Etna still is unconsumed : O'er wanton Tityus' heart the bird, That miscreant's gaoler, still doth hover ; And still Pirithous, lawless lover, Do thrice a hundred fetters gird. JOVE we call King, whose bolts rive heaven : Then a god's presence shall be felt In Caesar, with whose power the Celt And Parthian stout in vain have striven. Could Crassus' men wed alien wives, And greet, as sons-in-law, the foe ? In the foes' land (oh Romans, oh Lost honour !) end, in shame, their lives, 'Neath the Mede's sway? They, Marsians and Apulians shields and rank and name Forgot, and that undying flame And Jove still reign, and Rome still stand ? This thing wise Regulus could presage : He brooked not base conditions ; he Set not a precedent to be The ruin of a coming age : 264 HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. " No," cried he, " let the captives die, Spare not. I saw Rome's ensigns hung In Punic shrines ; with sabres, flung Down by Rome's sons ere blood shed. I " Saw our free citizens with hands Fast pinioned ; and, through portals now Flung wide, our soldiers troop to plough, As once they trooped to waste, the lands. " ' Bought by our gold, our men will fight But keener.' What ? To shame would you Add loss ? As wool, its natural hue Once gone, may not be painted white ; " True Valour, from her seat once thrust, Is not replaced by meaner wares. Do stags, delivered from the snares, Fight ? Then shall he fight, who did trust " His life to foes who spoke a lie : And his sword shatter Carthage yet, Around whose arms the cords have met, A sluggard soul, that feared to die ! " Life, howe'er bought, he treasured : he Deemed war a thing of trade. Ah fie ! Great art thou, Carthage towerest high O'er shamed and ruined Italy ! " As one uncitizen'd men said He puts his wife's pure kiss away, His little children ; and did lay Stern in the dust his manly head : ODE 6.] HORACE'S ODES 265 Till those unequalled words had lent Strength to the faltering sires of Rome ; Then from his sorrow-stricken home Went forth to glorious banishment. Yet knew he, what wild tortures lay Before him : knowing, put aside His kin, his countrymen who tried To bar his path, and bade him stay : He might be hastening on his way, A lawyer freed from business down To green Venafrum, or a town Of Sparta, for a holiday. ODE 6 THOU'lt rue thy fathers' sins, not thine, Till built the temples be, replaced The statues, foul and smoke-defaced, Roman, and reared each tottering shrine. Thou rul'st but under heaven's hand. Thence all beginnings come, all ends. Neglected, mark what woes it sends On this our miserable land. Twice Pacorus and Monseses foiled Our luckless onset : huge their glee, When to their necklaces they see Hanging the wealth of Rome despoiled. 266 HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. Dacian and ^Ethiop nigh laid low Our state, with civil feuds o'errun ; One with his fleet dismayed her, one Smote her with arrows from his bow. A guilty age polluted first Our beds, hearths, families : from that source Derived, the foul stream, gathering force, O'er the broad land, a torrent, burst. Pleased, now, the maiden learns to move To soft Greek airs : already knows Fresh from the nursery how to pose Her graceful limbs ; and dreams of love : Next, while her lord drinks deep, invites Her gallants in : nor singles one, Into whose guilty arms to run, Stealthy and swift, when dim the lights : No ! in her lord's sight up springs she : Alike at some small tradesman's beck, As his who walks a Spanish deck And barters wealth for infamy. Were those lads of such parents bred Who dyed the seas with Punic blood ? Pyrrhus, Antiochus withstood, And Hannibal, the nation's dread ? Rude soldiers' sons, a rugged kind, They brake the soil with Sabine spade : Or shouldered stakes their axe had made To a right rigorous mother's mind, ODE 13.] HORACE'S ODES 267 What time the shadows of the rocks Change, as the sun's departing car Sends on the hours that sweetest are, And men unyoke the wearied ox. Time mars not what ? A spoiler he. Our sires were not so brave a breed As their sires : we, a worse, succeed ; To raise up sons more base than we. B ODE 13 To THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA ANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky ! Thine is the flower-crown'd bowl, for thee shall die, When dawns yon sun, the kid ; Whose horns, half-seen, half-hid, Challenge to dalliance or to strife in vain! Soon must the firstling of the wild herd be slain, And those cold springs of thine With blood incarnadine. Fierce glows the Dogstar, but his fiery beam Toucheth not thee : still grateful thy cool stream To labour-wearied ox, Or wanderer from the flocks : And henceforth thou shall be a royal fountain : My harp shall tell how from yon cavernous mountain, Where the brown oak grows tallest, All babblingly thou fallest. 268 HORACE'S ODES [BK. III. ODE 18 To A FAUN WOOER of young Nymphs who fly thee, Lightly o'er my sunlit lawn, Trip, and go, nor injured by thee Be my weanling herds, O Faun : If the kid his doomed head bows, and Brims with wine the loving cup, When the year is full ; and thousand Scents from altars hoar go up. Each flock in the rich grass gambols When the month comes which is thine ; And the happy village rambles Fieldward with the idle kine : Lambs play on, the wolf their neighbour : Wild woods deck thee with their spoil ; And with glee the sons of labour Stamp upon their foe the soil. BK. IV. 13.] HORACE'S ODES BOOK IV ODE 13 To LYCE 269 L YCE, the gods have listened to my prayer : The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art gray And still would'st thou seem fair ; Still unshamed drink, and play, And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with weak Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell, Queen of the harp ; her cheek Is his sweet citadel : He marked the withered oak, and on he flew Intolerant ; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled, Whose teeth are ghastly-blue, Whose temples snow-besprinkled : Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows, Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast, Time hath once shut in those Dark annals of the Past. Oh, where is all thy loveliness ? soft hue And motions soft ? Oh, what of Her doth rest, Her, who breathed love, who drew My heart out of my breast ? 2 ;o HORACE'S ODES [BK. IV. 13. Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face Ranked next to Cinara's. But to Cinara fate Gave but a few years' grace ; And lets live, all too late, Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow : That fiery youth may see with scornful brow The torch that long ago Beamed bright, a cinder now. EPODE 2 " T T APPY who far from turmoil, like the men JLi That lived in days gone by, With his own oxen ploughs his native glen, Nor dreams of usury ! Him the fierce clarion summons not to war ; He dreads not angry seas : The courts the stately citizens' proud door- He gets him far from these. His maiden-vines it is his gentle craft With poplars tall to wed : Or the rank outgrowth lopping off, ingraft Fair branches in its stead ; To watch his kine, that wander, lowing, far Into the valley deep : Store the prest honey in the taintless jar, Or shear his tender sheep. And soon as Autumn, with fair fruitage tricked, Peeps o'er the fallows bare ; Then with what glee his purpling grape is picked, And newly-grafted pear, EP. 2.] HORACE'S ODES 271 For you, Priapus and Silvanus strict Guard of his land to share. Now 'neath an ancient oak, entangled now In green grass, will he lie ; Where streams go by bank-hidden ; from the bough Is heard the wood-birds' cry ; And brawls the clear brook, as if seeking how To sing him lullaby. But when the wintry skies Jove's thunder rives, And down the snow-storms pour ; Towards the set pit-fall, doubling oft, he drives The hound-encompassed boar : Or with smooth rods his web of nets prepares, The fat thrush to surprise ; Or nooses stranger cranes, or frightened hares Either a glorious prize ! Who, with such pleasures round him, for the cares That fret a lover sighs ? " Does a pure wife his household cares divide, Watch his sweet little ones ; (The Sabine's thus and swift Apulian's bride Toiled 'neath Apulia's suns ;) The sacred hearth with seasoned faggots heap, When her tired lord draws nigh ; And hurdling, nothing loth, her folded sheep, Drain their great udders dry : Then the last vintage draw from the sweet cask, To grace the home-made feast ? For Lucrine purple-fish I shall not ask, Nor turbots from the East : Not char, which thundering first o'er other seas Storms carried to our shore, 272 HORACE'S ODES [Ep. 2. Not woodcocks from Ionia would please, Or hens from Guinea, more My taste ; than oil that, in the rich boughs hid, Her hands did thence obtain ; And meadow-dock, and mallow that can rid Our suffering frames from pain, With lamb that bled for Terminus ; and kid By wolves so nearly slain ! " So banqueting, how sweet to notice how The fed ewes homeward fare : How oxen, half asleep, the inverted plough On drooping shoulders bear ; And slaves sure signs of wealth ranged idle now, Swarm round the glad hearth's glare ! " So did the money-lender Appius speak, Resolved to be a swain, And got his money in. Within a week Would put it out again. THE DEAD OX FROM VIRGIL, GEORG. Ill LO ! smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-stained, And sobs his life out. Sad of face the ploughman Moves, disentangling from his comrade's corpse The lone survivor : and its work half-done, Abandoned in the furrow stands the plough. Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns, May move him now : not river amber-pure, That tumbles o'er the cragstones to the plain. SPEECH OF AJAX 273 Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye, And low and lower sinks the ponderous neck. What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled, The heavy-clodded land in man's behoof Upturning ? Yet the grape of Italy, The stored-up feast hath wrought no harm to him : Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare ; The clear rill or the travel-freshened stream Their cup : nor one care mars their honest sleep. SPEECH OF AJAX SOPHOCLES, AJAX, 645 ALL strangest things the multitudinous years Bring forth, and shadow from us all we know. Falter alike great oath and steeled resolve ; And none shall say of aught, " This may not be." Lo ! I myself, but yesterday so strong, As new-dipt steel am weak and all unsexed By yonder woman : yea I mourn for them, Widow and orphan, left amid their foes. But I will journey seaward where the shore Lies meadow-fringed so haply wash away My sin, and flee that wrath that weighs me down. And, lighting somewhere on an untrodden way, I will bury this my lance, this hateful thing, Deep in some earth-hole where no eye shall see Night and Hell keep it in the underworld ! For never to this day, since first I grasped The gift that Hector gave, my bitterest foe, Have I reaped aught of honour from the Greeks. T 274 SPEECH OF AJAX So true that byword in the mouths of men, " A foeman's gifts are no gifts, but a curse." Wherefore henceforward shall I know that God Is great ; and strive to honour Atreus' sons. Princes they are, and should be obeyed. How else ? Do not all terrible and most puissant things Yet bow to loftier majesties ? The Winter, Who walks forth scattering snows, gives place anon To fruitage-laden Summer ; and the orb Of weary Night doth in her turn stand by, And let shine out, with his white steeds, the Day. Stern tempest-blasts at last sing lullaby To groaning seas : even the archtyrant, Sleep, Doth loose his slaves, not hold them chained for ever. And shall not mankind too learn discipline ? / know, of late experience taught, that him Who is my foe I must but hate as one Whom I may yet call Friend : and him who loves me Will I but serve and cherish as a man Whose love is not abiding. Few be they Who, reaching Friendship's port, have there found rest. But, for these things, they shall be well. Go thou, Lady, within, and there pray that the Gods May fill unto the full my heart's desire. And ye, my mates, do unto me with her Like honour : bid young Teucer, if he come, To care for me, but to be your friend still. For where my way leads, thither I shall go : Do ye my bidding ; haply ye may hear, Though now is my dark hour, that I have peace LUCRETIUS 275 FROM LUCRETIUS. BOOK II SWEET, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm-winds, Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling : Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment ; But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from. Sweet 'tis too to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war-hosts Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger : Yet still happier this : To possess, impregnably guarded, Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom ; Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way Wander amidst Life's paths, poor stragglers seeking a highway: Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon; Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlight, Up as they toil on the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire. O race born unto trouble ! O minds all lacking of eyesight ! 'Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers, Move ye thro' this thing, Life, this fragment ! Fools, that ye hear not Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only ; that, all pain Parted and past from the Body, the Mind too bask in a blissful Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over ! Now, as regards Man's Body, a few things only are needful, (Few, tho' we sum up all,) to remove all misery from him ; Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures, That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness ampler. 2 ;6 LUCRETIUS Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him, (Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning, Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnished always) ; Silver may not shine softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion, Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-corniced echo : Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety green- sward, Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over, Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure. Chiefliest then, when above them a fair sky smiles, and the young year Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild-flowers : Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers, Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment. Therefore, since to the Body avail not Riches, avails not Heraldry's utmost boast, nor the pomp and the pride of an empire ; Next shall you own, that the Mind needs likewise nothing of these things. Unless when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign Spread with a stir and a ferment, and bid War's image awaken, Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon Ocean Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superstition abandon LUCRETIUS 277 Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming, Trouble vacate your bosom, and Peace hold holiday in you. But, if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction ; If of a truth men's fears, and the cares which hourly beset them, Heed not the jav'lin's fury, regard not clashing of broad- swords ; But ail-boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold, Not from the pomp of the monarch, who walks forth purple- apparelled : These things show that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of Reason ; Think too that all Man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward. For, as a young boy trembles, and in that mystery, Darkness, Sees all terrible things : so do we too, ev'n in the daylight, Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming Than boys' fears, when they waken, and say some danger is o'er them. So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us, Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the Day- star : Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them. Now, how moving about do the prime material atoms Shape forth this thing and that thing ; and, once shaped, how they resolve them ; What power says unto each, This must be ; how an inherent Elasticity drives them about Space vagrantly onward ; I shall unfold : thou simply give all thyself to my teaching. 2 ;8 LUCRETIUS Matter mingled and massed into indissoluble union Does not exist. For we see how wastes each separate sub- stance ; So flow piecemeal away, with the length'ning centuries, all things, Till from our eye by degrees that old self passes, and is not. Still Universal Nature abides unchanged as aforetime. Whereof this is the cause. When the atoms part from a sub- stance, That suffers loss ; but another is elsewhere gaining an increase : So that, as one thing wanes, still a second bursts into blossom, Soon, in its turn, to be left. Thus draws this Universe always Gain out of loss ; thus live we mortals one on another. Bourgeons one generation, and one fades. Let but a few years Pass, and a race has arisen which was not : as in a racecourse, One hands on to another the burning torch of Existence. FROM CATULLUS SONNET TO THE ISLAND OF SIRMIO GEM of all isthmuses and isles that lie, Fresh or salt 'water's children, in clear lake Or ampler ocean : with what joy do I Approach thee, Sirmio ! Oh ! am I awake, Or dream that once again mine eye beholds Thee, and has looked its last on Thracian wolds ? Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems, When the mind drops her burden : when the pain Of travel past our own cot we regain, And nestle on the pillow of our dreams ! FROM ILIAD VIII 279 Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam. Hail, O fair Sirmio ! Joy, thy lord is here ! Joy too, ye waters of the Golden Mere ! And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home ! FROM ILIAD VIII LL - 555-565 AS in the heights of heaven the moon gleams clear, and around her Shine in their beauty the stars, nor is one cloud moving in ether ; Shines forth every cliff, and the jutting peaks of the headlands, Forest and glen : then, as opens the rifting firmament heaven- wards, Star is revealed upon star : and gay is the heart of the herds- man : Not in less number than they, from the Xanthus' stream to the sea sands, Glimmered the red watchfires that encompassed Ilion alway ; Glimmered amid Troy's host as a thousand stars ; and at each one There sat threescore and ten, their face lighted up by the fire- brand. Meanwhile, each at his car, till crowned in her glory the morning Roused them, their good steeds stood, white oats and barley before them. 2 8o FROM HEINE FROM HEINE 1 "So far from agreeable were his [Heine's] recollections of Hamburg, that when, in 1830, Mrs. Moscheles asked him to write in her album, he treated her to a satire on her native town, which we here give in the original, and an English version of the same." Life of Moscheles, vol. i., p. 195. I CRAVE an ampler, worthier sphere : I'd liefer bleed at every vein Than stifle 'mid these hucksters here, These lying slaves of paltry gain. They eat, they drink ; they're every whit As happy as their type, the mole ; Large are their bounties as the slit Through which they drop the poor man's dole. With pipe in mouth they go their way, With hands in pockets ; they are blest With grand digestions : only they Are such hard morsels to digest ! The hand that 's red with some dark deed, Some giant crime, were white as wool Compared with these sleek saints, whose creed Is paying all their debts in full. Ye clouds that sail to far-off lands, O waft me to what clime ye will ; 1 This and the two following translations were written for A. D> Coleridge's " Life of Moscheles " (itself an adaptation from the German). FROM J. F. CASTELLI 281 To Lapland's snows, to Libya's sands, To the world's end but onward still ! Take me, O clouds ! They ne'er look down ; But (proof of a discerning mind) One moment hang o'er Hamburg town, The next they leave it leagues behind. FROM J. F. CASTELLI 1 AT BEETHOVEN'S GRAVE FROM the high rock I marked a fountain breaking; It poured its riches forth o'er glade and plain ; Where'er they streamed I saw new life awaking, The grandam world was in her prime again ; To the charmed spot the tribes of earth came thronging. And stoopt to that pure wave with eager longing. Yet of these hosts few only, keener-sighted Than were their fellows, all its glamour knew : The simple multitude surveyed, delighted, Its diamond glitter and its changing hue ; But save unto those few that saw more clearly That wondrous fountain was a fountain merely. At last its source dried up, its torrent dwindled ; And all mankind discerned its virtue then ; In minstrel's breast and bard's a fire was kindled, And brush and chisel vied with harp and pen : 1 In " Life of Moscheles," vol. i., p. 167. 282 FROM J. F. CASTELLI But wild desire, and minstrelsy, and wailing, To call it back to life were unavailing. Thou who sleep'st here, thy toil, thy bondage ended ! Lo ! in that fountain's tale is told thine own. Marvelled at oft, more oft misapprehended, By the few only thou wast truly known. All shall exalt thee, now that low thou liest : That thou may'st live, O deathless one, thou diest. FROM J. F. CASTELLI 1 AT BEETHOVEN'S FUNERAL EV'RY tear that is shed by the mourner is holy ; When the dust of the mighty to earth is consigned, When those he held dearest move sadly and slowly To the grave of the friend in whose heart they were shrined. But our grief-stricken train is a wild sea that surges, That spreads to yon starry pavilion o'erhead And girdles the globe : for all nature sings dirges, Where'er rings an echo, to-day o'er the dead. But weep not for him : for yourselves sorrow only : Though proud was his place in the hierarchy here, This Earth might not hold him ; his spirit was lonely, And yearned for a home in a loftier sphere. So Heaven to the minstrel its portal uncloses ; The Muse thither calls him, to sit by her side 1 In " Life of Moscheles," vol. i., p. 166. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 283 And hear, from the throne where in bliss she reposes, His own hallow'd harmonies float far and wide. Yet here, in our memories homed, he abideth ; Round his name lives a glory that ne'er may grow dim ; Time fain would o'ertake him, but time he derideth ; The grisly Destroyer is distanced by him. [Bei Ludwig van Beethoven's Leichenbegangniss (am 29 Marz, 1827).] TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS (FROM "THE HYMNARY" 1 ) EASTER Concinet orbis cunctus, Alleluia. A Sequence. SARUM MISSAL A LLELUIA let the nations \. Sing to-day from West to East ; As they solemnize with praises And with prayers the Paschal feast. And ye little ones be joyful, Whom the Holy Font hath made White as snow : the lake that burneth Shall not make your ranks afraid. We, with you, to measured music Fain would tune the slackened string ; i 1 The Hymnary ; a Book of Church Song ; " published by Novello, Ewer and Co. To each hymn the number in "The Hymnary" is appended. 284 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS And in subtly-cadenced anthems Bid our voices rise and ring. Since for us, a mute meek Victim, Christ endured the cross and shame : He, the Living Life, a captive Unto death for us became : For our sakes He deigned to carry To His lip the cup of gall : Nail and spear, and pain and wounding, In our cause He braved them all : So through suffering He descended, Laden with our sins, to hell ; Whence He comes with many a trophy, Telling that He triumphed well : Death o'erthrown, He brake the weapons Of His ancient foe in twain ; And the third day lo ! He riseth, In His flesh, to life again. Sing we then to Him glad anthems, Who spread wide the heavenly door, And to man gave life eternal : His be praise for evermore. [271.] TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 285 EASTER Victims paschali laudes iminohnt Christiani. A Sequence of the I2th Century OUR salvation to obtain Christ our Passover is slain : Unto Christ we Christians raise This our sacrifice of praise. By the Lamb the sheep were bought , By the Pure the guilty sought : With their God were made at one Sinners by the sinless Son. In a dark mysterious strife Closed the powers of Death and Life, And the Lord of Life was slain : Yet He liveth and doth reign. " Say what saw'st thou, Mary, say, As thou wentest on thy way." " Christ's, the Living's, tomb ; the throes Earth was torn with as He rose : And the angels twain who bare Witness that He was not there ; And the grave-clothes of the Dead, And the cloth that bound His head : Christ our Hope is risen, and He Goes before to Galilee." 286 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS Trust we Mary : she is true ; Heed we not the faithless Jew. Conqueror, King, to Thee we raise This our sacrifice of praise : We believe Thee risen indeed ; Hear us, help us in our need. [275.] EASTER Panditur saxo tumulus remoto. JEAN BAPTISTE SANTEUIL. Paris Breviary THE stone is rolled away ; The grave is bid display Her secrets ; through her charnel-chambers rings A voice ; and lo, the dead Lifts his awakened head, Lo, the deaf hearkens to the King of kings. O wondrous sight ! Again Life throbs in every vein : Bound hand and foot and blindfold, on his way The dead goes forth alive ; Doomed haply to survive The multitude who mourn for him to-day. Thus Death himself, our foe, At last shall be laid low ; His chains rent piecemeal, and his slaves set free. That, which Thy Sovereign Power Hath wrought, O Christ, this hour Is but an emblem of the things to be. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 287 Now to the Father, Son, And Spirit, ever One, Be power ascribed by all things that have breath. In Thee, O Christ, we trust : When we return to dust, Save us, we pray Thee, from the second Death. [622.] THE TRANSFIGURATION Quam nos potenter allids. JEAN BAPTISTE SANTEUIL. Paris Breviary O CHRIST, how potent is Thy grace ! Ne'er doth Thy loving-kindness fail, Whether we see Thee through a veil, Or face to face. Now his adopted sons are we Who called Thee Son : our Surety thus Gives His unfailing pledge to us Of bliss to be. O Father, Son, what then was shown, Upon the Mount, the cloud dispelled ? The types are gone ; the three beheld Truth stand alone. O feebly tracked by Faith's dim ray, Lord, may we one day share Thy bliss ; See Thee ; enjoy Thee ; bursting this Our prison of clay. 288 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS To Him Who said, the bright cloud riven, " This is My Son " ; and, Son, to Thee ; To Thee, Blest Spirit One in Three, All praise be given. [368.] THE TRANSFIGURATION Calestis formam gloria. I4th Century HE shadow of the glory which one day Christ's church on earth stands waiting to put on This morn did Christ upon the Mount display : There as the sun He shone. T That tale shall ages yet unborn record, How those three chosen gazed with awe-struck eye, While Moses and Elias with the Lord Awhile held converse high. The three great witnesses are gathered there Of Grace, Law, Prophecy : and, hark, aloud To God the Son doth God the Father bear His witness from the cloud. His Face aglow, His garments glistering white, So Christ foreshows what guerdon He prepares For faith ; so tells them who in God delight What glory shall be theirs. That mystery supreme, which they beheld Who saw the vision, lifts to heaven our gaze ; And year by year, O Lord, our hearts are swelled With wonder and with praise. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 289 O Father, from Thy sole-begotten Son And gracious Spirit separable ne'er ; Dwell Thou within us, that, the battle won, Thy glory we may share. [367.] ASCENSION Felix dies mortalibus. JEAN BAPTISTS SANTEUIL. Paris Breviary FOR aye shall mortals bless the day When with His Blood Christ won the way, Incarnate God, to Heaven, and passed Through its bright gates unbarred at last. We are the members, He the Head : We follow where our Prince hath led And, one with Him on earth in love, Shall share His throne in heaven above. Gone hence, His own yet deem Him near, For by His Spirit He is here : As on the head depend the parts, So rules one influence all our hearts. But O that Day, that dreadful Day ! Whither shall sinners flee away When, armed with vengeance, He shall come Down from His throne to strike them dumb? The just One, by the guilty called Unjust, shall see them stand appalled, Who once condemned Him, and resume His Judgeship to pronounce their doom, u TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS Man to redeem, whose due was death, Christ freely yielded up His breath : And, ah, what woe must they sustain For whom His Blood was shed in vain ! Thou Who one day our Judge shall be, Jesu, all glory be to Thee : All glory to the Father, Son, And Holy Spirit, Three in One. [317.] ASCENSION Rector omnipotent die hodierno. HARTMANN, a Monk of St. Gall LORD of all power and might, Mankind redeemed, Who dost this day soar Back to those realms of light Where Thou satt'st throned before : Ere skyward Thou didst rise Thou badst Apostles to the world proclaim God's pardon, and baptize All in the Triune Name. Nor didst Thou let depart, Lord, from the holy city Thine eleven, Till poured into their heart Was that last gift of heaven. " Lo ! but a few days hence Ye shall no more be comfortless : I go To heaven, to send you thence One Who shall soothe your woe : TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 291 " And in Samaria ye, And in Judaea and in Jerusalem, My witnesses shall be." So spake the Lord to them. He spake : and as they gazed A cloud received Him, marvellously bright ; With wistful eyes upraised They watched Him fade from sight : Behold, two men stood near Arrayed in white apparel ; and they said " Why stand ye gazing here Into the heaven o'erhead ? " This Jesus, to His Throne Who this day riseth upon God's right hand, Shall come again, His own With usury to demand." O God of earth, sea, sky ; Man, whom Thou madest, whom the Foe erewhile From Eden forced to fly, By craftiness and guile, * And dragged him to the night Of death and darkness : and whom Thou, O Lord, With Thine own Blood to light And freedom hast restored : Man yet again may win The bliss he fell from : Thou hast paid the price ; . Thou bidd'st him enter in Once more to Paradise. 292 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS Thou shalt return : and men Hear from Thy lips their doom or their release. Grant, we beseech Thee, then To us eternal peace. [305.] WHITSUNTIDE Santti Spiritns adsit nobis gratia. KING ROBERT OF FRANCE, OR ST. NOTKER COME, O Holy Ghost, within us ; and, removing by Thy grace Every taint and tinge of evil, make our hearts Thy dwelling place. Be with us, O quickening Spirit ; Thou canst pierce the deepest night : Cleanse our base imaginations, change our darkness into light. O Thou Holy One Who lovest wisdom always, be Thou kind, By Thy mystical anointing heal the blindness of our mind. Thou That purifiest all things, as none else beside Thee can, Purify the clouded eyesight, Spirit, of our inner man ; That by us our Heavenly Father may at last be seen and known : For the pure in heart shall see Him, and the pure in heart alone. Fired by Thee the holy Prophets sang, of old, Messiah's birth ; By Thee fortified, Apostles bore Christ's banner o'er the earth. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 293 When God spake, and as a fabric rose up earth and sea and sky, Thou wast brooding on the waters, Blessed Spirit, fosteringly. Still at thy command the waters bring forth life, to quicken hearts ; Still Thy sacred inspiration unto man new life imparts. Lord, Thou makest tongues of Babel one in worship and in speech : Truth to them who bowed to idols, mighty Master, Thou dost teach. Therefore when we kneel before Thee hear us, gracious Spirit, hear; Prayers are all in vain without Thee, shall not reach the Father's ear. Spirit, Who through all the ages hast instructed in Thy lore Souls of Saints that felt Thy presence like a shadow hovering o'er, Dwelling now in Christ's Apostles, in a new and wondrous way, And the gift of gifts bestowing, Thou hast glorified this day. [3 22 -] WHITSUNTIDE Vent supertu Spiritus. CHARLES COFFIN. Paris Breviary COME, O Spirit, from on high ; Earth awaits Thee, parched and dry : Dwell, O Lord, these souls within, Which Christ's Blood hath cleansed from sin. 294 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS O redeem the pledge He gave Ere the lustrous cloud He clave : Dwell with us, no more to part, And with fire baptize each heart. For a Father lost we mourn ; Look upon us, left forlorn ; Heal our sorrows : only Thou Canst give hope ; O give it now. Things that Christ in days of old Did from simple babes withhold, Things that they might hardly learn, Let our riper minds discern. Let the truths, which once a few. Priests and Prophets dimly knew, Now be published by Thy grace Freely among every race. Let Thy holy influence draw All men to Thee ; let the Law, Once on dumb stones graven, be In our hearts writ legibly. To the Father, glory be, And the Son eternally, And the Spirit, ever One With the Father and the Son. [320.] TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 295 WHITSUNTIDE Lux jucunda, lux insignis. ADAM OF ST. VICTOR DAY all jubilant, all splendid, When from heaven the fire descended On the chosen of the Lord ! Heart is full, and tongue rejoices : Yea, our hearts invite our voices To sing praise with one accord. He who ne'er His promise breaketh, Thus His chosen Bride retaketh, On the Pentecostal day. From the Rock, with honey teeming Once, a gracious oil is streaming ; Never shall that Rock decay. Writ on stone, not preached by flamed Tongues, the Law was once proclaimed From the mount in all men's view : Hearts in Christ created newly, Tongues in love united truly, Here are granted to a few. O the joy, the exultation Of that day when the foundation Of Christ's Holy Church was laid ! When she gave to God thanksgiving For three thousand souls, her living Firstfruits, as they kneeled and prayed ! 296 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS This the two wave-loaves portended Of the Law : two peoples, blended Into one One God adore. They were twain : until united By the Stone the builders slighted, Never to be sundered more. Not in vessels that are olden Is the new wine meetly holden : Like Elisha, to the brim All the widow's vessels filling, Christ with sacred dew is willing To fill all who trust in Him. Not to hearts by discord riven, Shall these sacred gifts be given Precious dew, nor oil, nor wine : Ne'er the Paraclete abideth Within hearts which sin divideth, Shutting out the light divine. Comforter, possess and cheer us ! Venom then shall not draw near us ; Hate shall flee before Thy face. There is no delight, no sweetness, Health, nor comfort, nor completeness, Where Thou dost withhold Thy grace. Oil of gladness, Lamp uplifted, Heavenly Bread, by Whom are gifted With strange power the springs and brooks ; New-create and pure, we render Thus our thanks, on whom with tender Love, not hate, the Saviour looks. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 297 Gift, and Giver of all blessing, Evermore be we addressing Praise, with lip and heart, to Thee. Cleanse our sins ; in Christ renew us ; And, when perfected, give to us Our eternal jubilee. [324.] WHITSUNTIDE Aadimur: almo Spiritus, CHARLES COFFIN. Paris Breviary LO, the father hears our prayer : Unto failing hearts to bear All Christ promised ere He rose, Forth to-day the Spirit goes. As the Lord of Life draws nigh, Signs and wonders multiply : First through all the house there past Sounds, as of a rushing blast ; Flakes of fire fell fast, and hung, Each one like a burning tongue, In the pure thin air, and shed Lustre upon every head. Then the flames that lit each brow, Passing thence we know not how To their inmost spirit pour Light and strength unknown before. Marvelling much the nations heard Preached in every tongue the word ; 298 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS All that seers had e'er discerned, Told again in words that burned. On the hearers then was poured Forth the Spirit of the Lord : Thick as sheaves at harvest-tide They arose and prophesied. Praise the Father, praise the Son : Equal honour, too, be done Unto Him, Who can inspire Human hearts with flaming fire. [321.] THE VIGIL OF WHITSUNTIDE Christe qui nosier poll. Paris Breviary O CHRIST, Who dost, our herald, rise Into the mansions of the skies : Call, lift us, whom Thou here dost see Prostrate and downcast, up to Thee. Make us to haste with purest love Unto the joys that are above, Undreamed of by the earthly mind : Faith can alone that treasure find. There, the reward of labours past, God gives His own Himself at last : Their all in all is He, to bless Their souls with perfect happiness. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 299 Lord, from high heaven this holy tide Send down Thy Spirit, Who shall guide Us, by His all-prevailing grace, To Thy most glorious dwelling-place. Jesu, for ever glorified Thou sittest by the Father's side ; All glory be to Father, Son, And Spirit, while the ages run. [318.] WHITSUNTIDE Supreme Rector ccelitum. Paris Breviary Q OVEREIGN of Heaven, Who didst prevail O O'er death, and with Thy life-blood dye The path by which we hope to scale Yon starry sky : Look down in mercy from Thy throne At God's right hand, O Lord, and see Us who are lingering here alone, Orphaned of Thee. Hear us, O Christ, for we were born Out of the travail of Thy soul ; When by the spear Thy side was torn To make us whole. Thy toils and anguish at an end, Thou wearest now a glorious crown : The hour is come ; send, Saviour, send Thy Spirit down. 300 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS O Jesu, glory be to Thee, To God's right hand Who didst ascend Glory to God, the One and Three World without end. [319.] TRINITY Benedicta sit beata Trinitas. A Sequence. SARUM MISSAL ALL blessing to the Blessed Three ! Hail, co-eternal Deity, In glory equal, Father, Son, And Spirit ; ever Three in One. Ruling o'er all things, One in Will, Three Persons, yet One Substance still : The Uncreated Unity, In Godhead One, in Persons Three. This faith can souls from sin release, And bring them to that land of peace, Where by the bright celestial throng Is poured for aye triumphant song. White-robed in Jesus' steps they tread, Who sits enthroned above their head ; Their day of suffering past and gone, Lo, they have put new raiment on. Let us, in whom God's grace doth glow, Pay now to God the debt we owe : So, when to this world we have died, Our place may still in heaven abide. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 301 So, peradventure, when the last Fight hath been fought and overpast, We shall behold fair mansions rise, To be our dwelling, in the skies ; Where evermore a wondrous Light Shines, inextinguishably bright : It is the Vision of the blest, The Lord Himself made manifest. Its beams on angels' breasts it throws, As on the Source from which it flows They gaze, the Form of Him Who trod Erewhile this earth, Incarnate God. On Him they gaze with burning thirst : So shall the righteous burn, when first They see the infinite reward Assigned them by their Judge, the Lord. [336.] S. JOHN BAPTIST Precursor altus luminis, VENERABLE BEDE H AIL, harbinger of Morn : Thou that art this day born, And heraldest the Word with clarion voice ! Ye faithful ones, in him Behold the dawning dim Of the bright Day, and let your hearts rejoice. John ; by that chosen name To call him, Gabriel came By God's appointment from his home on high 3 02 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS What deeds that babe should do To manhood when he grew, God sent His angel forth to testify. Yet in his mother's womb, To Him Who should illume With light the nations John his witness bore : And when he came to birth, John first proclaimed to earth That witness, and is glorious evermore. There hath none greater, none, Than Zachariah's son Ris'n among those that are of woman born ; A prophet, he may claim More than a prophet's fame ; Sublimer deeds than theirs his front adorn. Enough : can human speech Unto his glory reach, Meetly may mortals herald forth his praise, For whom, in time of old, God bade His seer unfold The mighty work ordained in after-days ? " Lo, to prepare Thy way," Did God the Father say, " Before Thy face My messenger I send, Thy coming to forerun ; As on the orient sun Doth the bright daystar morn by morn attend." Praise therefore God most High ; Praise Him Who came to die For us, His Son That liveth evermore ; TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 303 And to the Spirit raise, The Comforter, like praise, While time endureth and when time is o'er. [361.] MARTYRS Supema maliis gaudia. ADAM OF ST. VICTOR CHRIST'S Church in heaven to-day V_^ Rejoiceth : and rejoice, Christ's Church on earth. We have our times of mourning and of mirth ; Their tears are wiped away. Succour Thy children, Lord, Thy Church that in this joyless valley dwells : Peopling the air, let angel sentinels Keep o'er her watch and ward. The world, the flesh, hell's powers Wage differing war around us ; aye upstart New phantom-hosts ; the sabbath of the heart, O Lord, it is not ours. On earth we know no calm : Fear succeeds Hope, Grief banishes Delight ; In heaven they sing, and pause not day or night. Their never-ending psalm. O happy City ! Life Is there but one long day of jubilee ! O happy citizens, for ever free From turmoil and from strife 1 304 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS They wax not old, nor faint : They fear no treachery, flee before no foe ; Gladness alone doth in each bosom glow ; One joy fills every saint. The blest one whom we sing This day, now into Paradise received, Beholds His Face in Whom he has believed ; He sees, unveiled, His King. May we too find a place Among the habitations of the just This hour of anguish over ; as our trust, O Lord, is in Thy grace. [403.] FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES Supreme, quales, Arbiter. JEAN BAPTISTE SANTEUIL. Paris Breviary OLORD, through instruments how weak Thou workest out Thy sovereign will ! Frail earthen vessels Thou dost seek, And with Thy choicest treasure fill. And in due time the pitchers, charged With light, Thou dost in pieces dash ; And thence the light breaks forth, enlarged, As from the cloud the prisoned flash. O'er earth Thy messengers are heard ; They haste like clouds before the gale ; Fraught with the Word, the sacred Word, They pour forth thunder, lightning, hail TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 305 Christ is their war-cry : at its sound Are hell's proud citadels laid low : So, while the trumpets clanged around, Fell once the walls of Jericho. Lord, let these trumpet blasts divine From treacherous sleep awake mankind ; And let these lights, erst lit at Thine, Disperse the darkness of our mind. To Thee, on Thy Apostle's day, We pay all worship, God of might : For thou hast called us that lay In darkness to Thy Glorious light. [389.] BETHANY Intrante Christo Bethanicam domum. Paris Breviary T O Bethany Christ comes, the leper's guest. Speed we then thither : Simon spreads for all The banquet : with the rest We flock to Simon's hall. While Lazarus feasts, and Martha decks the board, A box of odorous oil doth Mary take, Right costly ; to be poured Forth for her Master's sake. She bathes His feet, and wipes them with her hair ; She breaks the box, and all the oil is spilled Over His head : the air Seems with new fragrance rilled. x 3 o6 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS O why do scornful hands at Mary point ? Proud was her task ; this treasure did she save, Beforehand to anoint Christ's Body for the grave. And, as His Faith is preached in every tongue, And far-off lands to His allegiance won, Still shall o'er earth be sung This deed which she hath done. Now to the Father and the Son uplift High praise for ever ; Praise, and never cease, The Spirit ; through whose gift Christ's Bride hath perfect peace. [625.] DE DIE JUDICII 1 (Translated almost literally into the same metre as the original, with a rhyme added to make it an English metre, from an alphabetical hymn by Thomasius t published in Archbishop TrencKs " Sacred Latin Poetry") CONCERNING THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. AS a thief, who falls at midnight on his unsuspecting prey, When we think not shall o'ertake us the Almighty's Judg- ment Day. B rief shall seem to men the pleasures that they prized in times of yore, When they know that as a moment Time hath past, and is no more. C langing over Earth's four quarters shall the sudden trumpet-call Summon unto Christ's tribunal, dead or living, one and all : 1 This Translation is the last thing Calverley wrote for the press. It was finished a few weeks before his death. ED. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 307 D own from highest heaven descended, shining angels hovering near, Shall the Judge in all the brightness of His majesty appear. E arth from pole to pole shall tremble, paling stars shall shrink from sight; And the sun himself be darkened, and the round moon lose her light. F ire shall execute, unbidden, his all-righteous Lord's decree, Sky and lands in flame devouring, and the great unfathomed sea. G lorious shall the King be seated then upon His throne on high, The attendant choirs of angels standing awed and trembling by: H is elect upon His right hand shall He bid their station take ; While as goats of evil savour on His left the wicked quake. " I nto heavenly mansions enter," to the first shall say the Son, "Which My Father's love prepared you ere the ages had begun ; K indly ye did once as brethren succour in His need your Lord ; Of your kindness of aforetime take ye now the rich reward." " L ord," they shall exclaim, all joyous, " when beheld we thee in need? When to us didst thou for succour, thou the King most mighty, plead?" M ark the Judge Almighty's answer : " When ye heard the poor man's plea ; Fed, clad, housed him ; lo, ye did it in your lowliness to Me." N ext to those upon His left hand the All-Just their doom shall tell: "Hence ye cursed from My presence to the fiery flames of hell ! O nee I craved your ear a beggar, and ye mocked at My hard lot; 3o8 TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS I was sick, and ye forsook Me ; naked, and ye clothed Me not." P iteously shall ask the wicked : " Lord, when dealt we with Thee thus ? Sick or poor, when wast Thou mocked at, O most mighty King, by us ? " Q uickly shall reply the High One : " When ye scorned the beggar's cry, Lo, the man whom ye thought scorn of in your wantonness was I." R eeling back, shall then the wicked sink into the fiery glare, Where abides the worm that dies not, and the flames are quenched ne'er. S atan with his servants lieth chained those darksome depths beneath, Where for ever must the damned weep, and wail, and gnash the teeth. T hen on wings shall mount the faithful, led by many an angel- band, To the realm of joy and gladness, to their heavenly Father- land : U pon them in perfect brilliance Light and Peace shall shine ; from them Veiled no more shall be that City, that supreme Jerusalem : 1 X l the King, in all the brightness of His Father's splendour decked, Face to face shall then be gazed on by the hosts of His elect. 1 There is an apparent hiatus in the alphabet of Thomasius here, U and V, like I and J, being treated as one letter. The claim, however, of V to be a distinct letter is so far recognized that it begins the next line in the couplet in the original as in the translation. There is no W in Latin, and no available X : so the author had to content himself with X tus , and the translator has followed him. TRANSLATIONS OF HYMNS 309 Y e beware then of the Serpent and his wiles : uphold the weak, Heed not gold, and flee vain pleasures, if the stars ye fain would seek : Z one with Chastity's pure girdle day by day your loins, and turn, When the Master comes, to meet Him, bearing with you lamps that burn. THEOCRITUS [TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE] PREFACE I HAD intended translating all or nearly all these Idylls into blank verse, as the natural equivalent of Greek or of Latin hexameters ; only deviating into rhyme where occasion seemed to demand it. But I found that other metres had their special advantages : the fourteen-syllable line in particular has that, among others, of containing about the same number of syllables as an ordinary line of Theocritus. And there is also no doubt something gained by variety. Several recent writers on the subject have laid down that every transla- tion of Greek poetry, especially bucolic poetry, must be in rhyme of some sort. But they have seldom stated, and it is hard to see, why. There is no rhyme in the original, and prim& facie should be none in the translation. Professor Blackie has, it is true, pointed out the "assonances, alliterations, and rhymes," which are found in more or less abundance in Ionic Greek. 1 These may of course be purely accidental, like the hexameters in Livy or the blank-verse lines in Mr. Dickens's prose : but accidental or not (it may be said) they are there, and ought to be recognized. May we not then recognize them by introducing similar assonances, etc. , here and there into the English version ? or by availing ourselves of what Professor Blackie again calls attention to, the " compensating powers " 2 of English ? I think with him that it was hard to speak of our language as one which " trans- forms boos megaloio boeien into 'great ox's hide.'" Such phrases as 'The Lord is a man of war,' 'The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,' are to my ear quite as grand as Homer : and it would be equally fair to ask what we are to make of a language which transforms Milton's line into ij T) rov ir\iffptvov o^Xov. 3 But be this as it may, these phenomena are surely too rare and too arbitrary to be adequately repre- BLACKIE'S Homer, vol. i., pp. 413, 414. Ibid., page 377, etc. 3 Professor Kingsley. THEOCRITUS 311 >ented by any regularly recurring rhyme : and the question remains, what is there in the unrhymed original to which rhyme answers ? To me its effect is to divide the verse into couplets, triplets, or (if the word may include them all) stanzas of some kind. Without rhyme we have no apparent means of conveying the effect of stanzas. There are of course devices such as repeating a line or part of a line at stated intervals, as is done in ' Tears, idle tears ' and elsewhere : but clearly none of these would be available to a translator. Where therefore he has to express stanzas, it is easy to see that rhyme may be admissible and even necessary. Pope's couplet may (or may not) stand for elegiacs, and the " In Memoriam" stanza for some one of Horace's metres. Where the heroes of Virgil's Eclogues sing alternately four lines each, Gray's quatrain seems to suggest itself: and where a similar case occurs in these Idylls (as for instance in the ninth) I thought it might be met by taking whatever received English stanza was nearest the required length. Pope's couplet again may possibly best convey the pomposity of some Idylls and the point of others. And there may be divers considerations of this kind. But, speaking generally, where the translator has not to intimate stanzas where he has on the contrary to intimate that there are none rhyme seems at first sight an intrusion and a snggestio foist. No doubt (as has been observed) what ' Pastorals ' we have are mostly written in what is called the heroic measure. But the reason is, I suppose, not far to seek. Dryden and Pope wrote 'heroics,' not from any sense of their fitness for bucolic poetry, but from a sense of their universal fitness : and their followers copied them. But probably no scholar would affirm that any poem, original or translated, by Pope or Dryden or any of their school, really resembles in any degree the bucolic poetry of the Greeks. Mr. Morris, whose poems appear to me to resemble it more almost than anything I have ever seen, of course writes what is technically Pope's metre, and equally of course is not of Pope's school. Whether or no Pope and Dryden intended to resemble the old bucolic poets in style is, to say the least, immaterial. If they did not, there is no reason whatever why any of us who do should adopt their metre : if they did and failed, there is every reason why we should select a different one. Professor Conington has adduced one cogent argument against blank verse: that is, that hardly any of us can write it. 1 But if this is so if the 'blank verse ' which we write is virtually prose in disguise the addition of rhyme would only make it rhymed prose, and we should be as far as ever from "verse really deserving the name." 2 Unless (which I can 1 Preface to CONINGTON'S sEneid, p. ix. 2 Ibid. 3 i2 THEOCRITUS hardly imagine) the mere incident of ' terminal consonance ' can constitute that verse which would not be verse independently, this argument is equally good against attempting verse of any kind : we should still be writing dis- guised, and had better write undisguised, prose. Prose translations are of course tenable, and are (I am told) advocated by another very eminent critic. These considerations against them occur to one : that, among the characteristics of his original which the translator is bound to preserve, one is that he wrote metrically ; and that the prattle which passes muster, and sounds perhaps rather pretty than otherwise, in metre, would in plain prose be insufferable. Very likely some exceptional sort of prose may be meant, which would dispose of all such difficulties : but this would be harder for an ordinary writer to evolve out of his own brain, than to construct any species of verse for which he has at least a model and a precedent. These remarks are made to show that my metres were not selected, as it might appear, at Imp-hazard. Metre is not so unimportant as to justify that. For the rest, I have used Briggs's edition l (" Poetse Bucolici Greed "), and have never, that I am aware of, taken refuge in any various reading where I could make any sense at all of the text as given by him. Some- times I have been content to put down what I felt was a wrong rendering rather than omit ; but only in cases where the original was plainly corrupt, and all suggested emendations seemed to me hopelessly wide of the mark. What, for instance, may be the true meaning of /3o\/3oe rig Ko\\ias in the fourteenth Idyll I have no idea. It is not very important. And no doubt the sense of the last two lines of the " Death of Adonis" is very unlikely to be what I have made it. But no suggestion that I met with seemed to me satisfactory or even plausible : and in this and a few similar cases I have put down what suited the context. Occasionally also, as in the Idyll here printed last the one lately discovered by Bergk, which I elucidated by the light of Fritzsche's conjectures I have availed myself of an opinion which Professor Conington somewhere expresses, to the effect that, where two inter- pretations are tenable, it is lawful to accept for the purposes of translation the one you might reject as a commentator. rtropnuoc has I dare say nothing whatever to do with ' quartan fever.' On one point, rather a minor one, I have ventured to dissent from Professor Blackie and others : namely, in retaining the Greek, instead ot adopting the Roman, nomenclature. Professor Blackie says ~ that there are 1 Since writing the above lines I have had the advantage of seeing Mr. Paley's "Theocritus," which was not out when I made my version. * BLACKIE'S Homer, Preface. DO. xii, xiii. ID. I.] THE DEATH OF DAPHNIS 313 some men by whom "it is esteemed a grave offence to call Jupiter Jupiter," which begs the question: and that Jove "is much more musical" than Zeus, which begs another. Granting (what might be questioned) that Zeus, Aphrodite, and Eros are as absolutely the same individuals with Jupiter, Venus, and Cupid as Odysseus undoubtedly is with Ulysses still I cannot see why, in making a version of (say) Theocritus, one should not use by way of preference those names by which he invariably called them, and which are characteristic of him : why, in turning a Greek author into English, we should begin by turning all the proper names into Latin. Professor Blackie's authoritative statement * that " there are whole idylls in Theocritus which would sound ridiculous in any other language than that of Tam o' Shanter " I accept of course unhesitatingly, and should like to see it acted upon by himself or any competent person. But a translator is bound to interpret all as best he may : and an attempt to write Tam o' Shanter's language by one who was not Tam o' Shanter's countryman would, I fear, result in something more ridiculous still. c. s. c. IDYLL I THE DEATH OF DAPHNIS Thyrsis. A Goatherd. Thyrsis. O WEET are the whispers of yon pine that makes O Low music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweet Thy piping ; second thou to Pan alone. Is his the horned ram ? then thine the goat. Is his the goat ? to thee shall fall the kid ; And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids. Goatherd. Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streams Falling and falling aye from yon tall crag. 1 BLACKIE'S Homer, vol. i., page 384. 3 i4 THEOCRITUS [ID. I. If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe, Be thine the stall-fed lamb ; or if they choose The lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe. Thyrsis. Pray, by the Nymphs, pray, Goatherd, seat thee here Against this hill-slope in the tamarisk shade, And pipe me somewhat, while I guard thy goats. Goatherd. I durst not, Shepherd, O I durst not pipe At noontide ; fearing Pan, who at that hour Rests from the toils of hunting. Harsh is he ; Wrath at his nostrils aye sits sentinel. But, Thyrsis, thou canst sing of Daphnis' woes ; High is thy name for woodland minstrelsy : Then rest we in the shadow of the elm Fronting Priapus and the Fountain-nymphs. There, where the oaks are and the Shepherd's seat, Sing as thou sang'st ere while, when matched with him Of Libya, Chromis ; and I'll give thee, first, To milk, ay thrice, a goat she suckles twins, Yet ne'ertheless can fill two milkpails full ; Next, a deep drinking-cup, with sweet wax scoured, Two-handled, newly-carven, smacking yet O' the chisel. Ivy reaches up and climbs About its lip, gilt here and there with sprays Of woodbine, that enwreathed about it flaunts Her saffron fruitage. Framed therein appears A damsel ('tis a miracle of art) In robe and snood : and suitors at her side With locks fair-flowing, on her right and left, Battle with words, that fail to reach her heart. She, laughing, glances now on this, flings now Her chance regards on that : they, all for love Wearied and eye-swoln, find their labour lost. ID. I.] THE DEATH OF DAPHNIS 315 Carven elsewhere an ancient fisher stands On the rough rocks : thereto the old man with pains Drags his great casting-net, as one that toils Full stoutly : every fibre of his frame Seems fishing ; so about the gray-beard's neck (In might a youngster yet) the sinews swell. Hard by that wave-beat sire a vineyard bends Beneath its graceful load of burnished grapes ; A boy sits on the rude fence watching them. Near him two foxes : down the rows of grapes One ranging steals the ripest; one assails With wiles the poor lad's scrip, to leave him soon Stranded and supperless. He plaits meanwhile With ears of corn a right fine cricket-trap, And fits it on a rush : for vines, for scrip, Little he cares, enamoured of his toy. The cup is hung all round with lissom briar, Triumph of ^Eolian art, a wondrous sight. It was a ferryman's of Calydon : A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese. Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin still It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou, If for my sake thou'lt sing that lay of lays. I jest not : up, lad, sing : no songs thou'lt own In the dim land where all things are forgot. Thyrsis [sings], -Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. The voice of Thyrsis. ^Etna's Thyrsis I. Where were ye, Nymphs, oh where, while Daphnis pined ? In fair Peneus' or in Pindus' glens ? For great Anapus' stream was not your haunt, Nor ^Etna's cliff, nor Acis' sacred rill. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. O'er him the wolves, the jackals howled o'er him ; 316 THEOCRITUS [In. I. The lion in the oak-copse mourned his death. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. The kine and oxen stood around his feet, The heifers and the calves wailed all for him. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. First from the mountain Hermes came, and said, " Daphnis, who frets thee ? Lad, whom lov'st thou so ? " Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. Came herdsmen, shepherds came, and goatherds came ; All asked what ailed the lad. Priapus came And said, " Why pine, poor Daphnis ? while the maid Foots it round every pool and every grove, (Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song) " O lack-love and perverse, in quest of thee ; Herdsman in name, but goatherd rightlier called. With eyes that yearn the goatherd marks his kids Run riot, for he fain would frisk as they : (Begin, sweet Maids, begin t/ie woodland song] " With eyes that yearn dost thou too mark the laugh Of maidens, for thou may'st not share their glee." Still naught the herdsman said : he drained alone His bitter portion, till the fatal end. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. Came Aphrodite, smiles on her sweet face, False smiles, for heavy was her heart, and spake : " So, Daphnis, thou must try a fall with Love ! But stalwart Love hath won the fall of thee." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. Then " Ruthless Aphrodite," Daphnis said, " Accursed Aphrodite, foe to man ! Say'st thou mine hour is come, my sun hath set ? Dead as alive, shall Daphnis work Love woe." Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. ID. I.] THE DEATH OF DAPHNIS 317 " Fly to Mount Ida, where the swain (men say) And Aphrodite to Anchises fly : There are oak-forests ; here but galingale, And bees that make a music round the hives. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. " Adonis owed his bloom to tending flocks And smiting hares, and bringing wild beasts down. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. " Face once more Diomed : tell him ' I have slain The herdsman Daphnis ; now I challenge thee.' Begin, sweet Maids, begin the zvoodland song. " Farewell, wolf, jackal, mountain-prisoned bear ! Ye'll see no more by grove or glade or glen Your herdsman Daphnis ! Arethuse, farewell, And the bright streams that pour down Thymbris' side. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. " I am that Daphnis, who lead here my kine, Bring here to drink my oxen and my calves. Begin, sweet Maids, begin the woodland song. " .Pan, Pan, oh whether great Lyceum's crags Thou haunt'st to-day, or mightier Maenalus, Come to the Sicel isle ! Abandon now Rhium and Helice, and the mountain-cairn (That e'en gods cherish) of Lycaon's son ! Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song. " Come, king of song, o'er this my pipe, compact With wax and honey-breathing, arch thy lip : For surely I am torn from life by Love. Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song. " From thicket now and thorn let violets spring, Now let white lilies drape the juniper, And pines grow figs, and nature all go wrong : For Daphnis dies. Let deer pursue the hounds, 318 THEOCRITUS [!D. I. And mountain-owls outsing the nightingale. Forget^ sweet Maids, forget your woodland song" So spake he, and he never spake again. Fain Aphrodite would have raised his head ; But all his thread was spun. So down the stream Went Daphnis : closed the waters o'er a head Dear to the Nine, of nymphs not unbeloved. Now give me goat and cup ; that I may milk The one, and pour the other to the Muse. Fare ye well, Muses, o'er and o'er farewell ! I'll sing strains lovelier yet in days to be. Goatherd. Thrysis, let honey and the honeycomb Fill thy sweet mouth, and figs of ^Egilus : For ne'er cicala trilled so sweet a song. Here is the cup : mark, friend, how sweet it smells : The Hours, thou'lt say, have washed it in their well. Hither, Cissastha ! Thou, go milk her ! Kids, Be steady, or your pranks will rouse the ram. IDYLL II THE SORCERESS WHERE are the bay-leaves, Thestylis, and the charms ? Fetch all ; with fiery wool the caldron crown ; Let glamour win me back my false lord's heart ! Twelve days the wretch hath not come nigh to me, Nor made inquiry if I die or live, Nor clamoured (oh unkindness !) at my door. Sure his swift fancy wanders otherwhere, ID. II.] THE SORCERESS 319 The slave of Aphrodite and of Love. I'm off to Timagetus' wrestling-school At dawn, that I may see him and denounce His doings ; but I'll charm him now with charms. So shine out fair, O moon ! To thee I sing My soft low song : to thee and Hecate The dweller in the shades, at whose approach E'en the dogs quake, as on she moves through blood And darkness and the barrows of the slain. All hail, dread Hecate : companion me Unto the end, and work me witcheries Potent as Circe or Medea wrought, Or Perimede of the golden hair ! Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him Hove. First we ignite the grain. Nay, pile it on : Where are thy wits flown, timorous Thestylis? Shall I be flouted, I, by such as thou ? Pile, and still say, 'This pile is of his bones.' Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Delphis racks me : I burn him in these bays. As, flame-enkindled, they lift up their voice, Blaze once, and not a trace is left behind : So waste his flesh to powder in yon fire ! Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. E'en as I melt, not uninspired, the wax, May Mindian Delphis melt this hour with love : And, swiftly as this brazen wheel whirls round, May Aphrodite whirl him to my door. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Next burn the husks. Hell's adamantine floor And aught that else stands firm can Artemis move. Thestylis, the hounds bay up and down the town : The goddess stands i' the crossroads : sound the gongs. 320 THEOCRITUS [ID. II. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. Hushed are the voices of the winds and seas ; But O not hushed the voice of my despair. He burns my being up, who left me here No wife, no maiden, in my misery. Turn, magic wheel, draiv homeward him I love. Thrice I pour out ; speak thrice, sweet mistress, thus : " What face soe'er hangs o'er him be forgot Clean as, in Dia, Theseus (legends say) Forgat his Ariadne's locks of love." Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. The coltsfoot grows in Arcady, the weed That drives the mountain-colts and swift mares wild. Like them may Delphis rave : so, maniac-wise, Race from his burnished brethren home to me. Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. He lost this tassel from his robe ; which I Shred thus, and cast it on the raging flames. Ah baleful Love ! why, like the marsh-born leech, Cling to my flesh, and drain my dark veins dry ? Turn, magic wheel, draw liomeward him I love. From a crushed eft to-morrow he shall drink Death ! But now, Thestylis, take these herbs and smear That threshold o'er, whereto at heart I cling Still, still albeit he thinks scorn of me And spit, and say, ' 'Tis Delphis' bones I smear.' Turn, magic wheel, draw homeward him I love. [Exit Thestylis. Now, all alone, I'll weep a love whence sprung When born ? Who wrought my sorrow ? Anaxo came, Her basket in her hand, to Artemis' grove. Bound for the festival, troops of forest beasts Stood round, and in the midst a lioness. ID. II.] THE SORCERESS 32I Bethink t/iee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. Theucharidas' slave, my Thracian nurse now dead Then my near neighbour, prayed me and implored To see the pageant : I, the poor doomed thing, Went with her, trailing a fine silken train, And gathering round me Clearista's robe. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. Now, the mid-highway reached by Lycon's farm, Delphis and Eudamippus passed me by. With beards as lustrous as the woodbine's gold And breasts more sheeny than thyself, O Moon, Fresh from the wrestler's glorious toil they came. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. I saw, I raved, smit (weakling) to my heart. My beauty withered, and I cared no more For all that pomp ; and how I gained my home I know not : some strange fever wasted me. Ten nights and days I lay upon my bed. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. And wan became my flesh, as 't had been dyed, And all my hair streamed off, and there was left But bones and skin. Whose threshold crossed I not, Or missed what grandam's hut who dealt in charms ? For no light thing was this, and time sped on. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. At last I spake the truth to that my maid : " Seek, an thou canst, some cure for my sore pain. Alas, I am all the Mindian's ! But begone, And watch by Timagetus' wrestling-school : There doth he haunt, there soothly take his rest. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. " Find him alone : nod softly : say, ' she waits ' ; And bring him." So I spake : she went her way, Y 322 THEOCRITUS [!D. II. And brought the lustrous-limbed one to my roof. And I, the instant I beheld him step Lightfooted o'er the threshold of my door, (Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my lave?) Became all cold like snow, and from my brow Brake the damp dewdrops : utterance I had none, Not e'en such utterance as a babe may make That babbles to its mother in its dreams ; But all my fair frame stiffened into wax. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love, He bent his pitiless eyes on me ; looked down, And sate him on my couch, and sitting, said : " Thou hast gained on me, Simsetha, (e'en as I Gained once on young Philinus in the race,) Bidding me hither ere I came unasked. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. " For I had come, by Eros I had come, This night, with comrades twain or may-be more, The fruitage of the Wine-god in my robe, And, wound about my brow with ribands red, The silver leaves so dear to Heracles. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. " Had ye said ' Enter,' well : for 'mid my peers High is my name for goodliness and speed : I had kissed that sweet mouth once and gone my way. But had the door been barred, and I thrust out, With brand and axe would we have stormed ye then. Bethink thee, mistress Moon, whence came my love. " Now be my thanks recorded, first to Love, Next to thee, maiden, who didst pluck me out, A half-burned helpless creature, from the flames, And badst me hither. It is Love that lights A fire more fierce than his of Lipara ; ID. II.] THE SORCERESS 323 (Bethink t/iee, mistress Moon, whence came my love.) " Scares, mischief-mad, the maiden from her bower, The bride from her warm couch." He spake : and I, A willing listener, sat, my hand in his, Among the cushions, and his cheek touched mine, Each hotter than its wont, and we discoursed In soft low language. Need I prate to thee, Sweet Moon, of all we said and all we did ? Till yesterday he found no fault with me, Nor I with him. But lo, to-day there came Philista's mother hers who flutes to me With her Melampo's ; just when up the sky Gallop the mares that chariot rose-limbed Dawn : And divers tales she brought me, with the rest How Delphis loved, she knew not rightly whom : But this she knew ; that of the rich wine aye He poured ' to Love ; ' and at the last had fled, To line, she deemed, the fair one's hall with flowers. Such was my visitor's tale, and it was true : For thrice, nay four times, daily he -would stroll Hither, leave here full oft his Dorian flask : Now 'tis a fortnight since I saw his face. Doth he then treasure something sweet elsewhere ? Am I forgot ? I'll charm him now with charms. But let him try me more, and by the Fates He'll soon be knocking at the gates of hell. Spells of such power are in this chest of mine, Learned, lady, from mine host in Palestine. Lady, farewell : turn ocean-ward thy steeds : As I have purposed, so shall I fulfil. Farewell, thou bright-faced Moon ! Ye stars, farewell, That wait upon the car of noiseless Night. 324 THEOCRITUS [ID. III. IDYLL III THE SERENADE I PIPE to Amaryllis ; while my goats, Tityrus their guardian, browse along the fell. Tityrus, as I love thee, feed my goats : And lead them to the spring, and, Tityrus, 'ware The lifted crest of yon gray Libyan ram. Ah winsome Amaryllis ! Why no more Greet'st thou thy darling, from the caverned rock Peeping all coyly ? Think'st thou scorn of him ? Hath a near view revealed him satyr-shaped Of chin and nostril ? I shall hang me soon. See here ten apples : from thy favourite tree 1 plucked them : I shall bring ten more anon. Ah witness my heart-anguish ! Oh were I A booming bee, to waft me to thy lair, Threading the fern and ivy in whose depths Thou nestlest ! I have learned what Love is now : Fell god, he drank the lioness's milk, In the wild woods his mother cradled him, Whose fire slow-burns me, smiting to the bone. O thou whose glance is beauty and whose heart All marble : O dark-eyebrowed maiden mine ! Cling to thy goatherd, let him kiss thy lips, For there is sweetness in an empty kiss. Thou wilt not ? Piecemeal I will rend the crown, The ivy-crown which, dear, I guard for thee, Inwov'n with scented parsley and with flowers : Oh I am desperate what betides me, what ? ID. III.] THE SERENADE 325 Still art thou deaf? I'll doff my coat of skins And leap into yon waves, where on the watch For mackerel Olpis sits : tho' I 'scape death, That I have all but died will pleasure thee. That learned I when (I murmuring ' loves she me ? ') The Love-in-absence, crushed, returned no sound, But shrank and shrivelled on my smooth young wrist. I learned it of the sieve-divining crone Who gleaned behind the reapers yesterday : ' Thou'rt wrapt up all,' Agraia said, ' in her ; She makes of none account her worshipper.' Lo ! a white goat, and twins, I keep for thee : Mermnon's lass covets them : dark she is of skin : But yet hers be they ; thou but foolest me. She cometh, by the quivering of mine eye. I'll lean against the pine-tree here and sing. She may look round : she is not adamant. \Sings\ Hippomenes, when he a maid would wed, Took apples in his hand and on he sped. Famed Atalanta's heart was won by this ; She marked, and maddening sank in Love's abyss. From Othrys did the seer Melampus stray To Pylos with his herd : and lo there lay In a swain's arms a maid of beauty rare ; Alphesibcea, wise of heart, she bare. Did not Adonis rouse to such excess Of frenzy her whose name is Loveliness, (He a mere lad whose wethers grazed the hill) That, dead, he 's pillowed on her bosom still ? Endymion sleeps the sleep that changeth not ; 3 26 THEOCRITUS [ID. III. And, maiden mine, I envy him his lot ! Envy lasion's : his it was to gain Bliss that I dare not breathe in ears profane. My head aches. What reck'st thou ? I sing no more : E'en where I fell I'll lie, until the wolves Rend me may that be honey in thy mouth ! IDYLL IV THE HERDSMEN Battus. Cory don Battus. WHO owns these cattle, Corydon ? Philondas ? Prythee say. Corydon No, ^gon : and he gave them me to tend while he 's away. Battus. Dost milk them in the gloaming, when none is nigh to see? Corydon. The old man brings the calves to suck, and keeps an eye on me. Battus. And to what region then hath flown the cattle's rightful lord ? Corydon. Hast thou not heard? With Milo he vanished Elisward. Battus. How ! was the wrestler's oil e'er yet so much as seen by him? Corydon. Men say he rivals Heracles in lustiness of limb. Battus. I'm Polydeuces' match (or so my mother says) and more. ID. IV.] THE HERDSMEN 327 Corydon. So off he started ; with a spade, and of these ewes a score. Battus. This Milo will be teaching wolves how they should raven next. Corydon. And by these bellowings his kine proclaim how sore they're vexed. Battus. Poor kine ! they've found their master a sorry knave indeed. Corydon. They're poor enough, I grant you : they have not heart to feed. Battus. Look at that heifer ! sure there 's naught, save bare bones, left of her. Pray, does she browse on dewdrops, as doth the grasshopper ? Corydon. Not she, by heaven ! She pastures now by ^Esarus' glades, And handfuls fair I pluck her there of young and green grass- blades ; Now bounds about Latymnus, that gathering-place of shades. Battus. That bull again, the red one, my word but he is lean ! I wish the Sybarite burghers aye may offer to the queen Of heaven as pitiful a beast : those burghers are so mean ! Corydon. Yet to the Salt Lake's edges I drive him, I can swear ; Up Physcus, up Neaethus' side he lacks not victual there, With dittany and endive and foxglove for his fare. Battus. Well, well ! I pity ^Egon. His cattle, go they must To rack and ruin, all because vain-glory was his lust. The pipe that erst he fashioned is doubtless scored with rust ? Corydon. Nay, by the Nymphs ! That pipe he left to me, the selfsame day He made for Pisa : I am too a minstrel in my way : Well the flute-part in ' Pyrrhus ' and in ' Glauca ' can I play. 328 THEOCRITUS [la IV. I sing too 'Here's to Croton ' and ' Zacynthus O 'tis fair,' And ' Eastward to Lacinium : ' the bruiser Milo there His single self ate eighty loaves ; there also did he pull Down from its mountain-dwelling, by one hoof grasped, a bull, And gave it Amaryllis : the maidens screamed with fright ; As for the owner of the bull he only laughed outright. Battus. Sweet Amaryllis ! thou alone, though dead, art un- forgot. Dearer than thou, whose light is quenched, my very goats are not. Oh for the all-unkindly fate that 's fallen to my lot ! Corydon. Cheer up, brave lad ! to-morrow may ease thee of thy pain : Aye for the living are there hopes, past hoping are the slain : And now Zeus sends us sunshine, and now he sends us rain. Battus. I'm better. Beat those young ones off ! E'en now their teeth attack That olive's shoots, the graceless brutes ! Back, with your white face, back ! Corydon. Back to thy hill, Cymaetha ! Great Pan, how deaf thou art ! I shall be with thee presently, and in the end thou'lt smart. I warn thee, keep thy distance. Look, up she creeps again ! Oh were my hare-crook in my hand, I'd give it to her then ! Battus. For heaven's sake, Corydon, look here ! Just now a bramble-spike Ran, there, into my instep and oh how deep they strike, Those lancewood-shafts ! A murrain light on that calf, I say ! I got it gaping after her. Canst thou discern it, pray ? Corydon. Ay, ay ; and here I have it, safe in my finger-nails. Battus. Eh ! at how slight a matter how tall a warrior quails ! Corydon. Ne'er range the hill-crest, Battus, all sandal-less and bare : ID.V.] THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS 329 Because the thistle and the thorn lift aye their plumed heads there. Battus. Say, Corydon, does that old man we wot of (tell me, please !) Still haunt the dark-browed little girl whom once he used to tease ? Corydon. Ay my poor boy, that doth he : I saw them yesterday Down by the byre ; and, trust me, loving enough were they. Battus. Well done, my veteran light-o'-love ! In deeming thee mere man, I wronged thy sire : some Satyr he, or an uncouth-limbed Pan. IDYLL V THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS Comatas. Lacon. Morson. Comatas. GOATS, from a shepherd who stands here, from Lacon, keep away : Sibyrtas owns him ; and he stole my goatskin yesterday. Lacon. Hi ! lambs ! avoid yon fountain. Have ye not eyes to see Comatas, him who filched a pipe but two days back from me ? Comatas. Sibyrtas' bondsman own a pipe ? whence gotst thou that, and how ? Tootling through straws with Corydon mayhap 's beneath thee now? Lacon. 'Twas Lycon's gift, your highness. But pray, Comatas, say, What is that skin wherewith thou saidst that Lacon walked away ? 33*o THEOCRITUS [ID. V. Why, thy lord's self had ne'er a skin whereon his limbs to lay. Comatas. The skin that Crocylus gave me, a dark one streaked with white, The day he slew his she-goat. Why, thou wert ill with spite, Then, my false friend ; and thou would'st end by beggaring me quite. Lacon. Did Lacon, did Calsethis' son purloin a goatskin ? No, By Pan that haunts the sea-beach ! Lad, if I served thee so, Crazed may I drop from yon hill-top to Crathis' stream below ! Comatas. Nor pipe of thine, good fellow the Ladies of the Lake So be still kind and good to me did e'er Comatas take. Lacon. Be Daphnis' woes my portion, should that my cred- ence win ! Still, if thou list to stake a kid that surely were no sin Come on, I'll sing it out with thee until thou givest in. Comatas. ' The hog he braved Athene.' As for the kid, 'tis there : You stake a lamb against him that fat one if you dare. Lacon. Fox ! were that fair for either ? At shearing who'd prefer Horsehair to wool ? or when the goat stood handy, suffer her To nurse her firstling, and himself go milk a blatant cur ? Comatas. The same who deemed his hornet's-buzz the true cicala's note, And braved like you his better. And so forsooth you vote My kid a trifle ? Then come on, fellow ! I stake the goat, Lacon. Why be so hot ? Art thou on fire ? First prythee take thy seat 'Neath this wild woodland olive: thy tones will sound more sweet. Here falls a cold rill drop by drop, and green grass-blades uprear ID.V.] THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS 331 Their heads, and fallen leaves are thick, and locusts prattle here. Comatas. Hot I am not ; but hurt I am, and sorely, when I think That thou canst look me in the face and never bleach nor blink Me, thine own boyhood's tutor ! Go, train the she-wolf's brood : Train dogs that they may rend thee ! This, this is gratitude ! Lacon. When learned I from thy practice or thy preaching aught that 's right, Thou puppet, thou misshapen lump of ugliness and spite? Comatas. When ? When I beat thee, wailing sore : yon goats looked on with glee, And bleated ; and were dealt with e'en as I had dealt with thee. Lacon. Well, hunchback, shallow be thy grave as was thy judgment then ! But hither, hither ! Thou'lt not dip in herdsman's lore again. Comatas. Nay, here are oaks and galingale : the hum of housing bees Makes the place pleasant, and the birds are piping in the trees. And here are two cold streamlets ; here deeper shadows fall Than yon place owns, and look what cones drop from the pine- tree tall. Lacon. Come hither, and tread on lambswool that is soft as any dream : Still more unsavoury than thyself to me thy goatskins seem. Here will I plant a bowl of milk, our ladies' grace to win ; And one, as huge, beside it, sweet olive-oil therein. Comatas. Come hither, and trample dainty fern and poppy- blossom : sleep On goatskins that are softer than thy fleeces piled three deep. Here will I plant eight milkpails, great Pan's regard to gain, 332 THEOCRITUS [!D. V. Round them eight cups : full honeycombs shall every cup contain. Laeon. Well ! there essay thy woodcraft : thence fight me, never budge From thine own oak ; e'en have thy way. But who shall be our judge ? Oh, if Lycopas with his kine should chance this way to trudge ! Comatas, Nay, I want no Lycopas. But hail yon woods- man, do : 'Tis Morson see ! his arms are full of bracken there, by you. Lacon. We'll hail him. Comatas. Ay, you hail him. Lacon. Friend, 'twill not take thee long : We're striving which is master, we twain, in woodland song : And thou, my good friend Morson, ne'er look with favouring eyes On me ; nor yet to yonder lad be fain to judge the prize. Comatas. Nay, by the Nymphs, sweet Morson, ne'er for Comatas' sake Stretch thou a point ; nor e'er let him undue advantage take. Sibyrtas owns yon wethers ; a Thurian is he : And here, my friend, Eumares' goats, of Sybaris, you may see. Lacon. And who asked thee, thou naughty knave, to whom belonged these flocks, Sibyrtas, or (it might be) me ? Eh, thou'rt a chatterbox ! Comatas. The simple truth, most worshipful, is all that I allege : I'm not for boasting. But thy wit hath all too keen an edge. Lacon. Come sing, if singing 's in thee and may our friend get back To town alive ! Heaven help us, lad, how thy tongue doth clack ! ID. V.] THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS 333 Comatas. [Sings] Daphnis the t mighty minstrel was less precious to the Nine Than I. I offered yesterday two kids upon their shrine. Lacon. [Sings] Ay, but Apollo fancies me hugely : for him I rear A lordly ram : and, look you, the Carnival is near. Comatas. Twin kids hath every goat I milk, save two. My maid, my own, Eyes me and asks 'At milking time, rogue, art thou all alone?' Lacon. Go to ! nigh twenty baskets doth Lacon fill with cheese : Hath time to woo a sweetheart too upon the blossomed leas. Comatas. Clarissa pelts her goatherd with apples, should he stray By with his goats ; and pouts her lip in a quaint charming way. Lacon. Me too a darling smooth of face notes as I tend my flocks : How maddeningly o'er that fair neck ripple those shining locks ! Comatas. Tho' dogrose and anemone are fair in their degree The rose that blooms by garden-walls still is the rose for me. Lacon. Tho' acorns' cups are fair, their taste is bitterness, and still I'll choose, for honeysweet are they, the apples of the hill Comatas. A cushat I will presently procure and give to her Who loves me : I know where it sits ; up in the juniper. Lacon. Pooh ! a soft fleece, to make a coat, I'll give the day I shear My brindled ewe (no hand but mine shall touch it) to my dear. Comatas. Back, lambs, from that wild-olive : and be content to browse Here on the shoulder of the hill, beneath the myrtle boughs. 334 THEOCRITUS [!D. V. Lacon. Run, (will ye ?) Ball and Dogstar, down from that oak tree, run : And feed where Spot is feeding, and catch the morning sun Comatas. I have a bowl of cypress-wood : I have besides a cup: Praxiteles designed them : for her they're treasured up. Lacon, I have a dog who throttles wolves : he loves the sheep, and they Love him : I'll give him to my dear, to keep wild beasts at bay. Comatas. Ye locusts that o'erleap my fence oh let my vines escape Your clutches, I beseech you : the bloom is on the grape. Lacon. Ye crickets, mark how nettled our friend the goat- herd is ! I ween, ye cost the reapers pangs as acute as his. Comatas. Those foxes with their bushy tails, I hate to see them crawl Round Micon's homestead and purloin his grapes at evenfall Lacon. I hate to see the beetles that come warping on the wind, And climb Philondas' trees, and leave never a fig behind. Comatas. Have you forgot that cudgelling I gave you ? At each stroke You grinned and twisted with a grace, and clung to yonder oak. Lacon. That I've forgot but I have not, how once Eumares tied You to that selfsame oak-trunk, and tanned your unclean hide. Comatas. There 's some one ill of heartburn. You note it, I presume, Morson ? Go quick, and fetch a squill from some old beldam's tomb. Lacon. I think I'm stinging somebody, as Morson too per- ceives ID. V.] THE BATTLE OF THE BARDS 335 Go to the river and dig up a clump of sowbread-leaves. Comatas. May Himera flow, not water, but milk : and may'st thou blush, Crathis, with wine ; and fruitage grow upon every rush. Lacon. For me may Sybaris' fountain flow, pure honey : so that you, My fair, may dip your pitcher each morn in honey-dew. Comatas. My goats are fed on clover and goat's-delight : they tread On lentisk leaves; or lie them down, ripe strawberries o'er their head. Lacon. My sheep crop honeysuckle bloom, while all around them blows In clusters rich the jasmine, as brave as any rose. Comatas. I scorn my maid ; for when she took my cushat, she did not Draw with both hands my face to hers and kiss me on the spot. Lacon. I love my love, and hugely: for, when I gave my flute," I was rewarded with a kiss, a loving one to boot. Comatas. Lacon, the nightingale should scarce be challenged by the jay, Nor swan by hoopoe : but, poor boy, thou aye wert for a fray. Morson. I bid the shepherd hold his peace. Comatas, unto you I, Morson, do adjudge the lamb. You'll first make offering due Unto the nymphs : then savoury meat you'll send to Morson too. Comatas. By Pan I will ! Snort, all my herd of he-goats : I shall now O'er Lacon, shepherd as he is, crow ye shall soon see how. I've won, and I could leap sky-high ! Ye also dance and skip, 336 THEOCRITUS [ID. V. My horned ewes : in Sybaris' fount to-morrow all shall dip. Ho ! you, sir, with the glossy coat and dangerous crest ; you dare Look at a ewe, till I have slain my lamb, and ill you'll fare. What ! is he at his tricks again ? He is, and he will get (Or my name 's not Comatas), a proper pounding yet. IDYLL VI THE DRAWN BATTLE Daphnis. Damtxtas. DAPHNIS the herdsman and Damoetas once Had driven, Aratus, to the selfsame glen. One chin was yellowing, one showed half a beard. And by a brookside on a summer noon The pair sat down and sang ; but Daphnis led The song, for Daphnis was the challenger. Daphnis. " See ! Galatea pelts thy flock with fruit, And calls their master ' Lack-love,' Polypheme. Thou mark'st her not, blind, blind, but pipest aye Thy wood-notes. See again, she smites thy dog : Sea-ward the fleeced flocks' sentinel peers and barks, And, through the clear wave visible to her still, Careers along the gently babbling beach. Look that he leap not on the maid new-risen From her sea-bath and rend her dainty limbs. She fools thee, near or far, like thistle-waifs In hot sweet summer : flies from thee when wooed, Unwooed pursues thee : risks all moves to win ; For, Polypheme, things foul seem fair to Love," ID. VI.] THE DRAWN BATTLE 337 And then, due prelude made, Damcetas sang. Damxtas. " I marked her pelt my dog, I was not blind, By Pan, by this my one my precious eye That bounds my vision now and evermore ! But Telemus the Seer, be his the woe, His and his children's, that he promised me ! Yet do I too tease her ; I pass her by, Pretend to woo another : and she hears (Heaven help me !) and is faint with jealousy; And hurrying from the sea-wave as if stung, Scans with keen glance my grotto and my flock. 'Twas I hissed on the dog to bark at her ; For, when I loved her, he would whine and lay His muzzle in her lap. These things she'll note Mayhap, and message send on message soon : But I will bar my door until she swear To make me on this isle fair bridal-bed. And I am less unlovely than men say. I looked into the mere (the mere was calm), And goodly seemed my beard, and goodly seemed My solitary eye, and, half-revealed, My teeth gleamed whiter than the Parian marl. Thrice for good luck I spat upon my robe : That learned I of the hag Cottytaris her Who fluted lately with Hippocoon's mowers." Damcetas then kissed Daphnis lovingly : One gave a pipe and one a goodly flute. Straight to the shepherd's flute and herdsman's pipe The younglings bounded in the soft green grass : And neither was o'ermatched, but matchless both. 33 8 THEOCRITUS [ID. VII. IDYLL VII HARVEST-HOME ONCE on a time did Eucritus and I (With us Amyntas) to the riverside Steal from the city. For Lycopeus' sons Were that day busy with the harvest-home, Antigenes and Phrasidemus, sprung (If aught thou boldest by the good old names) By Clytia from great Chalcon him who erst Planted one stalwart knee against the rock, And lo, beneath his foot Burine's rill Brake forth, and at its side poplar and elm Showed aisles of pleasant shadow, greenly roofed By tufted leaves. Scarce midway were we now, Nor yet descried the tomb of Brasilas : When, thanks be to the Muses, there drew near A wayfarer from Crete, young Lycidas. The horned herd was his care : a glance might tell So much : for every inch a herdsman he. Slung o'er his shoulder was a ruddy hide Torn from a he-goat, shaggy, tangle-haired, That reeked of rennet yet : a broad belt clasped A patched cloak round his breast, and for a staff A gnarled wild-olive bough his right hand bore. Soon with a quiet smile he spoke his eye Twinkled, and laughter sat upon his lip : " And whither ploddest thou thy weary way Beneath the noontide sun, Simichidas ? For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall, ID. VII.] HARVEST-HOME 339 The crested lark folds now his wandering wing. Dost speed, a bidden guest, to some reveller's board ? Or townward to the treading of the grape ? For lo ! recoiling from thy hurrying feet The pavement-stones ring out right merrily." Then I : " Friend Lycid, all men say that none Of haymakers or herdsmen is thy match At piping : and my soul is glad thereat. Yet, to speak sooth, I think to rival thee. Now look, this road holds holiday to-day : For banded brethren solemnise a feast To richly-dight Demeter, thanking her For her good gifts : since with no grudging hand Hath the boon goddess filled the wheaten floors. So come : the way, the day, is thine as mine : Try we our woodcraft each may learn from each. I am, as thou, a clarion-voice of song ; All hail me chief of minstrels. But I am not, Heaven knows, o'ercredulous : no, I scarce can yet (I think) outvie Philetas, nor the bard Of Samos, champion of Sicilian song. They are as cicadas challenged by a frog." I spake to gain mine ends ; and laughing light He said : " Accept this club, as thou'rt indeed A born truth-teller, shaped by heaven's own hand I I hate your builders who would rear a house High as Oromedon's mountain-pinnacle : I hate your song-birds too, whose cuckoo-cry Struggles (in vain) to match the Chian bard. But come, we'll sing forthwith, Simichidas, Our woodland music : and for my part I List, comrade, if you like the simple air 340 THEOCRITUS [ID. VII. I forged among the uplands yesterday. [Sings] Safe be my true-love convoyed o'er the main To Mitylene though the southern blast Chase the lithe waves, while westward slant the Kids, Or low above the verge Orion stand If from Love's furnace she will rescue me, For Lycidas is parched with hot desire. Let halcyons lay the sea-waves and the winds, Northwind and Westwind, that in shores far-off Flutters the seaweed halcyons, of all birds Whose prey is on the waters, held most dear By the green Nereids : yea let all things smile On her to Mitylene voyaging, And in fair harbour may she ride at last. I on that day, a chaplet woven of dill Or rose or simple violet on my brow, Will draw the wine of Pteleas from the cask Stretched by the ingle. They shall roast me beans, And elbow-deep in thyme and asphodel And quaintly-curling parsley shall be piled My bed of rushes, where in royal ease I sit and, thinking of my darling, drain With stedfast lip the liquor to the dregs. I'll have a pair of pipers, shepherds both, This from Acharnae, from Lycope that ; And Tityrus shall be near me and shall sing How the swain Daphnis loved the stranger-maid ; And how he ranged the fells, and how the oaks (Such oaks as Himera's banks are green withal) Sang dirges o'er him waning fast away Like snow on Athos, or on Haemus high, Or Rhodope, or utmost Caucasus. ID. VII.] HARVEST-HOME 341 And he shall sing me how the big chest held (All through the maniac malice of his lord) A living goatherd : how the round-faced bees, Lured from their meadow by the cedar-smell, Fed him with daintiest flowers, because the Muse Had made his throat a well-spring of sweet song. Happy Comatas, this sweet lot was thine ! Thee the chest prisoned, for thee the honey-bees Toiled, as thou slavedst out the mellowing year : And oh hadst thou been numbered with the quick In my day ! I had led thy pretty goats About the hill-side, listening to thy voice : While thou hadst lain thee down 'neath oak or pine, Divine Comatas, warbling pleasantly." He spake and paused ; and thereupon spake I. " I too, friend Lycid, as I ranged the fells, Have learned much lore and pleasant from the Nymphs, Whose fame mayhap hath reached the throne of Zeus. But this wherewith I'll grace thee ranks the first : Thou listen, since the Muses like thee well. [Sings'] On me the young Loves sneezed : for hapless I Am fain of Myrto as the goats of Spring. But my best friend Aratus inly pines For one who loves him not. Aristis saw (A wondrous seer is he, whose lute and lay Shrined Apollo's self would scarce disdain) How love had scorched Aratus to the bone. O Pan, who hauntest Homole's fair champaign, Bring the soft charmer, whosoe'er it be, Unbid to his sweet arms so, gracious Pan, May ne'er thy ribs and shoulderblades be lashed 342 THEOCRITUS [ID. VII. With squills by young Arcadians, whensoe'er They are scant of supper ! But should this my prayer Mislike thee, then on nettles mayest thou sleep, Dinted and sore all over from their claws ! Then mayest thou lodge amid Edonian hills By Hebrus, in midwinter ; there subsist, The Bear thy neighbour : and, in summer, range With the far yEthiops 'neath the Blemmyan rocks Where Nile is no more seen ! But O ye Loves, Whose cheeks are like pink apples, quit your homes By Hyetis, or Byblis' pleasant rill, Or fair Dione's rocky pedestal, And strike that fair one with your arrows, strike The ill-starred damsel who disdains my friend. And lo, what is she but an o'er-ripe pear? The girls all cry ' Her bloom is on the wane.' We'll watch, Aratus, at that porch no more, Nor waste shoe-leather : let the morning cock Crow to wake others up to numb despair ! Let Molon, and none else, that ordeal brave . While we make ease our study, and secure Some witch, to charm all evil from our door." I ceased. He smiling sweetly as before, Gave me the staff, ' the Muses' parting gift,' And leftward sloped tow'rd Pyxa. We the while Bent us to Phrasydeme's, Eucritus and I, And baby-faced Amyntas : there we lay Half-buried in a couch of fragrant reed And fresh-cut vineleaves, who so glad as we ? A wealth of elm and poplar shook o'erhead ; Hard by, a sacred spring flowed gurgling on From the Nymphs' grot, and in the sombre boughs ID. VIII.] THE TRIUMPH OF DAPHNIS 343 The sweet cicada chirped laboriously. Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away The treefrog's note was heard ; the crested lark Sang with the goldfinch ; turtles made their moan, And o'er the fountain hung the gilded bee. All of rich summer smacked, of autumn all : Pears at our feet, and apples at our side Rolled in luxuriance ; branches on the ground Sprawled, overweighed with damsons ; while we brushed From the cask's head the crust of four long years. Say, ye who dwell upon Parnassian peaks, Nymphs of Castalia, did old Chiron e'er Set before Heracles a cup so brave In Pholus' cavern did as nectarous draughts Cause that Anapian shepherd, in whose hand Rocks were as pebbles, Polypheme the strong, Featly to foot it o'er the cottage lawns : As, ladies, ye bid flow that day for us All by Demeter's shrine at harvest-home ? Beside whose comstacks may I oft again Plant my broad fan : while she stands by and smiles, Poppies and cornsheaves on each laden arm. IDYLL VIII THE TRIUMPH OF DAPHNIS Daphnis. Menalcas. A Goatherd. DAPHNIS, the gentle herdsman, met once, as legend tells, Menalcas making with his flock the circle of the fells. Both chins were gilt with coming beards : both lads could sing and play : 344 THEOCRITUS [!D. VIII. Menalcas glanced at Daphnis, and thus was heard to say : " Art thou for singing, Daphnis, lord of the lowing kine ? I say my songs are better, by what thou wilt, than thine." Then in his turn spake Daphnis, and thus he made reply : " O shepherd of the fleecy flock, thou pipest clear and high ; But come what will, Menalcas, thou ne'er wilt sing as I." Menalcas, This art thou fain to ascertain, and risk a bet with me? Daphnis. This I full fain would ascertain, and risk a bet with thee. Menalcas. But what, for champions such as we, would seem a fitting prize ? Daphnis. I stake a calf : stake thou a lamb, its mother's self in size. Menalcas. A lamb I'll venture never : for aye at close of day Father and mother count the flock, and passing strict are they. Daphnis. Then what shall be the victor's fee ? What wager wilt thou lay ? Menalcas. A pipe discoursing through nine mouths I made, full fair to view ; The wax is white thereon, the line of this and that edge true. I'll risk it : risk my father's own is more than I dare do. Daphnis. A pipe discoursing through nine mouths, and fair, hath Daphnis too : The wax is white thereon, the line of this and that edge true. But yesterday I made it : this finger feels the pain Still, where indeed the rifted reed hath cut it clean in twain. But who shall be our umpire ? who listen to our strain ? Menalcas. Suppose we hail yon goatherd; him at whose horned herd now The dog is barking yonder dog with white upon his brow. Then out they called : the goatherd marked them, and up came he ; ID. VIII.] THE TRIUMPH OF DAPHNIS 345 Then out they sang ; the goatherd their umpire fain would be. To shrill Menalcas' lot it fell to start the woodland lay : Then Daphnis took it up. And thus Menalcas led the way. Menalcas. " Rivers and vales, a glorious birth ! Oh if Menalcas e'er Piped aught of pleasant music in your ears : Then pasture, nothing loth, his lambs ; and let young Daphnis fare No worse, should he stray hither with his steers." Daphnis. " Pastures and rills, a bounteous race ! If Daphnis sang you e'er Such songs as ne'er from nightingale have flowed ; Then to his herd your fatness lend ; and let Menalcas share Like boon, should e'er he wend along this road." Menalcas. " 'Tis spring, 'tis greenness everywhere; with milk the udders teem, And all things that are young have life anew, Where my sweet maiden wanders : but parched and withered seem, When she departeth, lawn and shepherd too." Daphnis. " Fat are the sheep, the goats bear twins, the hives are thronged with bees, Rises the oak beyond his natural growth, Where falls my darling's footstep : but hungriness shall seize, When she departeth, herd and herdsman both." Menalcas. "Come, ram, with thy blunt-muzzled kids and sleek wives at thy side, Where winds the brook by woodlands myriad-deep : There is her haunt. Go, Stump-horn, tell her how Proteus plied (A god) the shepherd's trade, with seals for sheep." Daphnis. " I ask not gold, I ask not the broad lands of a king; 346 THEOCRITUS [ID. VIII. I ask not to be fleeter than the breeze But 'neath this steep to watch my sheep, feeding as one, and fling (Still clasping her) my carol o'er the seas." Menalcas. " Storms are the fruit-tree's bane ; the brook's, a summer hot and dry ; The stag's a woven net, a gin the dove's ; Mankind's, a soft sweet maiden. Others have pined ere I : Zeus ! Father ! hadst not thou thy lady-loves ? " Thus far, in alternating strains, the lads their woes rehearst : Then each one gave a closing stave. Thus sang Menalcas first: Menalcas. " O spare, good wolf, my weanlings ! their milky mothers spare ! Harm not the little lad that hath so many in his care ! What, Firefly, is thy sleep so deep ? It ill befits a hound, Tending a boyish master's flock, to slumber over-sound. And, wethers, of this tender grass take, nothing coy, your fill : So, when it comes, the after-math shall find you feeding still. So ! so ! graze on, that ye be full, that not an udder fail : Part of the milk shall rear the lambs, and part shall fill my pail." Then Daphnis flung a carol out, as of a nightingale : Daphnis. " Me from her grot but yesterday a girl of haughty brow Spied as I passed her with my kine, and said, " How fair art thou ! " I vow that not one bitter word in answer did I say, But, looking ever on the ground, went silently my way. The heifer's voice, the heifer's breath, are passing sweet to me ; And sweet is sleep by summer-brooks upon the breezy lea : ID. IX.] PASTORALS 347 As acorns are the green oak's pride, apples the apple-bough's ; So the cow glorieth in her calf, the cowherd in his cows." Thus the two lads ; then spoke the third, sitting his goats among : GoatJierd. " O Daphnis, lovely is thy voice, thy music sweetly- sung; Such song is pleasanter to me than honey on my tongue. Accept this pipe, for thou hast won. And should there be some notes That thou couldst teach me, as I plod alongside with my goats, I'll give thee for thy schooling this ewe, that horns hath none : Day after day she'll fill the can, until the milk o'errun." Then how the one lad laughed and leaped and clapped his hands for glee ! A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily. And how the other inly burned, struck down by his disgrace ! A maid first parting from her home might wear as sad a face. Thenceforth was Daphnis champion of all the country side : And won, while yet in topmost youth, a Naiad for his bride'. IDYLL IX PASTORALS Daphnis. Menalcas. A Shepherd. Shepherd. A SONG from Daphnis ! Open he the lay, He open : and Menalcas follow next : While the calves suck, and with the barren kine 34 8 THEOCRITUS [ID. IX. The young bulls graze, or roam knee-deep in leaves, And ne'er play truant. But a song from thee, Daphnis anon Menalcas will reply. Daphnis. Sweet is the chorus of the calves and kine, And sweet the herdsman's pipe. But none may vie With Daphnis ; and a rush-strown bed is mine Near a cool rill, where carpeted I lie On fair white goatskins. From a hill-top high The westwind swept me down the herd entire, Cropping the strawberries : whence it comes that I No more heed summer, with his breath of fire, Than lovers heed the words of mother and of sire. Thus Daphnis : and Menalcas answered thus : Menalcas. O ^Etna, mother mine ! A grotto fair, Scooped in the rocks, have I : and there I keep All that in dreams men picture ! Treasured there Are multitudes of she-goats and of sheep, Swathed in whose wool from top to toe I sleep. The fire that boils my pot, with oak or beech Is piled dry beech-logs when the snow lies deep ; And storm and sunshine, I disdain them each As toothless sires a nut, when broth is in their reach. I clapped applause, and straight produced my gifts : A staff for Daphnis 'twas the handiwork Of nature, in my father's acres grown : Yet might a turner find no fault therewith. I gave his mate a goodly spiral-shell : We stalked its inmate on the Icarian rocks And ate him, parted fivefold among five. He blew forthwith the trumpet on his shell. Tell, woodland Muse and then farewell what song ID. X.] THE TWO WORKMEN 349 I, the chance-comer, sang before those twain. Shepherd, Ne'er let a falsehood scarify my tongue ! Crickets with crickets, ants with ants agree, And hawks with hawks : and music sweetly sung, Beyond all else, is grateful unto me. Filled aye with music may my dwelling be ! Not slumber, not the bursting forth of Spring So charms me, nor the flowers that tempt the bee, As those sweet Sisters. He, on whom they fling One gracious glance, is proof to Circe's blandishing. IDYLL X THE Two WORKMEN Milo. Battus. WHAT now, poor o'erworked drudge, is on thy mind ? No more in even swathe thou layest the corn : Thy fellow-reapers leave thee far behind, As flocks a ewe that 's footsore from a thorn. By noon and midday what will be thy plight If now, so soon, thy sickle fails to bite ? Battus. Hewn from hard rocks, untired at set of sun, Milo, didst ne'er regret some absent one ? Milo. Not I. What time have workers for regret ? Batius. Hath love ne'er kept thee from thy slumbers yet? Milo. Nay, heaven forbid ! If once the cat taste cream ! Battus. Milo, these ten days love hath been my dream. Milo. You drain your wine, while vinegar 's scarce with me. Battus. Hence since last spring untrimmed my borders be. Milo. And what lass flouts thee ? 350 THEOCRITUS [Io. X. Battus. She whom we heard play Amongst Hippocoon's reapers yesterday. Milo. Your sins have found you out you're e'en served right : You'll clasp a corn-crake in your arms all night. Battus. You laugh : but headstrong Love is blind no less Than Plutus : talking big is foolishness. Milo. I talk not big. But lay the corn-ears low And trill the while some love-songeasier so Will seem your toil : you used to sing, I know. Battus. Maids of Pieria, of my slim lass sing ! One touch of yours ennobles everything. [Sings] Fairy Bombyca ! thee do men report Lean, dusk, a gipsy : I alone nut-brown. Violets and pencilled hyacinths are swart, Yet first of flowers they're chosen for a crown. As goats pursue the clover, wolves the goat, And cranes the ploughman, upon thee I dote. Had I but Croesus' wealth, we twain should stand Gold-sculptured in Love's temple ; thou, thy lyre ' (Ay or a rose or apple) in thy hand, I in my brave new shoon and dance-attire. Fairy Bombyca ! twinkling dice thy feet, Poppies thy lips, thy ways none knows how sweet ! Milo. Who dreamed what subtle strains our bumpkin wrought? How shone the artist in each measured verse ! Fie on the beard that I have grown for naught ! Mark, lad, these lines by glorious Lytierse. \Sings\ O rich in fruit and cornblade : be this field Tilled well, Demeter, and fair fruitage yield ! Bind the sheaves, reapers : lest one, passing, say 'A fig for these, they're never worth their pay.' ID, XL] THE GIANT'S WOOING Let the mown swathes look northward, ye who mow, Or westward for the ears grow fattest so. Avoid a noontide nap, ye threshing men : The chaff flies thickest from the corn-ears then. Wake when the lark wakes ; when he slumbers, close Your work, ye reapers : and at noontide doze. Boys, the frogs' life for me ! They need not him Who fills the flagon, for in drink they swim. Better boil herbs, thou toiler after gain, Than, splitting cummin, split thy hand in twain. Strains such as these, I trow, befit them well Who toil and moil when noon is at its height : Thy meagre love-tale, bumpkin, thou shouldst tell Thy grandam as she wakes up ere 'tis light. IDYLL XI THE GIANT'S WOOING METHINKS all nature hath no cure for Love, Plaster or unguent, Nicias, saving one ; And this is light and pleasant to a man, Yet hard withal to compass minstrelsy. As well thou wottest, being thyself a leech, And a prime favourite of those Sisters nine. Twas thus our Giant lived a life of ease, Old Polyphemus, when, the down scarce seen 352 THEOCRITUS [!D. XI. On lip and chin, he wooed his ocean nymph : No curlypated rose-and-apple wooer, But a fell madman, blind to all but love. Oft from the green grass foldward fared his sheep Unbid : while he upon the windy beach, Singing his Galatea, sat and pined From dawn to dusk, an ulcer at his heart : Great Aphrodite's shaft had fixed it there. Yet found he that one cure : he sate him down On the tall cliff, and seaward looked, and sang : " White Galatea, why disdain thy love ? White as a pressed cheese, delicate as the lamb, Wild as the heifer, soft as summer grapes ! If sweet sleep chain me, here thou walk'st at large ; If sweet sleep loose me, straightway thou art gone, Scared like a sheep that sees the gray wolf near. I loved thee, maiden, when thou cam'st long since, To pluck the hyacinth-blossom on the fell, Thou and my mother, piloted by me. I saw thee, see thee still, from that day forth For ever ; but 'tis naught, ay naught, to thee. I know, sweet maiden, why thou art so coy : Shaggy and huge, a single eyebrow spans From ear to ear my forehead, whence one eye Gleams, and an o'erbroad nostril tops my lip. Yet I, this monster, feed a thousand sheep That yield me sweetest draughts at milking-tide : In summer, autumn, or midwinter, still Fails not my cheese ; my milkpail aye o'erflows. Then I can pipe as ne'er did Giant yet, Singing our loves ours, honey, thine and mine At dead of night : and hinds I rear eleven ID. XL] THE GIANT'S WOOING 353 (Each with her fawn) and bearcubs four, for thee. Oh come to me thou shalt not rue the day And let the mad seas beat against the shore ! 'Twere sweet to haunt my cave the livelong night : Laurel, and cypress tall, and ivy dun, And vines of sumptuous fruitage, all are there : And a cold spring that pine-clad ^Etna flings Down from the white snow's midst, a draught for gods ! Who would not change for this the ocean-waves ? "But thou mislik'st my hair? Well, oaken logs Are here, and embers yet aglow with fire. Burn (if thou wilt) my heart out, and mine eye, Mine only eye wherein is my delight. Oh why was I not born a finny thing, To float unto thy side and kiss thy hand, Denied thy lips and bring thee lilies white And crimson-petalled poppies' dainty bloom ! Nay summer hath his flowers and autumn his ; I could not bring all these the selfsame day. Lo, should some mariner hither oar his road, Sweet, he shall teach me straightway how to swim, That haply I may learn what bliss ye find In your sea-homes. O Galatea, come Forth from yon waves, and coming forth forget (As I do, sitting here) to get thee home : And feed my flocks and milk them, nothing loth, And pour the rennet in to fix my cheese ! " The blame 's my mothef's ; she is false to me ; Spake thee ne'er yet one sweet word for my sake, Though day by day she sees me pine and pine. I'll feign strange throbbings in my head and feet A A 354 THEOCRITUS [ID. XI. To anguish her as I am anguished now." O Cyclops, Cyclops, where are flown thy wits ? Go plait rush-baskets, lop the olive-boughs To feed thy lambkins 'twere the shrewder part. Chase not the recreant, milk the willing ewe : The world hath Galateas fairer yet. Many a fair damsel bids me sport with her The livelong night, and smiles if I give ear. On land at least I still am somebody." Thus did the Giant feed his love on song, And gained more ease than may be bought with gold. IDYLL XII THE COMRADES THOU art come, lad, come ! Scarce thrice hath dusk to- day Given place but lovers in an hour grow gray. As spring 's more sweet than winter, grapes than thorns, The ewe's fleece richer than her latest-born's ; As young girls' charms the thrice-wed wife's outshine, As fawns are lither than the ungainly kine, Or as the nightingale's clear notes outvie The mingled music of all birds that fly ; So at thy coming passing glad was I. I ran to greet thee e'en as pilgrims run To beechen shadows from the scorching sun : Oh if on us accordant Loves would breathe, And our two names to future years bequeath ! ID. XII.] THE COMRADES 355 ' These twain 'let men say 'lived in olden days. This was a. yokel (in their country-phrase), That was his mate (so talked these simple folk) : And lovingly they bore a mutual yoke. The hearts of men were made of sterling gold, When troth met troth, in those brave days of old.' * O Zeus, O gods who age not nor decay ! Let e'en two hundred ages roll away, But at the last these tidings let me learn, Borne o'er the fatal pool whence none return : " By every tongue thy constancy is sung, Thine and thy favourite's chiefly by the young." But lo, the future is in heaven's high hand : Meanwhile thy graces all my praise demand, Not false lip-praise, not idly bubbling froth For though thy wrath be kindled, e'en thy wrath Hath no sting in it : doubly I am caressed, And go my way repaid with interest. Oarsmen of Megara, ruled by Nisus erst ! Yours be all bliss, because ye honoured first That true child-lover, Attic Diocles. Around his gravestone with the first spring-breeze Flock the bairns all, to win the kissing-prize : And whoso sweetliest lip to lip applies Goes crown-clad home to its mother. Blest is he Who in such strife is named the referee : To brightfaced Ganymede full oft he'll cry To lend his lip the potencies that lie Within that stone with which the usurers Detoct base metal, and which never errs. 35 6 THEOCRITUS [!D. XIII. IDYLL XIII HYLAS NOT for t us only, Nicias, (vain the dream,) Sprung from what god soe'er, was Eros born Not to us only grace doth graceful seem, Frail things who wot not of the coming morn. No for Amphitryon's iron-hearted son, Who braved the lion, was the slave of one : A fair curled creature, Hylas was his name. He taught him, as a father might his child, All songs whereby himself had risen to fame ; Nor ever from his side would be beguiled When noon was high, nor when white steeds convey Back to heaven's gates the chariot of the day, Nor when the hen's shrill brood becomes aware Of bed-time, as the mother's flapping wings Shadow the dust-browned beam. Twas all his care To shape unto his own imaginings And to the harness train his favourite youth, Till he became a man in very truth. Meanwhile, when kingly Jason steered in quest Of the Gold Fleece, and chieftains at his side Chosen from all cities, proffering each her best, To rich lolchos came that warrior tried, And joined him unto trim-built Argo's crew ; And with Alcmena's son came Hylas too. ID. XIII.] HYLAS 357 Through the great gulf shot Argo like a bird And by-and-by reached Phasis, ne'er o'erta'en By those in-rushing rocks, that have not stirred Since then, but bask, twin monsters, on the main. But now, when waned the spring, and lambs were fed In far-off fields, and Pleiads gleamed o'erhead, That cream and flower of knighthood looked to sail. They came, within broad Argo safely stowed, (When for three days had blown the southern gale) To Hellespont, and in Propontis rode At anchor, where Cianian oxen now Broaden the furrows with the busy plough. They leapt ashore, and, keeping rank, prepared Their evening meal : a grassy meadow spread Before their eyes, and many a warrior shared (Thanks to its verdurous stores) one lowly bed. And while they cut tall marigolds from their stem And sworded bulrush, Hylas slipt from them. Water the fair lad went to seek and bring To Heracles and stalwart Telamon, (The comrades aye partook each other's fare,) Bearing a brazen pitcher. And anon, Where the ground dipt, a fountain he espied, And rushes growing green about its side. There rose the sea-blue swallow-wort, and there The pale-hued maidenhair, with parsley green And vagrant marsh-flowers ; and a revel rare In the pool's midst the water-nymphs were seen To hold, those maidens of unslumbrous eyes Whom the belated peasant sees and flies. 358 THEOCRITUS [ID. XIII. And fast did Malis and Eunica cling, And young Nychea with her April face, To the lad's hand, as stooping o'er the spring He dipt his pitcher. For the young Greek's grace Made their soft senses reel ; and down he fell, All of a sudden, into that black well. So drops a red star suddenly from sky To sea and quoth some sailor to his mate : " Up with the tackle, boy ! the breeze is high." Him the nymphs pillowed, all disconsolate, On their sweet laps, and with soft words beguiled ; But Heracles was troubled for the child. Forth went he ; Scythian-wise his bow he bore And the great club that never quits his side ; And thrice called ' Hylas ' ne'er came lustier roar From that deep chest. Thrice Hylas heard and tried To answer, but in tones you scarce might hear j The water made them distant though so near. And as a lion, when he hears the bleat Of fawns among the mountains far away, A murderous lion, and with hurrying feet Bounds from his lair to his predestined prey : So plunged the strong man in the untrodden brake (Lovers are maniacs) for his darling's sake. He scoured far fields what hill or oaken glen Remembers not that pilgrimage of pain ? His troth to Jason was forgotten then. Long time the good ship tarried for those twain With hoisted sails j night came and still they cleared The hatches, but no Heracles appeared. ID. XIV.] THE LOVE OF ^ESCHINES 359 On he was wandering, reckless where he trod, So mad a passion on his vitals preyed : While Hylas had become a blessed god. But the crew cursed the runaway who had stayed Sixty good oars, and left him there to reach Afoot bleak Phasis and the Colchian beach. IDYLL XIV THE LOVE OF Thyonichus. ALschines. jEschines. HAIL, sir Thyonichus. Thyonichus. ^Eschines, to you. dEschines, I have missed thee. Thyonichus. Missed me ! Why what ails him now ? sEschines. My friend, I am ill at ease. Thyonichus. Then this explains Thy leanness, and thy prodigal moustache And dried-up curls. Thy counterpart I saw, A wan Pythagorean, yesterday. He said he came from Athens : shoes he had none : He pined, I'll warrant, for a quartern loaf. ^Eschines. Sir, you will joke But I've been outraged sore, And by Cynisca. I shall go stark mad Ere you suspect a hair would turn the scale. Thyonichus. Such thou wert always, vEschines my friend. In lazy mood or trenchant, at thy whim The world must wag. But what 's thy grievance now ? JEschines. That Argive, Apis the Thessalian Knight, Myself, and gallant Cleonicus, supped 360 THEOCRITUS [ID. XIV. Within my grounds. Two pullets I had slain, And a prime pig : and broached my Biblian wine ; 'Twas four years old, but fragrant as when new. Truffles were served to us : and the drink was good. Well, we got on, and each must drain a cup To whom he fancied ; only each must name. We named, and took our liquor as ordained ; But she sate silent this before my face. Fancy my feelings ! " Wilt not speak ? Hast seen A wolf? " some wag said. "Shrewdly guessed," quoth she, And blushed her blushes might have fired a torch. A wolf had charmed her : Wolf her neighbour's son, Goodly and tall, and fair in divers eyes : For his illustrious sake it was she pined. This had been breathed, just idly, in my ear : Shame on my beard, I ne'er pursued the hint. Well, when we four were deep amid our cups, The Knight must sing ' The Wolf (a local song) Right through for mischief. All at once she wept Hot tears as girls of six years old might weep, Clinging and clamouring round their mother's lap. And I, (you know my humour, friend of mine,) Drove at his face, one, two ! She gathered up Her robes and vanished straightway through the door. " And so I fail to please, false lady mine ? Another lies more welcome in thy lap ? Go warm that other's heart : he'll say thy tears Are liquid pearls." And as a swallow flies Forth in a hurry, here or there to find A mouthful for her brood among the eaves : From her soft sofa passing-swift she fled Through folding-doors and hall, with random feet : ' The stag had gained his heath ' : you know the rest. ID. XIV.] THE LOVE OF ^ESCHINES 361 Three weeks, a month, nine days and ten to that, To-day 's the eleventh : and 'tis just two months All but two days, since she and I were two. Hence is my beard of more than Thracian growth. Now Wolf is all to her : Wolf enters in At midnight ; I am a cypher in her eyes ; The poor Megarian, nowhere in the race. All would go right, if I could once unlove : But now, you wot, the rat hath tasted tar. And what may cure a swain at his wit's end I know not : Simus, (true,) a mate of mine, Loved Epichalcus' daughter, and took ship And came home cured. I too will sail the seas. Worse men, it may be better, are afloat, I shall still prove an average man-at-arms. Thyonichus. Now may thy love run smoothly, But should'st thou really mean a voyage out, The freeman's best paymaster 's Ptolemy. ^Eschines. What is he else ? Thyonichus. A gentleman : a Of wit and taste ; the top of company ; Loyal to ladies ; one whose eye is keen For friends, and keener still for enemies. Large in his bounties, he, in kingly sort, Denies a boon to none : but, ^Eschines, One should not ask too often. This premised, If thou wilt clasp the military cloak O'er thy right shoulder, and with legs astride Await the onward rush of shielded men : Hie thee to Egypt. Age o'ertakes us all ; Our temples first ; then on o'er cheek and chin, Slowly and surely, creep the frosts of Time. Up and do somewhat, ere thy limbs are sere. 362 THEOCRITUS [ID. XV. IDYLL XV THE FESTIVAL OF ADONIS Gorgo. Praxinod. Gorgo. T)RAXINOA in? JL Praxinod. Yes, Gorgo dear ! At last ! That you're here now 's a marvel ! See to a chair, A cushion, Eunoa ! Gorgo. I lack naught. Praxinod. Sit down. Gorgo. Oh, what a thing is spirit ! Here I am, Praxinoa, safe at last from all that crowd And all those chariots every street a mass Of boots and uniforms ! And the road, my dear, Seemed endless you live now so far away ! Praxinod. This land's-end den I cannot call it house My madcap hired to keep us twain apart And stir up strife. 'Twas like him, odious pest ! Gorgo. Nay call not, dear, your lord, your Deinon, names To the babe's face. Look how it stares at you ! There, baby dear, she never meant Papa ! It understands, by'r lady ! Dear Papa ! Praxinod. Well, yesterday (that means what day you like) ' Papa ' had rouge and hair-powder to buy ; He brought back salt ! this oaf of six-foot-one ! Gorgo. Just such another is that pickpocket My Diocleides. He bought t' other day Six fleeces at seven drachms, his last exploit. ID. XV.] THE FESTIVAL OF ADONIS 363 What were they ? scraps of worn-out pedlar's-bags, Sheer trash. But put your cloak and mantle on ; And we'll to Ptolemy's, the sumptuous king, To see the Adonis. As I hear, the queen Provides us something gorgeous. Praxinod. Ay, the grand Can do things grandly. Gorgo. When you've seen yourself, What tales you'll have to tell to those who've not. 'Twere time we started ! Praxinod. All time 's holiday With idlers ! Eunoa, pampered minx, the jug ! Set it down here you cats would sleep all day On cushions Stir yourself, fetch water, quick ! Water 's our first want. How she holds the jug ! Now, pour not, cormorant, in that wasteful way You've drenched my dress, bad luck t' you ! There, enough : I have made such toilet as my fates allowed. Now for the key o' the plate-chest. Bring it, quick ! Gorgo. My dear, that full pelisse becomes you well. What did it stand you in, straight off the loom ? Praxinod. Don't ask me, Gorgo : two good pounds and more. Then I gave all my mind to trimming it Gorgo. Well, 'tis a great success. Praxinod. I think it is. My mantle, Eunoa, and my parasol Arrange me nicely. Babe, you'll bide at home ! Horses would bite you Boo ! Yes, cry your fill, But we won't have you maimed. Now let 's be off. You, Phrygia, take and nurse the tiny thing : Call the dog in : make fast the outer door ! [Exeunt. 364 THEOCRITUS [ID. XV. Gods ! what a crowd ! How, when shall we get past This nuisance, these unending ant-like swarms ? Yet, Ptolemy, we owe thee thanks for much Since heaven received thy sire ! No miscreant now Creeps Thug-like up, to maul the passer-by. What games men played erewhile men shaped in crime, Birds of a feather, rascals every one ! We're done for, Gorgo darling here they are, The Royal horse ! Sweet sir, don't trample me ! That bay the savage ! reared up straight on end ! Fly, Eunoa, can't you ? Doggedly she stands. He'll be his rider's death ! How glad I am My babe 's at home. Gorgo. Praxinoa, never mind ! See, we're before them now, and they're in line. Praxinoa. There, I'm myself. But from a child I feared Horses, and slimy snakes. But haste we on : A surging multitude is close behind. Gorgo \to Old Lady\. From the palace, mother ? Old Lady. Ay, child. Gorgo. Is it fair Of access ? Old Lady. Trying brought the Greeks to Troy. Young ladies, they must try who would succeed. Gorgo. The crone hath said her oracle and gone. Women know all how Adam married Eve. Praxinoa, look what crowds are round the door ! Praxinoa. Fearful ! Your hand, please, Gorgo. Eunoa, you Hold Eutychis hold tight or you'll be lost. We'll enter in a body hold us fast ! Oh dear, my muslin dress is torn in two, Gorgo, already ! Pray, good gentleman, (And happiness be yours) respect my robe ! ID. XV.] THE FESTIVAL OF ADONIS 365 Stranger. I could not if I would nathless I will. Praxinod. They come in hundreds, and they push like swine. Stranger. Lady, take courage : it is all well now. Praxinod. And now and ever be it well with the'e, Sweet man, for shielding us ! An honest soul And kindly. Oh ! they're smothering Eunoa : Push, coward ! That 's right ! 'All in,' the bridegroom said, And locked the door upon himself and bride. Gorgo. Praxinoa, look ! Note well this broidery first. How exquisitely fine too good for earth ! Empress Athene, what strange sempstress wrought Such work ? What painter painted, realized Such pictures ? Just like life they stand or move, Facts and not fancies ! What a thing is man ! How bright, how lifelike on his silvern couch Lies, with youth's bloom scarce shadowing his cheek, That dear Adonis, lovely e'en in death ! A Stranger. Bad luck t 1 you, cease your senseless pigeon's prate ! Their brogue is killing every word a drawl ! Gorgo. Where did he spring from ? Is our prattle aught To you, Sir ? Order your own slaves about : You're ordering Syracusan ladies now ! Corinthians bred (to tell you one fact more) As was Bellerophon : islanders in speech, For Dorians may talk Doric, I presume ? Praxinod. Persephone ! none lords it over me, Save one ! No scullion's-wage for us from you 1 Gorgo. Hush, dear. The Argive's daughter 's going to sing The Adonis : that accomplished vocalist Who has no rival in " The Sailor's Grave." Observe her attitudinizing now. 366 THEOCRITUS [ID. XV. Song. Queen, who lov'st Golgi and the Sicel hill And Ida ; Aphroditk radiant-eyed ; The stealthy-footed Hours from Acheron's rill Brought once again Adonis to thy side How changed in twelve short months ! They travel slow, Those precious Hours : we hail their advent still, For blessings do they bring to all below. O Sea-born ! thou didst erst, or legend lies, Shed on a woman's soul thy grace benign, And Berenice's dust immortalize. O called by many names, at many a shrine ! For thy sweet sake doth Berenice's child (Herself a second Helen) deck with all That 's fair, Adonis. On his right are piled Ripe apples fallen from the oak-tree tall ; And silver caskets at his left support Toy-gardens, Syrian scents enshrined in gold And alabaster, cakes of every sort That in their ovens the pastrywomen mould, When with white meal they mix all flowers that bloom, Oil-cakes and honey-cakes. There stand portrayed Each bird, each butterfly ; and in the gloom Of foliage climbing high, and downward weighed By graceful blossoms, do the young Loves play Like nightingales, and perch on every tree, And flit, to try their wings, from spray to spray. Then see the gold, the ebony ! Only see The ivory-carven eagles, bearing up To Zeus the boy who fills his royal cup ! Soft as a dream, such tapestry gleams o'erhead As the Milesian's self would gaze on, charmed. But sweet Adonis hath his own sweet bed : Next Aphrodite sleeps the roseate-armed, ID. XV.] THE FESTIVAL OF ADONIS 367 A bridegroom of eighteen or nineteen years. Kiss the smooth boyish lip there 's no sting there ! The bride hath found her own : all bliss be hers ! And him at dewy dawn we'll troop to bear Down where the breakers hiss against the shore : There, with dishevelled dress and unbound hair, Bare-bosomed all, our descant wild we'll pour : " Thou haunt'st, Adonis, earth and heaven in turn, Alone of heroes. Agamemnon ne'er Could compass this, nor Aias stout and stern : Not Hector, eldest-born of her who bare Ten sons, not Patrocles, nor safe-returned From Ilion Pyrrhus, such distinction earned : Nor, elder yet, the Lapithae, the sons Of Pelops and Deucalion ; or the crown Of Greece, Pelasgians. Gracious may'st thou be, Adonis, now : pour new-year's blessings down ! Right welcome dost thou come, Adonis dear : Come when thou wilt, thou'lt find a welcome here." Gorgo. 'Tis fine, Praxinoa ! How I envy her Her learning, and still more her luscious voice ! We must go home : my husband 's supperless : And, in that state, the man 's just vinegar. Don't cross his path when hungry ! So farewell, Adonis, and be housed 'mid welfare aye ! 368 THEOCRITUS [!D. XVI. IDYLL XVI THE VALUE OF SONG WHAT fires the Muse's, what the minstrel's lays ? Hers some immortal's, ours some hero's praise, Heaven is her theme, as heavenly was her birth : We, of earth earthy, sing the sons of earth. Yet who, of all that see the gray morn rise, Lifts not his latch and hails with eager eyes My Songs, yet sends them guerdonless away ? Barefoot and angry homeward journey they, Taunt him who sent them on that idle quest, Then crouch them deep within their empty chest, (When wageless they return, their dismal bed) And hide on their chill knees once more their patient head. Where are those good old times ? Who thanks us, who, For our good word ? Men list not now to do Great deeds and worthy of the minstrel's verse : Vassals of gain, their hand is on their purse, Their eyes on lucre : ne'er a rusty nail They'll give in kindness ; this being aye their tale : " Kin before kith ; to prosper is my prayer ; Poets, we know, are heaven's peculiar care. We've Homer ; and what other 's worth a thought ? I call him chief of bards who costs me naught." Yet what if all your chests with gold are lined ? Is this enjoying wealth ? Oh fools and blind ! Part on your heart's desire, on minstrels spend Part ; and your kindred and your kind befriend : And daily to the gods bid altar-fires ascend. ID. XVI.] THE VALUE OF SONG 369 Nor be ye churlish hosts, but glad the heart Of guests with wine, when they must needs depart : And reverence most the priests of sacred song : So, when hell hides you, shall your names live long ; Not doomed to wail on Acheron's sunless sands, Like some poor hind, the inward of whose hands The spade hath gnarled and knotted, born to groan, Poor sire's poor offspring, hapless Penury's own ! Their monthly dole erewhile unnumbered thralls Sought in Antiochus', in Aleuas' halls ; On to the Scopadae's byres in endless line The calves ran lowing with the horned kine ; And, marshalled by the good Creondae's swains Myriads of choice sheep basked on Crannon's plains. Yet had their joyaunce ended, on the day When their sweet spirit dispossessed its clay, To hated Acheron's ample barge resigned. Nameless, their stored-up luxury left behind, With the lorn dead through ages had they lain, Had not a minstrel bade them live again : Had not in woven words the Ceian sire Holding sweet converse with his full-toned lyre Made even their swift steeds for aye renowned, When from the sacred lists they came home crowned. Forgot were Lycia's chiefs, and Hector's hair Of gold, and Cycnus femininely fair ; But that bards bring old battles back to mind. Odysseus he who roamed amongst mankind A hundred years and more, reached utmost hell Alive, and 'scaped the giant's hideous cell Had lived and died : Eumaeus and his swine ; Philoetius, busy with his herded kine ; B B 370 THEOCRITUS [ID. XVI. And great Laertes* self, had passed away, Were not their names preserved in Homer's lay. Through song alone may man true glory taste ; The dead man's riches his survivors waste. But count the waves, with yon gray wind-swept main Borne shoreward : from a red brick wash his stain In some pool's violet depths : 'twill task thee yet To reach the heart on baleful avarice set. To such I say ' Fare well ' : let theirs be store Of wealth ; but let them always crave for more : Horses and mules inferior things /find To the esteem and love of all mankind. But to what mortal's roof may I repair, I and my Muse, and find a welcome there ? I and my Muse : for minstrels fare but ill, Reft of those maids, who know the mightiest's will. The cycle of the years, it flags not yet ; In many a chariot many a steed shall sweat : And one, to manhood grown, my lays shall claim, Whose deeds shall rival great Achilles' fame, Who from stout Aias might have won the prize On Simois' plain, where Phrygian Ilus lies. Now, in their sunset home on Libya's heel, Phoenicia's sons unwonted chillness feel : Now, with his targe of willow at his breast, The Syracusan bears his spear in rest, Amongst these Hiero arms him for the war, Eager to fight as warriors fought of yore ; The plumes float darkling o'er his helmed brow. O Zeus, the sire most glorious ; and O thou, ID. XVI.] THE VALUE OF SONG 371 Empress Athene ; and thou, damsel fair, Who with thy mother wast decreed to bear Rule o'er rich Corinth, o'er that city of pride Beside whose walls Anapus' waters glide : May ill winds waft across the Southern sea (Of late a legion, now but two or three,) Far from our isle, our foes ; the doom to tell, To wife and child, of those they loved so well ; While the old race enjoy once more the lands Spoiled and insulted erst by alien hands ! And fair and fruitful may their cornlands be ! Their flocks in thousands bleat upon the lea, Fat and full-fed ; their kine, as home they wind, The lagging traveller of his rest remind ! With might and mam their fallows let them till : Till comes the seedtime, and cicalas trill (Hid from the toilers of the hot midday In the thick leafage) on the topmost spray ! O'er shield and spear their webs let spiders spin, And none so much as name the battle-din ! Then Hiero's lofty deeds may minstrels bear Beyond the Scythian ocean-main, and where Within those ample walls, with asphalt made Time-proof,. Semiramis her empire swayed. I am but a single voice ; but many a bard Beside me do those heavenly maids regard : May those all love to sing, 'mid earth's acclaim, Of Sicel Arethuse, and Hiero's fame. O Graces, royal nurselings, who hold dear The Minyae's city, once the Theban's fear : 372 THEOCRITUS [ID. XVI. Unbidden I tarry, whither bidden I fare My Muse my comrade. And be ye too there, Sisters divine ! Were ye and song forgot, What grace had earth ? With you be aye my lot 1 IDYLL XVII THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMY WITH Zeus begin, sweet sisters, end with Zeus, When ye would sing the sovereign of the skies ; But first among mankind rank Ptolemy ; First, last, and midmost ; being past compare. Those mighty ones of old, half men half gods, Wrought deeds that shine in many a subtle strain ; I, no unpractised minstrel, sing but him ; Divinest ears disdain not minstrelsy. But as a woodman sees green Ida rise Pine above pine, and ponders which to fell First of those myriads ; even so I pause Where to begin the chapter of his praise : For thousand and ten thousand are the gifts Wherewith high heaven hath graced the kingliest king. Was not he born to compass noblest ends, Lagus' own son, so soon as he matured Schemes such as ne'er had dawned on meaner minds ? Zeus doth esteem him as the blessed gods ; In the sire's courts his golden mansion stands. And near him Alexander sits and smiles, The turbaned Persian's dread ; and, fronting both, Rises the stedfast adamantine seat ID. XVII.] THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMY 373 Erst fashioned for the bull-slayer Heracles. Who there holds revels with his heavenly mates, And sees, with joy exceeding, children rise On children ; for that Zeus exempts from age And death their frames who sprang from Heracles : And Ptolemy, like Alexander, claims From him ; his gallant son their common sire. And when, the banquet o'er, the Strong Man wends, Cloyed with rich nectar, home unto his wife, This kinsman hath in charge his cherished shafts And bow ; and that his gnarled and knotted club j And both to white-limbed Hebe's bower of bliss Convoy the bearded warrior and his arms. Then how among wise ladies blest the pair That reared her ! peerless Berenice shone ! Dione's sacred child, the Cyprian queen, O'er that sweet bosom passed her taper hands : And hence, 'tis said, no man loved woman e'er As Ptolemy loved her. She o'er-repaid His love ; so, nothing doubting, he could leave His substance in his loyal children's care, And rest with her, fond husband with fond wife. She that loves not bears sons, but all unlike Their father : for her heart was otherwhere. O Aphrodite, matchless e'en in heaven For beauty, thou didst love her ; wouldst not let Thy Berenice cross the wailful waves : But thy hand snatched her to the blue lake bound Else, and the dead's grim ferryman and enshrined With thee, to share thy honours. There she sits, To mortals ever kind, and passion soft THEOCRITUS [ID. XVII. Inspires, and makes the lover's burden light. The dark-browed Argive, linked with Tydeus, bare Diomed the slayer, famed in Calydon : And deep-veiled Thetis unto Peleus gave The javelineer Achilles. Thou wast born Of Berenice, Ptolemy by name And by descent, a warrior's warrior child. Cos from its mother's arms her babe received, Its destined nursery, on its natal day : 'Twas there Antigone's daughter in her pangs Cried to the goddess that could bid them cease : Who soon was at her side, and lo ! her limbs Forgat their anguish, and a child was born Fair, its sire's self. Cos saw, and shouted loud ; Handled the babe all tenderly, and spake : " Wake, babe, to bliss : prize me, as Phoebus doth His azure-sphered Delos : grace the hill Of Triops, and the Dorians' sister shores, As king Apollo his Rhenaea's isle." So spake the isle. An eagle high o'erhead Poised in the clouds screamed thrice, the prophet-bird Of Zeus, and sent by him. For awful kings All are his care, those chiefliest on whose birth He smiled : exceeding glory waits on them : Theirs is the sovereignty of land and sea. But if a myriad realms spread far and wide O'er earth, if myriad nations till the soil To which heaven's rain gives increase : yet what land Is green as low-lying Egypt, when the Nile Wells forth and piecemeal breaks the sodden glebe ? Where are like cities, peopled by like men ? ID. XVII.] THE PRAISE OF PTOLEMY 375 Lo he hath seen three hundred towns arise, Three thousand, yea three myriad ; and o'er all He rules, the prince of heroes, Ptolemy. Claims half Phoenicia, and half Araby, Syria and Libya, and the ^Ethiops murk ; Sways the Pamphylian and Cilician braves, The Lycian and the Carian trained to war, And all the isles : for never fleet like his Rode upon ocean : land and sea alike And sounding rivers hail king Ptolemy. Many are his horsemen, many his targeteers, Whose burdened breast is bright with clashing steel : Light are all royal treasuries, weighed with his. For wealth from all climes travels day by day To his rich realm, a hive of prosperous peace. No foeman's tramp scares monster-peopled Nile, Waking to war her far-off villages : No armed robber from his war-ship leaps To spoil the herds of Egypt. Such a prince Sits throned in her broad plains, in whose right arm Quivers the spear, the bright-haired Ptolemy. Like a true king, he guards with might and main The wealth his sires' arm won him and his own. Nor strown all idly o'er his sumptuous halls Lie piles that seem the work of labouring ants. The holy homes of gods are rich therewith ; Theirs are the firstfruits, earnest aye of more. And freely mighty kings thereof partake, Freely great cities, freely honoured friends. None entered e'er the sacred lists of song, Whose lips could breathe sweet music, but he gained Fair guerdon at the hand of Ptolemy. And Ptolemy do music's votaries hymn 376 THEOCRITUS [Io. XVII. For his good gifts hath man a fairer lot Than to have earned much fame among mankind ? The Atridse's name abides, while all the wealth Won from the sack of Priam's stately home A mist closed o'er it, to be seen no more. Ptolemy, he only, treads a path whose dust Burns with the footprints of his ancestors, And overlays those footprints with his own. He raised rich shrines to mother and to sire, There reared their forms in ivory and gold, Passing in beauty, to befriend mankind. Thighs of fat oxen oftentimes he burns On crimsoning altars, as the months roll on, Ay he and his staunch wife. No fairer bride E'er clasped her lord in royal palaces : And her heart's love her brother-husband won. In such blest union joined the immortal pair Whom queenly Rhea bore, and heaven obeys : One couch the maiden of the rainbow decks With myrrh-dipt hands for Hera and for Zeus. Now farewell, prince ! I rank thee aye with gods : And read this lesson to the afterdays, Mayhap they'll prize it : ' Honour is of Zeus.' IDYLL XVIII THE BRIDAL OF HELEN WHILOM, in Lacedaemon, Tript many a maiden fair To gold-tressed Menelaus' halls, With hyacinths in her hair : ID. XVIII.] THE BRIDAL OF HELEN 377 Twelve to the Painted Chamber, The queenliest in the land, The clustered loveliness of Greece, Came dancing hand in hand. For Helen, Tyndarus' daughter, Had just been wooed and won, Helen the darling of the world, By Atreus' younger son : With woven steps they beat the floor In unison, and sang Their bridal-hymn of triumph Till all the palace rang. " Slumberest so soon, sweet bridegroom ? Art thou o'erfond of sleep ? Or hast thou leadenweighted limbs ? Or hadst thou drunk too deep When thou didst fling thee to thy lair ? Betimes thou should'st have sped, If sleep were all thy purpose, Unto thy bachelor's bed : And left her in her mother's arms To nestle, and to play A girl among her girlish mates Till deep into the day : For not alone for this night, Nor for the next alone, But through the days and through the years Thou hast her for thine own. " Nay ! heaven, O happy bridegroom, Smiled as thou enteredst in THEOCRITUS [ID. XVIII. To Sparta, like thy brother kings, And told thee thou should'st win ! What hero son-in-law of Zeus Hath e'er aspired to be ? Yet lo ! one coverlet enfolds The child of Zeus, and thee. Ne'er did a thing so lovely Roam the Achaian lea. " And who shall match her offspring, If babes are like their mother ? For we were playmates once, and ran And raced with one another (All varnished, warrior fashion) Along Eurotas' tide, Thrice eighty gentle maidens, Each in her girlhood's pride : Yet none of all seemed faultless, If placed by Helen's side. " As peers the nascent Morning Over thy shades, O Night, When Winter disenchains the land, And Spring goes forth in white : So Helen shone above us, All loveliness and light. " As climbs aloft some cypress, Garden or glade to grace ; As the Thessalian courser lends A lustre to the race : So bright o'er Lacedasmon Shone Helen's rosebud face. ID. XVIII.] THE BRIDAL OF HELEN 379 " And who into the basket e'er The yarn so deftly drew, Or through the mazes of the web So well the shuttle threw, And severed from the framework As closelywov'n a warp : And who could wake with masterhand Such music from the harp, To broadlimbed Pallas tuning And Artemis her lay As Helen, Helen in whose eyes The Loves for ever play ? " O bright, O beautiful, for thee Are matron-cares begun. We to green paths and blossomed meads With dawn of morn must run, And cull a breathing chaplet ; And still our dream shall be, Helen, of thee, as weanling lambs Yearn in the pasture for the dams That nursed their infancy. " For thee the lowly lotus-bed We'll spoil, and plait a crown To hang upon the shadowy plane ; For thee will we drop down ('Neath that same shadowy platan) Oil from our silver urn ; And carven on the bark shall be This sentence, ' HALLOW HELEN'S TREE ' ; In Dorian letters, legibly For all men to discern. 3 8o THEOCRITUS [ID. XVIII. " Now farewell, bride, and bridegroom Blest in thy new-found sire ! May Leto, mother of the brave, Bring babes at your desire, And holy Cypris either's breast With mutual transport fire : And Zeus the son of Cronos Grant blessings without end, From princely sire to princely son For ever to descend. " Sleep on, and love and longing Breathe in each other's breast ; But fail not when the morn returns To rouse you from your rest : With dawn shall we be stirring, When, lifting high his fair And feathered neck, the earliest bird To clarion to the dawn is heard. O god of brides and bridals, Sing ' Happy, happy pair ! ' " IDYLL XIX LOVE STEALING HONEY ONCE thievish Love the honeyed hives would rob, When a bee stung him : soon he felt a throb Through all his finger-tips, and, wild with pain, Blew on his hands and stamped and jumped in vain. To Aphrodite then he told his woe : ' How can a thing so tiny hurt one so ? ' She smiled and said : ' Why, thou'rt a tiny thing, As is the bee; yet sorely thou canst sting.' ID. XX.] TOWN AND COUNTRY 381 IDYLL XX TOWN AND COUNTRY ONCE I would kiss Eunice. " Back," quoth she, And screamed and stormed ; " a sorry clown kiss me ? Your country compliments, I like not such ; No lips but gentles' would I deign to touch. Ne'er dream of kissing me : alike I shun Your face, your language, and your tigerish fun. How winning are your tones, how fine your air ! Your beard how silken and how sweet your hair ! Pah ! you've a sick man's lips, a blackamoor's hand : Your breath 's defilement. Leave me, I command." Thrice spat she on her robe, and, muttering low, Scanned me, with half-shut eyes, from top to toe : Brought all her woman's witcheries into play, Still smiling in a set sarcastic way, Till my blood boiled, my visage crimson grew With indignation, as a rose with dew : And so she left me, inly to repine That such as she could flout such charms as mine. O shepherds, tell me true ! Am I not fair ? Am I transformed ? For lately I did wear Grace as a garment ; and my cheeks, o'er them Ran the rich growth like ivy round the stem. Like fern my tresses o'er my temples streamed ; O'er my dark eyebrows, white my forehead gleamed : My eyes were of Athene's radiant blue, My mouth was milk, its accents honeydew. 382 THEOCRITUS [ID. XX. Then I could sing my tones were soft indeed ! To pipe or flute or flageolet or reed : And me did every maid that roams the fell Kiss and call fair : not so this city belle. She scorns the herdsman ; knows not how divine Bacchus ranged once the valleys with his kine ; How Cypris, maddened for a herdsman's sake, Deigned upon Phrygia's mountains to partake His cares : and wooed, and wept, Adonis in the brake. What was Endymion, sweet Selene's love ? A herdsman's lad. Yet came she from above, Down to green Latmos, by his side to sleep. And did not Rhea for a herdsman weep ? Didst not thou, Zeus, become a wandering bird, To win the love of one who drove a herd ? Selene, Cybele, Cypris, all loved swains : Eunice, loftier-bred, their kiss disdains. Henceforth, by hill or hall, thy love disown, Cypris, and sleep the livelong night alone. IDYLL XXI THE FISHERMEN Asphalion. A Comrade. WANT quickens wit : Want's pupils needs must work, O Diophantus : for the child of toil Is grudged his very sleep by carking cares : Or, if he taste the blessedness of night, Thought for the morrow soon warns slumber off. Two ancient fishers once lay side by side On piled-up sea-wrack in their wattled hut, ID. XXI.] THE FISHERMEN 383 Its leafy wall their curtain Near them lay The weapons of their trade, basket and rod, Hooks, weed-encumbered nets, and cords and oars, And, propped on rollers, an infirm old boat. Their pillow was a scanty mat, eked out With caps and garments : such the ways and means, Such the whole treasury of the fishermen. They knew no luxuries : owned nor door nor dog ; Their craft their all, their mistress Poverty : Their only neighbour Ocean, who for aye Round their lorn hut came floating lazily. Ere the moon's chariot was in mid-career, The fishers girt them for their customed toil, And banished slumber from unwilling eyes, And roused their dreamy intellects with speech : Asphalion. " They say that soon flit summer-nights away, Because all lingering is the summer day : Friend, it is false ; for dream on dream have I Dreamed, and the dawn still reddens not the sky. How ? am I wandering ? or does night pass slow ? " His Comrade. "Asphalion, scout not the sweet summer so. 'Tis not that wilful seasons have gone wrong, But care maims slumber, and the nights seem long. AspJialion. " Didst thou e'er study dreams ? For visions fair I saw last night ; and fairly thou should'st share The wealth I dream of, as the fish I catch. Now, for sheer sense, I reckon few thy match ; And, for a vision, he whose motherwit Is his sole tutor best interprets it. And now we've time the matter to discuss : For who could labour, lying here (like us) Pillowed on leaves and neighboured by the deep, 384 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXI. Or sleeping amid thorns no easy sleep ? In rich men's halls the lamps are burning yet ; But fish come alway to the rich man's net." Comrade. " To me the vision of the night relate ; Speak, and reveal the riddle to thy mate." Asphalion. " Last evening, as I plied my watery trade, (Not on an o'erfull stomach we had made Betimes a meagre meal, as you can vouch,) I fell asleep ; and lo ! I seemed to crouch Among the boulders, and for fish to wait, Still dangling, rod in hand, my vagrant bait. A fat fellow caught it : (e'en in sleep I'm bound To dream of fishing, as of crusts the hound :) Fast clung he to the hooks ; his blood outwelled ; Bent with his struggling was the rod I held : I tugged and tugged : my efforts made me ache : ' How, with a line thus slight, this monster take ? ' Then gently, just to warn him he was caught, I twitched him once ; then slacked and then made taut My line, for now he offered not to run ; A glance soon showed me all my task was done. 'Twas a gold fish, pure metal every inch That I had captured. I began to flinch : 1 What if this beauty be the sea-king's joy, Or azure Amphitrite's treasured toy ! ' With care I disengaged him not to rip With hasty hook the gilding from his lip : And with a tow-line landed him, and swore Never to set my foot on ocean more, But with my gold live royally ashore. So I awoke : and, comrade, lend me now Thy wits, for I am troubled for my vow." Comrade. "Ne'er quake : you're pledged to nothing, for no prize ID. XXII.] THE SONS OF LEDA 385 You gained or gazed on. Dreams are naught but lies. Yet may this dream bear fruit ; if, wide-awake And not in dreams, you'll fish the neighbouring lake. Fish that are meat you'll there mayhap behold, Not die of famine, amid dreams of gold." IDYLL XXII THE SONS OF LEDA r I "HE pair I sing, that ygis-armed Zeus JL Gave unto Leda; Castor and the dread Of bruisers Polydeuces, whensoe'er His harnessed hands were lifted for the fray. Twice and again I sing the manly sons Of Leda, those Twin Brethren, Sparta's own : Who shield the soldier on the deadly scarp, The horse wild-plunging o'er the crimson field, The ship that, disregarding in her pride Star-set and star-rise, meets disastrous gales : Such gales as pile the billows mountain-high, E'en at their own wild will, round stem or stern : Dash o'er the hold, the timbers rive in twain, Till mast and tackle dangle in mid-air Shivered like toys, and, as the night wears on, The rain of heaven falls fast, and, lashed by wind And iron hail, broad ocean rings again. Then can they draw from out the nether abyss Both craft and crew, each deeming he must die : Lo the winds cease, and o'er the burnished deep Comes stillness ; this way flee the clouds and that ; And shine out clear the Great Bear and the Less, CQ 3 86 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXII. And, 'twixt the Asses dimly seen, the Crib Foretells fair voyage to the mariner. O saviours, O companions of mankind, Matchless on horse or harp, in lists or lay ; Which of ye twain demands my earliest song ? Of both I sing ; of Polydeuces first. Argo, escaped the two inrushing rocks, And snow-clad Pontus with his baleful jaws, Came to Bebrycia with her heaven-sprung freight ; There by one ladder disembarked a host Of Heroes from the decks of Jason's ship. On the low beach, to leeward of the cliff, They leapt, and piled their beds, and lit their fires : Castor meanwhile, the bridler of the steed, And Polydeuces of the nut-brown face, Had wandered from their mates ; and, wildered both, Searched through the boskage of the hill, and found Hard by a slab of rock a bubbling spring Brimful of purest water. In the depths Below, like crystal or like silver gleamed The pebbles : high above it pine and plane And poplar rose, and cypress tipt with green ; With all rich flowers that throng the mead, when wanes The Spring, sweet workshops of the furry bee. There sat and sunned him one of giant bulk And grisly mien : hard knocks had stov'n his ears : Broad were his shoulders, vast his orbed chest : Like a wrought statue rose his iron frame : And nigh the shoulder on each brawny arm Stood out the muscles, huge as rolling stones Caught by some rain-swoln river and shapen smooth By its wild eddyings : and o'er nape and spine ID. XXIL] THE SONS OF LEDA 387 Hung, balanced by the claws, a lion's skin. Him Leda's conquering son accosted first : Polydcnces. Luck to thee, friend unknown ! Who own this shore ? Amycus. Luck, quotha, to see men ne'er seen before ! Polydeuces. Fear not, no base or base-born herd are we. Amycus. Nothing I fear, nor need learn this from thee. Polydeuces. What art thou ? brutish churl, or o'erproud king ? Amycus. E'en what thou see'st : and I am not trespassing. Polydeuces. Visit our land, take gifts from us, and go. Amycus. I seek naught from thee and can naught bestow. Polydeuces. Not e'en such grace as from yon spring to sip ? Amycus. Try, if parch 'd thirst sits languid on thy lip. Polydeuces. Can silver move thee ? or if not, what can ? Amycus. Stand up and fight me singly, man with man. Polydeuces. With fists ? or fist and foot, eye covering eye ? Amycus. Fall to with fists ; and all thy cunning try. Polydeuces. This arm, these gauntlets, who shall dare with- stand ? Amycus. I : and " the Bruiser " lifts no woman's-hand. Polydeuces. Wilt thou, to crown our strife, some meed assign ? Amyctts. Thou shall be called my master, or I thine. Polydeuces. By crimson-crested cocks such games are won. Amycus. Lions or cocks, we'll play this game or none. He spoke, and clutched a hollow shell, and blew His clarion. Straightway to the shadowy pine Clustering they came, as loud it pealed and long, Bebrycia's bearded sons ; and Castor too, The peerless in the lists, went forth and called From the Magnesian ship the Heroes all. Then either warrior armed with coils of hide 3 88 THEOCRITUS [Io. XXII. His hands, and round his limbs bound ponderous bands, And, breathing bloodshed, stept into the ring. First there was much manoeuvring, who should catch The sunlight on his rear : but thou didst foil, O Polydeuces, valour by address ; And full on Amycus' face the hot noon smote. He in hot wrath strode forward, threatening war ; Straightway the Tyndarid smote him, as he closed, Full on the chin : more furious waxed he still, And, earthward bent, dealt blindly random blows. Bebrycia shouted loud, the Greeks too cheered Their champion : fearing lest in that scant space This Tityus by sheer weight should bear him down. But, shifting yet still there, the son of Zeus Scored him with swift exchange of left and right, And checked the onrush of the sea-god's child Parlous albeit : till, reeling with his wounds, He stood, and from his lips spat crimson blood. Cheered yet again the princes, when they saw The lips and jowl all seamed with piteous scars, And the swoln visage and the half-closed eyes. Still the prince teased him, feinting here or there A thrust ; and when he saw him helpless all, Let drive beneath his eyelids at his nose, And laid it bare to the bone. The stricken man Measured his length supine amid the fern. Keen was the fighting when he rose again, Deadly the blows their sturdy gauntlets dealt. But while Bebrycia's chieftain sparred round chest And utmost shoulder, the resistless foe Made his whole face one mass of hideous wounds. While the one sweated all his bulk away, And, late a giant, seemed a pigmy now, ID. XXII.] THE SONS OF LEDA 389 The other's limbs waxed ever as he fought In semblance and in size. But in what wise The child of Zeus brought low that man of greed, Tell, Muse, for thine is knowledge : I unfold A secret not mine own : at thy behest Speak or am dumb, nor speak but as thou wilt. Amycus, athirst to do some doughty deed, Stooping aslant from Polydeuces' lunge Locked their left hands ; and, stepping out, upheaved From his right hip his ponderous other-arm. And hit and harmed had been Amyclse's king ; But, ducking low, he smote with one stout fist The foe's left temple fast the life-blood streamed From the grim rift and on his shoulder fell. While with his left he reached the mouth, and made The set teeth tingle ; and, redoubling aye His plashing blows, made havoc of his face And crashed into his cheeks, till all abroad He lay, and throwing up his arms disclaimed The strife, for he was even at death's door. No wrong the vanquished suffered at thy hands, O Polydeuces ; but he sware an oath, Calling his sire Poseidon from the depths, Ne'er to do violence to a stranger more. Thy tale, O prince, is told. Now sing I thee, Castor the Tyndarid, lord of rushing horse And shaking javelin, corsleted in brass. PART II The sons of Zeus had borne two maids away, Leucippus' daughters. Straight in hot pursuit 390 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXII. Went the two brethren, sons of Aphareus, Lynceus and Idas bold, their plighted lords. And when the tomb of Aphareus was gained, All leapt from out their cars, and front to front Stood, with their ponderous spears and orbed shields. First Lynceus shouted loud from 'neath his helm : " Whence, sirs, this lust for strife ? Why, sword in hand, Raise ye this coil about your neighbours' wives ? To us Leucippus these his daughters gave, Long ere ye saw them : they are ours on oath. Ye, coveting (to your shame) your neighbour's bed And kine and asses and whate'er is his, Suborned the man and stole our wives by bribes. How often spake I thus before your face, Yea I myself, though scant I am of phrase : ' Not thus, fair sirs, do honourable men Seek to woo wives whose troth is given elsewhere. Lo, broad is Sparta, broad the hunting-grounds Of Elis : fleecy Arcady is broad, And Argos and Messene and the towns To westward, and the long Sisyphian reach. There 'neath her parents' roof dwells many a maid Second to none in godliness or wit : Wed of all these, and welcome, whom ye will, For all men court the kinship of the brave ; And ye are as your sires, and they whose blood Runs in your mother's veins, the flower of war. Nay, sirs, but let us bring this thing to pass ; Then, taking counsel, choose meet brides for you.' So I ran on ; but o'er the shifting seas The wind's breath blew my words, that found no grace With you, for ye defied the charmer's voice. ID. XXII.] THE SONS OF LEDA 391 Yet listen to me now if ne'er before : Lo ! we are kinsmen by the father's side. But if ye lust for war, if strife must break Forth among kin, and bloodshed quench our feud, Bold Polydeuces then shall hold his hands And his cousin Idas from the abhorred fray : While I and Castor, the two younger-born, Try war's arbitrement ; so spare our sires Sorrow exceeding. In one house one dead Sufficeth : let the others glad their mates, To the bride-chamber passing, not the grave, And o'er yon maids sing jubilee. Well it were At cost so small to lay so huge a strife." He spoke his words heaven gave not to the winds. They, the two first-born, disarrayed and piled Their arms, while Lynceus stept into the ring, And at his shield's rim shook his stalwart spear. And Castor likewise poised his quivering lance ; High waved the plume on either warrior's helm. First each at other thrust with busy spear Where'er he spied an inch of flesh exposed : But lo ! both spearpoints in their wicker shields Lodged ere a blow was struck, and snapt in twain. Then they unsheathed their swords, and framed new modes Of slaughter : pause or respite there was none. Oft Castor on broad shield and plumed helm Lit, and oft keen- eyed Lynceus pierced his shield, Or grazed his crest of crimson. But anon, As Lynceus aimed his blade at Castor's knee, Back with the left sprang Castor and stiuck off His fingers : from the maimed limb dropped the sword. And, flying straightway, for his father's tomb 392 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXII. He made, where gallant Idas sat and saw The battle of the brethren. But the child Of Zeus rushed in, and with his broadsword drave Through flank and navel, sundering with swift stroke His vitals : Lynceus tottered and he fell, And o'er his eyelids rushed the dreamless sleep. Nor did their mother see her elder son Come a fair bridegroom to his Cretan home. For Idas wrenched from off the dead man's tomb A jutting slab, to hurl it at the man Who had slain his brother. Then did Zeus bring aid, And struck the marble fabric from his grasp, And with red lightning burned his frame to dust. So doth he fight with odds who dares provoke The Tyndarids, mighty sons of mighty sire. Now farewell, Leda's children : prosper aye The songs I sing. What minstrel loves not well The Tyndarids, and Helen, and the chiefs That trod Troy down for Menelaus' sake ? The bard of Chios wrought your royal deeds Into his lays, who sang of Priam's state, And fights 'neath Ilion's walls ; of sailor Greeks, And of Achilles towering in the strife. Yet take from me whate'er of clear sweet song The Muse accords me, even all my store ! The gods' most precious gift is minstrelsy. ID. XXIIL] LOVE AVENGED 393 IDYLL XXIII LOVE AVENGED A LAD deep-dipt in passion pined for one Whose mood was froward as her face was fair. Lovers she loathed, for tenderness she had none : Ne'er knew what Love was like, nor how he bare A bow, and arrows to make young maids smart : Proof to all speech, all access, seemed her heart. So he found naught his furnace to allay ; No quiver of lips, no lighting of kind eyes, Nor rose-flushed cheek ; no talk, no lover's play Was deigned him : but as forest-beasts are shy Of hound and hunter, with this wight dealt she ; Fierce was her lip, her eyes gleamed ominously. Her tyrant's-heart was imaged in her face, That flushed, then altering put on blank disdain. Yet, even then, her anger had its grace, And made her lover fall in love again. At last, unable to endure his flame, To the fell threshold all in tears he came : Kissed it, and lifted up his voice and said : " O heart of stone, O curst and cruel maid Unworthy of all love, by lions bred, See, my last offering at thy feet is laid, The halter that shall hang me ! So no more For my sake, lady, need thy heart be sore. 394 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXIII. " Whither thou doom'st me, thither must I fare. There is a path, that whoso treads hath ease (Men say) from love ; Forgetfulness is there. But if I drain that chalice to the lees, I may not quench the love I have for you ; Now at your gates I cast my long adieu. "Your future I foresee. The rose is gay, And passing-sweet the violet of the spring : Yet time despoils them, and they soon decay. The lily droops and dies, that lustrous thing ; The solid-seeming snowdrift melts full fast; And maiden's bloom is rare, but may not last. " The time shall come, when you shall feel as I ; And, with seared heart, weep many a bitter tear. But, maiden, grant one farewell courtesy. When you come forth, and see me hanging here, E'en at your door, forget not my hard case ; But pause and weep me for a moment's space. " And drop one tear, and cut me down, and spread O'er me some garment, for a funeral pall, That wrapped thy limbs : and kiss me let the dead Be privileged thus highly last of all. You need not fear me : not if your disdain Changed into fondness could I live again. " And scoop a grave, to hide my loves and me : And thrice, at parting, say, ' My friend 's no more : ' Add if you list, 'a faithful friend was he ;' And write this epitaph, scratched upon your door : Stranger, Love slew him. Pass not by, until Thou hast paused and said, ' His mistress used him ill' " ID. XXIV.] THE INFANT HERACLES 395 This said, he grasped a stone : that ghastly stone At the mid threshold 'neath the wall he laid, And o'er the beam the light cord soon was thrown, And his neck noosed. In air the body swayed, Its footstool spurned away. Forth came once more The maid, and saw him hanging at her door. No struggle of heart it cost her, ne'er a tear She wept o'er that young life, nor shunned to soil, By contact with the corpse, her woman 's-gear. But on she went to watch the athletes' toil, Then made for her loved haunt, the riverside : And there she met the god she had defied. For on a marble pedestal Eros stood Fronting the pool : the statue leaped, and smote And slew that miscreant. All the stream ran blood ; And to the top a girl's cry seemed to float. Rejoice, O lovers, since the scorner fell ; And, maids, be kind ; for Love deals justice well. IDYLL XXIV THE INFANT HERACLES A LCMENA once had washed and given the breast J~\. To Heracles, a babe of ten months old, And Iphicles his junior by a night ; And cradled both within a brazen shield, A gorgeous trophy, which Amphitryon erst Had stript from Pterelaus fall'n in fight. She stroked their baby brows, and thus she said : " Sleep, children mine, a light luxurious sleep, 396 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXIV. Brother with brother : sleep, my boys, my life : Blest in your slumber, in your waking blest ! " She spake and rocked the shield ; and in his arms Sleep took them. But at midnight, when the Bear Wheels to his setting, in Orion's front Whose shoulder then beams broadest ; Hera sent, Mistress of wiles, two huge and hideous things, Snakes with their scales of azure all on end, To the broad portal of the chamber-door, All to devour the infant Heracles. They, all their length uncoiled upon the floor, Writhed on to their blood-feast ; a baleful light Gleamed in their eyes, rank venom they spat forth. But when with lambent tongues they neared the cot, Alcmena's babes (for Zeus was watching all) Woke, and throughout the chamber there was light. Then Iphicles so soon as he descried The fell brutes peering o'er the hollow shield, And saw their merciless fangs cried lustily, And kicked away his coverlet of down, Fain to escape. But Heracles, he clung Round them with warlike hands, in iron grasp Prisoning the two : his clutch upon their throat, The deadly snake's laboratory, where He brews such poisons as e'en heaven abhors. They twined and twisted round the babe that, born After long travail, ne'er had shed a tear E'en in his nursery ; soon to quit their hold, For powerless seemed their spines. Alcmena heard, While her lord slept, the crying, and awoke. " Amphitryon, up : chill fears take hold on me. ID. XXIV.] THE INFANT HERACLES 397 Up : stay not to put sandals on thy feet. Hear'st thou our child, our younger, how he cries ? Seest thou yon walls illumed at dead of night, But not by morn's pure beam ? I know, I know, Sweet lord, that some strange thing is happening here." She spake ; and he, upleaping at her call, . Made swiftly for the sword of quaint device That aye hung dangling o'er his cedarn couch : And he was reaching at his span-new belt, The scabbard (one huge piece of lotus-wood) Poised on his arm ; when suddenly the night Spread out her hands, and all was dark again. Then cried he to his slaves, whose sleep was deep : " Quick, slaves of mine ; fetch fire from yonder hearth : And force with all your strength the doorbolts back ! Up, loyal-hearted slaves : the master calls." Forth came at once the slaves with lighted lamps. The house was all astir with hurrying feet. But when they saw the suckling Heracles With the two brutes grasped firm in his soft hands, They shouted with one voice. But he must show The reptiles to Amphitryon ; held aloft His hands in childish glee, and laughed and laid At his sire's feet the monsters still in death. Then did Alcmena to her bosom take The terror-blanched and passionate Iphicles : Cradling the other in a lambswool quilt, Her lord once more bethought him of his rest. Now cocks had thrice sung out that night was o'er. Then went Alcmena forth and told the thing To Teiresias the seer, whose words were truth, 398 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXIV. And bade him rede her what the end should be : " And if the gods bode mischief, hide if not, Pitying, from me : man shall not thus avoid The doom that Fate upon her distaff spins. Son of Eueres, thou hast ears to hear." Thus spake the queen, and thus he made reply : " Mother of monarchs, Perseus' child, take heart ; And look but on the fairer side of things. For by the precious light that long ago Left tenantless these eyes, I swear that oft Achaia's maidens, as when eve is high They mould the silken yarn upon their lap, Shall tell Alcmena's story : blest art thou Of women. Such a man in this thy son Shall one day scale the star-encumbered heaven : His amplitude of chest bespeaks him lord Of all the forest beasts and all mankind. Twelve tasks accomplished he must dwell with Zeus ; His flesh given over to Trachinian fires ; And son-in-law be hailed of those same gods Who sent yon skulking brutes to slay thy babe. Lo ! the day cometh when the fawn shall couch In the wolf's lair, nor fear the spiky teeth That would not harm him. But, O lady, keep Yon smouldering fire alive ; prepare you piles Of fuel, bramble-sprays or fern or furze Or pear-boughs dried with swinging in the wind : And let the kindled wild-wood burn those snakes At midnight, when they looked to slay thy babe. And let at dawn some handmaid gather up The ashes of the fire, and diligently Convey and cast each remnant o'er the stream ID. XXIV.] THE INFANT HERACLES 399 Faced by clov'n rocks, our boundary : then return Nor look behind. And purify your home First with sheer sulphur, rain upon it then, (Chaplets of olive wound about your heads,) Innocuous water, and the customed salt. Lastly, to Zeus almighty slay a boar : So shall ye vanquish all your enemies." Spake Teiresias, and wheeling (though his years Weighed on him sorely) gained his ivory car. And Heracles as some young orchard-tree Grew up, Amphitryon his reputed sire. Old Linus taught him letters, Phoebus' child, A dauntless toiler by the midnight lamp. Each fall whereby the sons of Argos fell, The flingers by cross-buttock, each his man By feats of wrestling : all that boxers e'er, Grim in their gauntlets, have devised, or they Who wage mixed warfare and, adepts in art, Upon the foe fall headlong : all such lore Phocian Harpalicus gave him, Hermes' son : Whom no man might behold while yet far off And wait his armed onset undismayed : A brow so truculent roofed so stern a face. To launch, and steer in safety round the goal, Chariot and steed, and damage ne'er a wheel, This the lad learned of fond Amphitryon's self. Many a fair prize from listed warriors he Had won on Argive racegrounds ; yet the car Whereon he sat came still unshattered home, What gaps were in his harness time had made. Then with couched lance to reach the foe, his targe Covering his rear, and bide the biting sword ; 400 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXIV. Or, on the warpath, place his ambuscade, Marshal his lines and rally his cavaliers ; This knightly Castor learned him, erst exiled From Argos, when her realms with all their wealth Of vineyards fell to Tydeus, who received Her and her chariots at Adrastus' hand. Amongst the Heroes none was Castor's match Till age had dimmed the glory of his youth. Such tutors this fond mother gave her son. The stripling's bed was at his father's side, One after his own heart, a lion's skin. His dinner, roast meat, with a loaf that filled A Dorian basket, you might soothly say Had satisfied a delver ; and to close The day he took, sans fire, a scanty meal. A simple frock went halfway down his leg : IDYLL XXV HERACLES THE LION SLAYER ***** TO whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd, Pausing a moment from his handiwork : " Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear The angry looks of Hermes of the roads. No dweller in the skies is wroth as he, With him who saith the asking traveller nay. " The flocks Augdas owns, our gracious lord, One pasture pastures not, nor one fence bounds. They wander, look you, some by Elissus' banks ID. XXV.] HERACLES THE LION SLAYER 401 Or god-beloved Alphas' sacred stream, Some by Buprasion, where the grape abounds, Some here : their folds stand separate. But before His herds, though they be myriad, yonder glades That belt the broad lake round lie fresh and fair For ever : for the low-lying meadows take The dew, and teem with herbage honeysweet, To lend new vigour to the horned kine. Here on thy right their stalls thou canst descry By the flowing river, for all eyes to see : Here, where the platans blossom all the year, And glimmers green the olive that enshrines Rural Apollo, most august of gods. Hard by, fair mansions have been reared for us His herdsmen ; us who guard with might and main His riches that are more than tongue may tell : Casting our seed o'er fallows thrice upturn'd Or four times by the share ; the bounds whereof Well do the delvers know, whose busy feet Troop to his wine-vats in fair summer-time. Yea, all these acres wise Augeas owns, These corn-clad uplands and these orchards green, Far as yon ledges whence the cataracts leap. Here do we haunt, here toil, as is the wont Of labourers in the fields, the livelong day. But prythee tell me thou so shalt thou best Serve thine own interests wherefore art thou here ? Seeking Augeas, or mayhap some slave That serves him ? I can tell thee and I will All thou would'st know : for of no churlish blood Thou earnest, nor wert nurtured as a churl : That read I in thy stateliness of form ; The sons of heaven move thus among mankind." 402 THEOCRITUS [!D. XXV. Then answered him the warrior son of Zeus. " Yea, veteran, I would see the Epean King Auge"as ; surely for this end I came. If he bides there amongst his citizens, Ruling the folk, determining the laws, Look, father ; bid some serf to be my guide, Some honoured master-worker in the fields, Who to shrewd questions shrewdly can reply. Are not we made dependent each on each ? " To him the good old swain made answer thus : " Stranger, some god hath timed thy visit here, And given thee straightway all thy heart's desire. Hither Augeas, offspring of the Sun, Came, with young Phyleus splendid in his strength, But yesterday from the city, to review (Not in one day) his multitudinous wealth, Methinks e'en princes say within themselves, ' The safeguard of the flock 's the master's eye.' But haste, we'll seek him : to my own fold I Will pilot thee ; there haply find the King." He said and went in front : but pondered much (As he surveyed the lion-skin and the club, Itself an armful) whence this stranger came ; And fain had asked. But fear recalled the words That trembled on his lip, the fear to say Aught that his fiery friend might take amiss, For who can fathom all his fellow's mind ? The dogs perceived their coming, yet far off: They scented flesh, they heard the thud of feet : And with wild gallop, baying furiously, Ran at Amphitryon's son : but feebly whined ID. XXV.] HERACLES THE LION SLAYER 403 And fawned upon the old man at his side. Then Heracles, just lifting from the ground A pebble, scared them home, and with hard words Cursed the whole pack ; and having stopped their din (Inly rejoiced, nathless, to see them guard So well an absent master's house) he spake : " Lo ! what a friend the royal gods have given Man in the dog ! A trusty servant he ! Had he withal an understanding heart, To teach him when to rage and when forbear, What brute could claim like praise ? But, lacking wit, Tis but a passionate random-raving thing." He spake : the dogs ran scurrying to their lairs. And now the sun wheeled round his westering car And led still evening on : from every field Came thronging the fat flocks to bield and byre. Then in their thousands, drove on drove, the kine Came into view ; as rainclouds, onward driven By stress of gales, the west or mighty north, Come up o'er all the heaven ; and none may count And naught may stay them as they sweep through air ; Such multitudes the storm's strength drives ahead, Such multitudes climb surging in the rear So in swift sequence drove succeeded drove, And all the champaign, all the highways swarmed With tramping oxen ; all the sumptuous leas Rang with their lowing. Soon enough the stalls Were populous with the laggard-footed kine, Soon did the sheep lie folded in their folds. Then of that legion none stood idle, none Gaped listless at the herd, with naught to do : 404 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXV. But one drew near and milked them, binding clogs Of wood with leathern thongs around their feet : One brought, all hungering for the milk they loved, The longing young ones to the longing dams. One held the pail, one pressed the dainty cheese, Or drove the bulls home, sundered from the kine. Pacing from stall to stall, Augeas saw What revenue his herdsman brought him in. With him his son surveyed the royal wealth, And, strong of limb and purpose, Heracles. Then, though the heart within him was as steel, Framed to withstand all shocks, Amphitryon's son Gazed in amazement on those thronging kine ; For none had deemed or dreamed that one, or ten, Whose wealth was more than regal, owned those tribes : Such huge largess the Sun had given his child, First of mankind for multitude of flocks. The Sun himself gave increase day by day To his child's herds : whate'er diseases spoil The farmer, came not there ; his kine increased In multitude and value year by year : None cast her young, or bear unfruitful males. Three hundred bulls, white-pasterned, crumple-horned, Ranged amid these, and eke two hundred roans, Sires of a race to be : and twelve besides Herded amongst them, sacred to the Sun. Their skin was white as swansdown, and they moved Like kings amid the beasts of laggard foot. Scorning the herd in uttermost disdain They cropped the green grass in untrodden fields : And when from the dense jungle to the plain Leapt a wild beast, in quest of vagrant cows ; Scenting him first, the twelve went forth to war. ID. XXV.] HERACLES THE LION SLAYER 405 Stern was their bellowing, in their eye sat death, Foremost of all for mettle and for might And pride of heart loomed Phaeton : him the swains Regarded as a star ; so bright he shone Among the herd, the cynosure of eyes. He, soon as he descried the sun-dried skin Of the grim lion, made at Heracles (Whose eye was on him) fain to make his crest And sturdy brow acquainted with his flanks. Straight the prince grasped him with no tender grasp By the left horn, and bowed that giant bulk To earth, neck foremost : then, by pressure brought To bear upon his shoulder, forced him back. The web of muscles that enwraps the nerves Stood out from the brute's fore-arm plain to see. Marvelled the King, and Phyleus his brave son, At the strange prowess of Amphitryon's child. Then townwards, leaving straight that rich champaign. Stout Heracles his comrade, Phyleus fared ; And soon as they had gained the paven road, Making their way hotfooted o'er a path (Not o'er-conspicuous in the dim green wood) That left the farm and threaded through the vines, Out-spake unto the child of Zeus most high, Who followed in his steps, Augeas' son, O'er his right shoulder glancing pleasantly. " O stranger, as some old familiar tale I seem to cast thy history in my mind. For there came one to Argos, young and tall, By birth a Greek from Helice-on-seas, Who told this tale before a multitude : 406 THEOCRITUS [!D. XXV. How that an Argive in his presence slew A fearful lion-beast, the dread and death Of herdsmen ; which inhabited a den Or cavern by the grove of Nemean Zeus. He may have come from sacred Argos' self, Or Tiryns, or Mycenae : what know I ? But thus he told his tale, and said the slayer Was (if my memory serves me) Perseus' son. Methinks no islander had dared that deed Save thee : the lion's skin that wraps thy ribs Argues full well some gallant feat of arms. But tell me, warrior, first that I may know If my prophetic soul speak truth or not Art thou the man of whom that stranger Greek Spoke in my hearing ? Have I guessed aright ? How slew you single-handed that fell beast ? How came it among rivered Nemea's glens ? For none such monster could the eagerest eye Find in all Greece : Greece harbours bear and boar, And deadly wolf: but not this larger game. Twas this that made his listeners marvel then : They deemed he told them travellers' tales, to win By random words applause from standers-by." Then Phyleus from the mid-road edged away, That both might walk abreast, and he might catch More at his ease what fell from Heracles : Who journeying now alongside thus began : " On the prior matter, O Augeas' child, Thine own unaided wit hath ruled aright. But all that monster's history, how it fell, Fain would I tell thee who hast ears to hear, ID. XXV.] HERACLES THE LION SLAYER 407 Save only whence it came : for none of all The Argive host could read that riddle right. Some god, we dimly guessed, our niggard vows Resenting, had upon Phoroneus' realm Let loose this very scourge of humankind. On peopled Pisa plunging like a flood The brute ran riot : notably it cost Its neighbours of Bembina woes untold. And here Eurystheus bade me try my first Passage of arms, and slay that fearsome thing. So with my buxom bow and quiver lined With arrows I set forth : my left hand held My club, a beetling olive's stalwart trunk And shapely, still environed in its bark : This hand had torn from holiest Helicon The tree entire, with all its fibrous roots. And finding soon the lion's whereabouts, I grasped my bow, and on the bent horn slipped The string, and laid thereon the shaft of death. And, now all eyes, I watched for that fell thing, In hopes to view him ere he spied out me. But midday came, and nowhere could I see One footprint of the beast or hear his roar : And, trust me, none appeared of whom to ask, Herdsman or labourer, in the furrowed lea ; For wan dismay kept each man in his hut. Still on I footed, searching through and through The leafy mountain-passes, till I saw The creature, and forthwith essayed my strength. Gorged from some gory carcass, on he stalked At eve towards his lair ; his grizzled mane, Shoulders, and grim glad visage, all adrip With carnage ; and he licked his bearded lips. 4 o8 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXV I, crouched among the shadows of the trees On the green hill-top, waited his approach, And as he came I aimed at his left flank. The barbed shaft sped idly, nor could pierce The flesh, but glancing dropped on the green grass. He, wondering, raised forthwith his tawny head, And ran his eyes o'er all the vicinage, And snarled and gave to view his cavernous throat. Meanwhile I levelled yet another shaft, 111 pleased to think my first had fled in vain. In the mid-chest I smote him, where the lungs Are seated : still the arrow sank not in, But fell, its errand frustrate, at his feet. Once more was I preparing, sore chagrined, To draw the bowstring, when the ravenous beast Glaring around espied me, lashed his sides With his huge tail, and opened war at once. Swelled his vast neck, his dun locks stood on end With rage : his spine moved sinuous as a bow, Till all his weight hung poised on flank and loin. And e'en as, when a chariot-builder bends With practised skill his shafts of splintered fig, Hot from the fire, to be his axle-wheels ; Flies the tough-rinded sapling from the hands That shape it, at a bound recoiling far : So from far-off the dread beast, all of a heap, Sprang on me, hungering for my life-blood. I Thrust with one hand my arrows in his face And my doffed doublet, while the other raised My seasoned cudgel o'er his crest, and drave Full at his temples, breaking clean in twain On the fourfooted warrior's hairy scalp My club ; and ere he reached me, down he fell. ID. XXVI.] THE BACCHANALS 409 Headlong he fell, and poised on tremulous feet Stood, his head wagging, and his eyes grown dim ; For the shrewd stroke had shattered brain and bone. I, marking him beside himself with pain, Fell, ere recovering he should breathe again, At vantage on his solid sinewy neck, My bow and woven quiver thrown aside. With iron clasp I gripped him from the rear (His talons else had torn me) and, my foot Set on him, forced to earth by dint of heel His hinder parts, my flanks intrenched the while Behind his fore-arm ; till his thews were stretched And strained, and on his haunches stark he stood And lifeless ; hell received his monstrous ghost. Then with myself I counselled how to strip From off the dead beast's limbs his shaggy hide, A task full onerous, since I found it proof Against all blows of steel or stone or wood. Some god at last inspired me with the thought, With his own claws to rend the lion's skin. With these I flayed him soon, and sheathed and armed My limbs against the shocks of murderous war. Thus, sir, the Nemean lion met his end, Erewhile the constant curse of beast and man." IDYLL XXVI THE BACCHANALS AGAVE of the vermeil-tinted cheek And Ino and Autonoa marshalled erst Three bands of revellers under one hill-peak. They plucked the wild-oak's matted foliage first, 4 io THEOCRITUS [ID. XXVI. Lush ivy then, and creeping asphodel ; And reared therewith twelve shrines amid the untrodden fell : To Semele three, to Dionysus nine. Next, from a vase drew offerings subtly wrought, And prayed and placed them on each fresh green shrine ; So by the god, who loved such tribute, taught. Perched on the sheer cliff, Pentheus could espy All, in a mastick hoar ensconced that grew thereby. Autonoa marked him, and with frightful cries Flew to make havoc of those mysteries weird That must not be profaned by vulgar eyes. Her frenzy frenzied all. Then Pentheus feared And fled : and in his wake those damsels three, Each with her trailing robe up-gathered to the knee. " What will ye, dames?" quoth Pentheus. " Thou shalt guess At what we mean, untold," Autonoa said. Agave moaned so moans a lioness Over her young one as she clutched his head : While Ino on the carcass fairly laid Her heel, and wrenched away shoulder and shoulder-blade. Autonoa's turn came next : and what remained Of flesh their damsels did among them share, And back to Thebes they came all carnage-stained, And planted not a king but aching there. Warned by this tale, let no man dare defy Great Bacchus ; lest a death more awful he should die, And when he counts nine years or scarcely ten, Rush to his ruin. May I pass my days Uprightly, and be loved of upright men ! And take this motto, all who covet praise : ID. XXVII.] A COUNTRYMAN'S WOOING 411 (Twas ^Egis-bearing Zeus that spake it first :) " The godly seed fares well : the wicked's is accurst." Now bless ye Bacchus, whom on mountain snows, Prisoned in his thigh till then, the Almighty laid. And bless ye fairfaced Semele, and those Her sisters, hymned of many a hero-maid, Who wrought, by Bacchus fired, a deed which none May gainsay who shall blame that which a god hath done? IDYLL XXVII A COUNTRYMAN'S WOOING Daphnis. A Maiden. The Maiden. HOW fell sage Helen ? through a swain like thee. Daphnis. Nay the true Helen 's just now kissing me. The Maiden. Satyr, ne'er boast : " what 's idler than a kiss ? " Daphnis. Yet in such pleasant idling there is bliss. The Maiden. I'll wash my mouth : where go thy kisses then ? Daphnis. Wash, and return it to be kissed again. The Maiden. Go kiss your oxen, and not unwed maids. Daphnis. Ne'er boast ; for beauty is a dream that fades. The Maiden. Past grapes are grapes : dead roses keep their smell. Daphnis. Come to yon olives : I have a tale to tell. The Maiden. Not I : you fooled me with smooth words before. Daphnis. Come to yon elms, and hear me pipe once more. The Maiden. Pipe to yourself: your piping makes me cry. Daphnis. A maid, and flout the Paphian ? Fie, oh fie I 4 i2 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXVII. The Maiden. She 's naught to me, if Artemis' favour last. Daphnis* Hush, ere she smite you and entrap you fast. The Maiden. And let her smite me, trap me as she will ! Daphnis. Your Artemis shall be your saviour still ? TJie Maiden. Unhand me ! What, again ? I'll tear your lip. Daphnis. Can you, could damsel e'er, give Love the slip ? The Maiden. You are his bondslave, but not I, by Pan ! Daphnis. I doubt he'll give thee to a worser man. The Maiden. Many have wooed me, but I fancied none. Daphnis. Till among many came the destined one. TJie Maiden. Wedlock is woe. Dear lad, what can I do ? Daphnis. Woe it is not, but joy and dancing too. The Maiden. Wives dread their husbands : so I've heard it said. Daphnis. Nay, they rule o'er them. What does woman dread ? The Maiden. Then children Eileithya's dart is keen. Daphnis. But the deliverer, Artemis, is your queen. The Maiden. And bearing children all our grace destroys Daphnis. Bear them and shine more lustrous in your boys. The Maiden. Should I say yea, what dower awaits me then? Daphnis. Thine are my cattle, thine this glade and glen. The Maiden. Swear not to wed, then leave me in my woe ? Daphnis. Not I, by Pan, though thou should'st bid me go. The Maiden. And shall a cot be mine, with farm and fold ? Daphnis. Thy cot 's half-built, fair wethers range this wold. The Maiden. What, what to my old father must I say ? Daphnis. Soon as he hears my name he'll not say nay. Tlie -Maiden. Speak it : by e'en a name we're oft beguiled. Daphnis. I'm Daphnis, Lycid's and Nomgea's child. The Maiden. Well-born indeed : and not less so am I. Daphnis. I know Menalcas' daughter may look high. ID. XXVII.] A COUNTRYMAN'S WOOING 413 T/ie Maiden. That grove, where stands your sheepfold, show me, please. Daphnis. Nay look, how green, how tall my cypress-trees. The Maiden. Graze, goats : I go to learn the herdsman's trade. Daphnis. Feed, bulls : I show my copses to my maid. T/ie Maiden. Satyr, what mean you ? You presume o'ermuch. Daphnis. This waist is round, and pleasant to the touch. The Maiden. By Pan, I'm like to swoon ! Unhand me pray ! Daphnis. Why be so timorous ? Pretty coward, stay. T/ie Maiden. This bank is wet : you've soiled my pretty gown. Daphnis. See, a soft fleece to guard it I put down. The Maiden. And you've purloined my sash. What can this mean ? Daphnis. This sash I'll offer to the Paphian queen. The Maiden. Stay, miscreant some one comes I heard a noise. Daphnis. 'Tis but the green trees whispering of our joys. The Maiden. You've torn my plaidie, and I am half unclad. Daphnis. Anon I'll give you a yet ampler plaid. The Maiden. Generous just now, you'll one day grudge me bread. Daphnis. Ah ! for thy sake my life-blood I could shed. The Maiden. Artemis, forgive ! Thy eremite breaks her vow. Daphnis. Love, and Love's mother, claim a calf and cow. The Maiden. A woman I depart, my girlhood o'er. Daphnis. Be wife, be mother ; but a girl no more. Thus interchanging whispered talk the pair, Their faces all aglow, long lingered there. At length the hour arrived when they must part. With downcast eyes, but sunshine in her heart, She went to tend her flock ; while Daphnis ran Back to his herded bulls, a happy man. 4H THEOCRITUS [ID. XXVIII. IDYLL XXVIII THE DISTAFF DISTAFF, blithely whirling distaff, azure-eyed Athena's gift To the sex the aim and object of whose lives is house- hold thrift, Seek with me the gorgeous city raised by Neilus, where a plain Roof of palm-green rush o'er-arches Aphrodite's hallowed fane. Thither ask I Zeus to waft me, fain to see my old friend's face, Nicias, o'er whose birth presided every passion-breath ing Grace; Fain to meet his answering welcome ; and anon deposit thee In his lady's hands, thou marvel of laborious ivory. Manya manly robe ye'll fashion, much translucent maiden's gear; Nay, should e'er the fleecy mothers twice within the selfsame year Yield their wool in yonder pasture, Theugenis of the dainty feet Would perform the double labour : matron's cares to her are sweet. To an idler or a trifler I had verily been loth To resign thee, O my distaff, for the same land bred us both : In the land Corinthian Archias built aforetime, thou hadst birth, In our island's core and marrow, whence have sprung the kings of earth : To the home I now transfer thee of a man who knows full well Every craft whereby men's bodies dire diseases may repel : There to live in sweet Miletus. Lady of the Distaff she Shall be named, and oft reminded of her poet-friend by thee : Men shall look on thee and murmur to each other, " Lo ! how small Was the gift, and yet how precious ! Friendship's gifts are price- less all" ID. XXIX.] LOVES IDYLL XXIX LOVES "QINCERITY comes with the wine-cup," my dear: O Then now o'er our wine-cups let us be sincere. My soul's treasured secret to you I'll impart ; It is this ; that I never won fairly your heart. One half of my life, I am conscious, has flown ; The residue lives on your image alone. You are kind, and I dream I'm in paradise then ; You are angry, and lo ! all is darkness again. It is right to torment one who loves you ? Obey Your elder ; 'twere best ; and you'll thank me one day. Settle down in one nest on one tree (taking care That no cruel reptile can clamber up there) ; As it is with your lovers you're fairly perplext ; One day you choose one bough, another the next. Whoe'er at all struck by your graces appears, Is more to you straight than the comrade of years ; While he 's like the friend of a day put aside ; For the breath of your nostrils, I think, is your pride. Form a friendship, for life, with some likely young lad ; So doing, in honour your name shall be had. Nor would Love use you hardly ; though lightly can he Bind strong men in chains, and as wrought upon me Till the steel is as wax but I'm longing to press That exquisite mouth with a clinging caress. No ? Reflect that you're older each year than the last ; That we all must grow gray, and the wrinkles come fast. Reflect, ere you spurn me, that youth at his sides 415 416 THEOCRITUS [ID. XXIX. Wears wings ; and once gone, all pursuit he derides : Nor are men over keen to catch charms as they fly. Think of this and be gentle, be loving as I : When your years are maturer, we two shall be then The pair in the Iliad over again. But if you consign all my words to the wind And say, " Why annoy me ? you're not to my mind," I who lately in quest of the Gold Fruit had sped For your sake, or of Cerberus guard of the dead Though you called me, would ne'er stir a foot from my door, For my love and my sorrow thenceforth will be o'er. IDYLL XXX THE DEATH OF ADONIS /^YTHERA saw Adonis \_s And knew that he was dead ; She marked the brow, all grisly now, The cheek no longer red ; And "Bring the boar before me" Unto her Loves she said. Forthwith her winged attendants Ranged all the woodland o'er, And found and bound in fetters Threefold the grisly boar : One dragged him at a rope's end E'en as a vanquished foe ; One went behind and drave him And smote him with his bow : ID. XXX.] THE DEATH OF ADONIS On paced the creature feebly ; He feared Cythera so. To him said Aphrodite : "So, worst of beasts, 'twas you Who rent that thigh asunder, Who him that loved me slew ? " And thus the beast made answer : " Cythera, hear me swear By thee, by him that loved thee, And by these bonds I wear, And them before whose hounds I ran I meant no mischief to the man Who seemed to thee so fair. " As on a carven statue Men gaze, I gazed on him ; I seemed on fire with mad desire To kiss that offered limb : My ruin, Aphrodite, Thus followed from my whim. " Now therefore take and punish And fairly cut away These all unruly tusks of mine ; For to what end serve they ? And if thine indignation Be not content with this, Cut off the mouth that ventured To offer him a kiss " But Aphrodite pitied And bade them loose his chain, F E 4 i8 THEOCRITUS [la XXX. The boar from that day forward Still followed in her train ; Nor ever to the wildwood Attempted to return, But in the focus of Desire Preferred to burn and burn. IDYLL XXXI LOVES AH for this the most accursed, unendurable of ills ! Nigh two months a fevered fancy for a maid my bosom fills. Fair she is, as other damsels : but for what the simplest swain Claims from the demurest maiden, I must sue and sue in vain. Yet doth now this thing of evil my longsuffering heart beguile, Though the utmost she vouchsafes me is the shadow of a smile : And I soon shall know no respite, have no solace e'en in sleep. Yesterday I watched her pass me, and from down-dropt eyelids peep At the face she dared not gaze on every moment blushing more And my love took hold upon me as it never took before. Home I went a wounded creature, with a gnawing at my heart; And unto the soul within me did my bitterness impart. " Soul, why deal with me in this wise ? Shall thy folly know no bound? Canst thou look upon these temples, with their locks of silver crowned, And still deem thee young and shapely ? Nay, my soul, let us be sage; FRAGMENT FROM "BERENICE" 419 Act as they that have already sipped the wisdom-cup of age. Men have loved and have forgotten. Happiest of all is he To the lover's woes a stranger, from the lover's fetters free : Lightly his existence passes, as a wild-deer fleeting fast : Tamed, it may be, he shall voyage in a maiden's wake at last : Still to-day 'tis his to revel with his mates in boyhood's flowers. As to thee, thy brain and marrow passion evermore devours, Prey to memories that haunt thee e'en in visions of the night ; And a year shall scarcely pluck thee from thy miserable plight." Such and divers such reproaches did I heap upon my soul. And my soul in turn made answer : " Whoso deems he can control Wily love, the same shall lightly gaze upon the stars of heaven And declare by what their number overpasses seven times seven. Will I, nill I, I may never from my neck his yoke unloose. So, my friend, a god hath willed it : he whose plots could out- wit Zeus, And the queen whose home is Cyprus. I, a leaflet of to-day, I whose breath is in my nostrils, am I wrong to own his sway ? " FRAGMENT FROM THE " BERENICE " YE that would fain net fish and wealth withal, For bare existence harrowing yonder mere, To this our Lady slay at even-fall That holy fish, which, since it hath no peer For gloss and sheen, the dwellers about here Have named the Silver Fish. This done, let down Your nets, and draw them up, and never fear To find them empty * * * * 420 THEOCRITUS EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS YOURS be yon de\v-steep'd roses, yours be yon Thick-clustering ivy, maids of Helicon : Thine, Pythian Paean, that dark-foliaged bay ; With such thy Delphian crags thy front array. This horn'd and shaggy ram shall stain thy shrine, Who crops e'en now the feathering turpentine. ii. Pan doth white-limbed Daphnis offer here JL (He once piped sweetly on his herdsman's flute) His reeds of many a stop, his barbed spear, And scrip, wherein he held his hoards of fruit. in. DAPHNIS, thou slumberest on the leaf-strown lea, Thy frame at rest, thy springes newly spread O'er the fell-side. But two are hunting thee : Pan, and Priapus with his fair young head Hung with wan ivy. See ! they come, they, leap Into thy lair fly, fly, shake off the coil of sleep ! IV. FOR yon oaken avenue, swain, you must steer, Where a statue of figwood, you'll see, has been set It has never been barked, has three legs and no ear ; But I think there is life in the patriarch yet. EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS 421 He is handsomely shrined within fair chapel-walls ; Where, fringed with sweet cypress and myrtle and bay, A stream ever-fresh from the rock's hollow falls, And the ringleted vine her ripe store doth display : And the blackbirds, those shrill-piping songsters of spring, Wake the echoes with wild inarticulate song : And the notes of the nightingale plaintively ring, As she pours from her dun throat her lay sweet and strong. Sitting there, to Priapus, the gracious one, pray That the lore he has taught me I soon may unlearn : Say I'll give him a kid, and in case he says nay To this offer, three victims to him will I burn ; A kid, a fleeced ram, and a lamb sleek and fat ; He will listen, mayhap, to my prayers upon that. v. T)RYTHEE, sing something sweet to me you that can L play First and second at once. Then I too will essay To croak on the pipes : and yon lad shall salute Our ears with a melody breathed through his flute. In the cave by the green oak our watch we will keep, And goatish old Pan we'll defraud of his sleep. VI. POOR Thyrsis ! What boots it to weep out thine eyes ? Thy kid was a fair one, I own : But the wolf with his cruel claw made her his prize, And to darkness her spirit hath flown. Do the dogs cry ? What boots it? In spite of their cries There is left of her never a bone. 422 THEOCRITUS VII. FOR A STATUE OF ^SCULAPIUS FAR as Miletus travelled Paean's son ; There to be guest of Nicias, guest of one Who heals all sickness ; and who still reveres Him, for his sake this cedarn image rears. The sculptor's hand right well did Nicias fill ; And here the sculptor lavished all his skill. VIII. ORTHO'S EPITAPH "F7RIEND, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge : JL Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night. I did so and died. My possessions were large ; Yet the turf that I'm clad with is strange to me quite. IX. EPITAPH OF CLEONICUS MAN, husband existence : ne'er launch on the sea Out of season : our tenure of life is but frail. Think of poor Cleonicus : for Phases sailed he From the valleys of Syria, with many a bale : With many a bale, ocean's tides he would stem When the Pleiads were sinking ; and he sank with them. EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS 423 x. FOR A STATUE OF THE MUSES you this marble statue, maids divine, i. Xenocles raised, one tribute unto nine. Your votary all admit him : by this skill He gat him fame : and you he honours still. XI EPITAPH OF EUSTHENES HERE the shrewd physiognomist Eusthenes lies, Who could tell all your thoughts by a glance at your eyes. A stranger, with strangers his honoured bones rest ; They valued sweet song, and he gave them his best. All the honours of death doth the poet possess : If a small one, they mourned for him nevertheless. XII. FOR A TRIPOD ERECTED BY DAMOTELES TO BACCHUS / HT > HE precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts JL Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you. He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults And he ever loved honour and seemliness too. 424 THEOCRITUS XIII. FOR A STATUE OF ANACREON '"T" N HIS statue, stranger, scan with earnest gaze ; JL And, home returning, say " I have beheld Anacreon, in Teos ; him whose lays Were all unmatched among our sires of eld." Say further : "Youth and beauty pleased him best ; " And all the man will fairly stand exprest. XIV. EPITAPH OF EURYMEDON THOU hast gone to the grave, and abandoned thy son Yet a babe, thy own manhood but scarcely begun. Thou art throned among gods : and thy country will take Thy child to her heart, for his brave father's sake. xv. ANOTHER T) ROVE, traveller, now, that you honour the brave JL Above the poltroon, when he 's laid in the grave, By murmuring "Peace to Eurymedon dead." The turf should lie Kght on so sacred a head. EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS 425 XVI. FOR A STATUE OF THE HEAVENLY APHRODITE A PHRODITE stands here; she of heavenly birth; JL\. Not that base one who 's wooed by the children of earth. 'Tis a goddess ; bow down. And one blemishless all, Chrysogone, placed her in Amphicles' hall : Chrysogone's heart, as her children, was his, And each year they knew better what happiness is. For, Queen, at life's outset they made thee their friend ; Religion is policy too in the end. XVII. To EPICHARMUS READ these lines to Epicharmus. They are Dorian, as was he The sire of Comedy. Of his proper self bereaved, Bacchus, unto thee we rear His brazen image here ; We in Syracuse who sojourn, elsewhere bom. Thus much we can Do for our countryman, Mindful of the debt we owe him. For, possessing ample store Of legendary lore, Many a wholesome word, to pilot youths and maids thro' life, he spake : We honour him for their sake. 426 THEOCRITUS XVIII. EPITAPH OF CLEITA, NURSE OF MEDEIUS / T~" V HE babe Medeius to his Thracian nurse J. This stone inscribed To Cleita reared in the mid- highway. Her modest virtues oft shall men rehearse ; Who doubts it ? is not " Cleita's worth " a proverb to this day ? XIX. To ARCHILOCHUS T) AUSE, and scan well Archilochus, the bard of elder days, JL By east and west Alike 's confest The mighty lyrist's praise. Delian Apollo loved him well, and well the sister-choir : His songs were fraught With subtle thought, And matchless was his lyre. xx. UNDER A STATUE OF PEISANDER, WHO WROTE THE LABOURS OF HERACLES HE whom ye gaze on was the first That in quaint song the deeds rehearsed Of him whose arm was swift to smite, Who dared the lion to the fight : EPIGRAMS AND EPITAPHS 427 That tale, so strange, so manifold, Peisander of Cameirus told. For this good work, thou may'st be sure, His country placed him here, In solid brass that shall endure Through many a month and year. XXI. EPITAPH OF HIPPONAX EHOLD Hipponax' burialplace, J_) A true bard's grave. Approach it not, if you're a base And base-born knave. But if your sires were honest men And unblamed you, Sit down thereon serenely then, And eke sleep too. Tuneful Hipponax rests him here. Let no base rascal venture near. Ye who rank high in birth and mind Sit down and sleep, if so inclined. XXII. ON HIS OWN BOOK NOT my namesake of Chios, but I, who belong To the Syracuse burghers, have sung you my song. I'm Praxagoras' son by Philinna the fair, And I never asked praise that was owing elsewhere. TRANSLATIONS INTO LATIN LYCIDAS EN ! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricse Pallentes, nullique hederse quse ceditis sevo. Has venio baccas, quanquam sapor asper acerbis, Decerptum, quassumque manu folia ista proterva, Maturescentem prsevortens improbus annum. Causa gravis, pia causa, subest, et amara deum lex ; Nee jam sponte mea vobis rata tempora turbo. Nam periit Lycidas, periit superante juventa Imberbis Lycidas, nee par manet illius alter. Quis cantare super Lycida neget ? Ipse quoque artem Norat Apollineam, versumque imponere versu. Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum Flente, voluteturque arentes corpus ad auras, Indotatum adeo et lacrymse vocalis egenum. Quare agite, o sacri fontis queis cura, sorores, Cui sub inaccessi sella Jovis exit origo : Incipite, et sonitu graviore impellite chordas. Lingua procul male prompta loqui, suasorque morarum Sit pudor : alloquiis ut mollior una secundis Pieridum faveat, cui mox ego destiner, urnse : Et gressus praetergrediens convertat, et " Esto," Dicat, " amoena quies atra tibi veste latenti " : Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur ; eosdem LYCIDAS 429 Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram. Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam, Aurora reserante oculos, coepere videri, Urgebamus equos ad pascua : novimus horam Aridus audiri solitus qua clangor asili ; Rore recente greges passi pinguescere noctis Ssepius, albuerat donee quod vespere sidus Hesperios axes prono inclinasset Olympo. At pastorales non cessavere camcenae, Fistula disparibus quas temperat apta cicutis : Saltabant Satyri informes, nee murmure Iseto Capripedes potuere diu se avertere Fauni ; Damcetasque modos nostros longsevus amabat. Jamque, relicta tibi, quantum mutata videntur Rura relicta tibi, cui non spes ulla regressus ! Te sylvse, teque antra, puer, deserta ferarum, Incultis obducta thymis ac vite sequaci, Decessisse gemunt ; gemitusque reverberat Echo. Non salices, non glauca ergo coryleta videbo Molles ad numeros laetum motare cacumen. Quale rosis scabies ; quam formidabile vermis Depulso jam lacte gregi, dum tondet agellos ; Sive quod, indutis verna jam veste, pruinse Floribus, albet ubi primum paliurus in agris : Tale fuit nostris, Lycidam periisse, bubulcis. Qua, Nymphas, latuistis, ubi crudele profundum Delicias Lycidam vestras sub vortice torsit? Nam neque vos scopulis turn ludebatis in illis l 1 The following alternative rendering was found amongst the author's papers : Quse mora vos tenuit, Nymphae, quum immitibus sequor Delicias Lycidam vestras submergeret undis ? Nam neque tune scopulis colludebatis in illis 430 TRANSLATIONS Quos veteres, Druidae, vates, illustria servant Nomina ; nee celsas setoso in culmine Monae, Nee, quos Deva locos magicis amplectitur undis. Vae mihi ! delusos exercent somnia sensus : Venissetis enim ; numquid venisse juvaret ? Numquid Pieris ipsa parens interfuit Orphei, Pieris ipsa suae sobolis, qui carmine rexit Corda virum, quern terra olim, quam magna, dolebat, Tempore quo, dirum auditu strepitante caterva, Ora secundo amni missa, ac fcedata cruore, Lesbia praecipitans ad litora detulit Hebrus ? Eheu quid prodest noctes instare diesque Pastorum curas spretas humilesque tuendo, Nilque relaturam meditari rite Camcenam ? Nonne fuit satius lusus agitare sub umbra, (Ut mos est aliis,) Amaryllida sive Neaeram Sectanti, ac tortis digitum impediisse capillis ? Scilicet ingenuum cor Fama, novissimus error Ilia animi majoris, uti calcaribus urget Spernere delicias ac dedi rebus agendis. Quanquam exoptatam jam spes attingere dotem ; Jam nee opinata remur splendescere flamma : Caeca sed invisa cum forfice venit Erinnys, Quae resecet tenui haerentem subtemine vitam. " At Famam non ilia," refert, tangitque trementes Phoebus Apollo aures. " Fama baud, vulgaris ad instar Floris, amat terrestre solum, fictosque nitores Queis inhiat populus, nee cum Rumore patescit. Vivere dant illi, dant increbrescere late Puri oculi ac vox summa Jovis, cui sola Potestas. Fecerit ille semel de facto quoque virorum Arbitrium : tantum famae manet aethera nactis." Fons Arethusa ! sacro placidus qui laberis alveo, LYCIDAS 431 Frontem vocali prsetextus arundine, Minci ! Sensi equidem gravius carmen. Nunc cetera pastor Exsequor. Adstat enim missus pro rege marine, Seque rogasse refert fluctus, ventosque rapaces, Quse sors dura nimis tenerum rapuisset agrestem. Compellasse refert alarum quicquid ab omni Spiral, acerba sonans, scopulo, qui cuspidis instar Prominet in pelagus ; fama hand pervenerat illuc. Haec ultro pater Hippotades responsa ferebat : " Nulli sunt nostro palati carcere venti. Straverat sequor aquas, et sub Jove compta sereno Lusum exercebat Panope nymphseque sorores. Quam Furise struxere per interlunia, leto Fcetam ac fraude ratem, malos velarat Erinnys, Credas in mala tanta caput mersisse sacratum." Proximus huic tardum senior se Camus agebat ; Cui setosa chlamys, cui pileus ulva : figuris Idem intertextus dubiis erat, utque cruentos Quos perhibent flores, inscriptus margine luctum. "Nam quis,"ait, "prsedulce meum me pignus ademit?" Post hos, qui Galileea regit per stagna carinas, Post hos venit iturus : habet manus utraque clavim, (Queis aperit clauditque) auro ferrove gravatam. Mitra tegit crines ; quassis quibus, acriter infit : " Scilicet optassem pro te dare corpora leto Sat multa, o juvenis : quod serpunt ventribus acti, Vi quot iter faciunt spretis in ovilia muris. Hie labor, hoc opus est, pecus ut tondente magistro Praeripiant epulas, trudatur dignior hospes. Capti oculis, non ore ! pedum tractare nee ipsi Norunt ; quotve bonis sunt upilionibus artes. Sed quid enim refert, quove est opus, omnia nactis ? Fert ubi mens, tenue ac deductum carmen avenam 432 TRANSLATIONS Radit stridentem stipulis. Pastore negato Suspicit segra pecus : vento gravis ac lue tracta Tabescit ; mox fceda capit contagia vulgus. Quid dicam, stabulis ut clandestinus oberrans Expleat ingluviem tristis lupus, indice nullo ? Ilia tamen bimanus custodit machina portam, Stricta, paratque mails plagam non amplius unam." En, Alphee, redi ! Qiribus ima cohorruit unda Voces praeteriere : redux quoque Sicelis omnes Musa voca valles ; hue pendentes hyacinthos Fac jaciant, teneros hue flores mille colorum. O nemorum depressa, sonant ubi crebra susurri Umbrarum, et salientis aquae, Zephyrique protervi ; Queisque virens gremium penetrare Canicula parcit : Hue oculos, totidem mirandas vertite gemmas, Mellitos imbres queis per viridantia rura Mos haurire, novo quo tellus vere rubescat. Hue ranunculus, ipse arbos, pallorque ligustri, Quaeque relicta perit, vixdum matura feratur Primula : quique ebeno distinctus, caetera flavet Flos, et qui specie nomen detrectat eburna. Ardenti violae rosa proxima fundat odores ; Serpyllumque placens, et acerbo flexile vultu Verbascum, ac tristem si quid sibi legit amictum. Quicquid habes pulcri fundas, amarante : coronent Narcissi lacrymis calices, sternantque feretrum Tectus ubi lauro Lycidas jacet : adsit ut oti Saltern aliquid, ficta ludantur imagine mentes. Me miserum ! Tua nam litus, pelagusque sonorum Ossa ferunt, queiscunque procul jacteris in oris ; Sive procellosas ultra Symplegadas ingens Jam subter mare visis, alit quae monstra profundum ; Sive (negarit enim precibus te Jupiter udis) Cum sene Bellero, veterum qui fabula, dormis, LYCIDAS 433 Qua custoditi mentis prsegrandis imago Namancum atque arces longe prospectat Iberas. Verte retro te, verte deum, mollire precando : Et vos infaustum juvenem delphines agatis. Ponite jam lacrymas, sat enim flevistis, agrestes. Non periit Lycidas, vestri mceroris origo, Marmorei quanquam fluctus hausere cadentem. Sic et in sequoreum se condere saepe cubile Luciferum videas , nee longum tempus, et effert Demissum caput, igne novo vestitus ; et aurum Ceu rutilans, in fronte poli splendescit Eoi. Sic obiit Lycidas, sic assurrexit in altum ; Illo, quern peditem mare sustulit, usus amico. Nunc campos alios, alia errans stagna secundum Rorantesque lavans integro nectare crines, Audit inauditos nobis cantari Hymenaeos, Fortunatorum sedes ubi mitis amorem Laetitiamque affert. Hie ilium, quotquot Olympum Praedulces habitant turbae, venerabilis ordo, Circumstant : aliaeque canunt, interque canendum Majestate sua veniunt abeuntque catervae, Illius ex oculis lacrymas arcere paratae. Ergo non Lycidam jam lamentantur agrestes. Divus eris ripae, puer, hoc ex tempore nobis, Grande, nee immerito, veniens in munus ; opemque Poscent usque tuam, dubiis quot in aestubus errant. Haec incultus aquis puer ilicibusque canebat ; Processit dum mane silens talaribus albis. Multa manu teneris discrimina tentat avenis, Dorica non studio modulatus carmina segni : Et jam sol abiens colles extenderat omnes, Jamque sub Hesperium se praecipitaverat alveum. Surrexit tandem, glaucumque retraxit amictum ; Cras lucos, rcor, ille novos, nova pascua quceret. V V 434 TRANSLATIONS BOADICEA WHEN the British warrior-queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods, Sought with an indignant mien, Counsel of her country's gods ; Sage beneath the spreading oak Sat the Druid, hoary chief; Every burning word he spoke, Full of rage and full of grief. " Princess ! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. " Rome shall perish write that word In the blood that she has spilt : Perish, hopeless and abhorred, Deep in ruin as in guilt. " Rome for empire far renowned, Tramples on a thousand states ; Soon her pride shall kiss the ground Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates ! " Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name ; Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame. TRANSLATIONS 435 " Furens quidfemina possit " secta virgis tempore Romulis, Fastidiosa fronte, Britanniae Regina bellatrix ad aras Indigetum steterat deorum : Quercu sedebat sub patula senex Vates, nivali rex Druidum coma ; In carmen exarsurus ira Implacidum, implacidumque luctu. " Nataene regum nil nisi lacrymam Senes inanem reddimus, baud prius Vulgata perpessse ? Minaces Stringit enim dolor ipse linguas. " Cadet rubescant sanguine literae, Quern fudit, istae Roma ; carens cadet Spe quaque, detestata terris ; Mersa pari scelerum ruina. " Late tyranno sub pede proterit Jam mille gentes, ipsa tamen solo ^Equanda. Nunc (adverte !) portas ; Callus habet. Nova nequiores Quirites, pejor avis, feret, Queis vile nomen militias ; sonis, Non marte, quaesturos honorem ; Voce viam reserante famai. 436 TRANSLATIONS " Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. " Regions Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway ; Where his eagles never flew : None invincible as they." Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre. She, with all a monarch's pride, Felt them in her bosom glow ; Rushed to battle, fought and died ; Dying hurled them at the foe. " Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the vengeance due ; Empire is on us bestowed, Shame and ruin wait for you." COWPER. COME LIVE WITH ME COME, live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, or hills, or field, Or woods and steepy mountains yield. T TRANSLATIONS 437 " Exinde silvae quam sobolem sinu Gestant avitae, fulmineis potens Pennis et alarum capesset Remigio populum ampliorem. " Quas ipse nescit Caesar, aheneus Quas ales oras non adiit, tuos, Regina, fas torquere natos, Indocilem numerum repulsie." Haec elocutus cselitus edito Scatebat igni fatidicus senex : Dum, pronus in chordas, sonantem Dulce lyram modulatur iraa. Queis ilia sentit non humilis calens Regina dictis : queis ruerat nova In arma bellatrix sub ipsum Funus adhuc premit acris hostes : " At, durior grex omnibus, omnium Contemptor ! aequi di quoque vindices Regnare nos optant : probrosa Vos perimi placitum ruina." " Et nos cedamus amori" MOPSUS. RANSFER, amantis amans, laribus te, Lydia nostris Ruris uti cunctas experiamur opes : Quot vallis, juga, saltus, ager, quot amoena ministret Mons gravis ascensu, quot vel amoena nemus. 438 TRANSLATIONS And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies : A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we'll pull. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning : If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. MARLOW. IF all the world and love were young ; And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage and rocks grow cold ; And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complain of cares to come. But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love. RALEIGH. TRANSLATIONS 439 Srepius acclines saxo spectare juvarit Ducat uti pastum Thyrsis herile pecus ; Sub vada rivorum, queis adsilientibus infra Concordes avibus suave loquantur aves. Ipse rosas, queis fulta cubes caput, ipse recentum Quidquid alant florum pascua mille, feram : Pro laena tibi vellus erit, neque tenuior usquam, Me socio teneras quo spoliaris oves. Cantabunt salientque tibi pastoria pubes, Maia novum quoties jusserit ire diem : Qu0e si forte tibi sint oblectamina cordi, Vive comes Mopsi, Lydia, amantis amans. LYDIA FINGE nee huic mundo nee amoribus esse senectam ; Pastorumque labris usque subesse fidem : His forte illecebris (est his sua namque venustas) Mota comes Mopsi viverem, amantis amans. Tempus agit pecudes campis in ovile relictis ; Fitque ferox fluvius frigidiusque jugum. Dediscit Philomela modos et conticet ultro Venturis querimur caetera turba malis. Sin amor assidua subolesceret usque juventa, Nee joca cessarent, pluris egeret anus : His equidem illecebris (est his sua namque venustas) Mota comes Mopsi viverem, amantis amans. 440 TRANSLATIONS WHILE MUSING THUS WHILE musing thus, with contemplation fed And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, The sweet-tongued Philomel perched o'er my head, And chanted forth a most melodious strain, Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judged my hearing better than my sight, And wished me wings with her awhile to take my flight. " O merry bird ! " said I, " that fears no snares, That neither toils, nor hoards up in thy barns, Feels no sad thought, nor cruciating cares To gain more good, or shun what might thee harm ; Thy clothes ne'er wear, thy meat is every where, Thy bed a bough, thy drink the water clear, Remind'st not what is past, nor what 's to come dost fear." " The dawning morn with songs thou dost prevent, Set'st hundred notes unto thy feathered crew, So each one tunes his pretty instrument, And warbling out the old, begins anew. And thus they pass their youth in summer season, Then follow thee into a better region, Where winter 's never felt by that sweet airy legion." ANNE BRADSTREET. SWEET DAY OWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright, O The bridal of the earth and sky : The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ; For thou must die. TRANSLATIONS 441 " Avis in ramo tecta laremquc parat " STABAM multa movens, studio sic pastus inani, Somnia per vacuum dum fervent mille cerebrum : Jamque canora mihi supra caput adstitit ales, Et liquido Philomela modos e gutture fudit. Obstupui ; raptusque nova dulcedine dixi, " Quanto oculis potior, quam traximus aure, voluptas." Meque simul volui sumtis quatere sethera pennis. " Fortunata nimis ! Tibi retia nulla timori, Te nullus labor urget, agis nee in horrea messes ; Nil conscire tibi, nulla tabescere culpa, Sorte datum, quo plura petas, quo noxia vites. At passim cibus, at sordent velamina nunquam : Pocula sunt fontes liquidi tibi, fronsque cubile, Nee memori veterum, nee mox ventura timenti. Ante dies quam lucet ades, modulansque catervas Dividis aligerae centum discrimina vocum. Continuo ad cantum prseludunt oribus illae Suavisonis ; peragunt opus instaurantque peracta. Hisque modis superante fovent aestate juventam. Te duce dein abeunt in fortunatius arvum Blanda volans legio, nulli penetrabile brumaa." " Parcent animce fata super stiti" LUX dulcis, cui tanta quies et frigus et ardor, Tense polique nuptise, At flebit tua fata tamen sub vesperis horam Ros, quippe leto debits. 442 TRANSLATIONS Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye : Thy root is ever in its grave ; And thou must die. Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie, My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives ; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives. GEO. HERBERT. IN MEMORIAM cvi. THE time admits not flowers or leaves To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies The blast of North and East, and ice Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves, And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass, To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, Arrange the board and brim the glass ; TRANSLATIONS 443 Tuque, color cujus forti similisque minanti Temere tuentum lumina Praestringit ; radice lates tenus usque sepulcro ; Et te perire fas, Rosa. Dulces Maia refers hilaris lucesque rosasque, Thesaurus ingens dulcium. Has sed in occasum me vergere disce magistro ; Perire nam fas omnia. Dulces ergo animae demum et virtutis amantes Durant, ut ilex arida ; In fumum ac cinerem vertatur mundus : at illae Tune enitescent clarius In memoriam NON hora myrto, non violis sinit Nitere mensas. Trux Aquilo foras Bacchatus inspicavit hastas E foribus glacies acutis ; Horretque saltus spinifer, algidse Sub falce lunse ; dum nemori imminet, Quod stridet illiditque costis Cornua, jam vacuis honorum, Ferrata ; nimbis prsetereuntibus, Ut incubent tandem implacido sail Qui curvat oras. Tu Falernum Prome, dapes strue, die coronent 444 TRANSLATIONS Bring in great logs and let them lie, To make a solid core of heat ; Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat Of all things ev'n as he were by : We keep the day with festal cheer, With books and music. Surely we Will drink to him whate'er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. TENNYSON. TEARS, IDLE TEARS TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark Summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. TENNYSON. TRANSLATIONS 445 Crateras : ignis cor solidum, graves Repone ramos. Jamque doloribus Loquare securus fugatis Quae socio loquereris illo ; Hunc dedicamus Isetitiae diem Lyraeque musisque. Illius, illius Da, quicquid audit : nee silebunt Qui numeri placuere vivo. Surgit amari aliquid SCILICET et lacrymas quis dixerit unde profectas ?- Nescio quod desiderium divinius imo Nil profecturas e pectore cogit, et udi Stant oculi : quoties auctumni aprica tuemur Rura, diesque animo qui praeteriere recursant. Dulce jubar, candent quo primo vela carinae, Altero ab orbe tuos tibi summittentis amicos : Triste, quod in freta longa rubet condentibus isdem Teque tuasque animae partem. Tam dulcis imago Tarn te tristis obit, qui praeteriere, dierum. , ac tanquam aliunde, sonat morientis in aure Excutientum avium sublustri mane sopores ^Estivus canor, incipiunt ubi languida circa Lumina majores noto trepidare fenestrae. Tanquam aliunde, dies qui praeteriere revortunt. 446 TRANSLATIONS M PSALM LV. v. 4. Y heart is disquieted within me : and The fear of death is fallen upon me. Tearfulness and trembling are come upon me And an horrible dread hath overwhelmed me. And I said, O that I had wings like a dove : For then would I flee away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I get me away far off; And remain in the wilderness. I would make haste to escape ; Because of the stormy wind and tempest. OF HOLIER JOY OF holier joy he sang, more true delight, In other happier isles for them reserved, Who, faithful here, from constancy and right And truth have never swerved ; How evermore the tempered ocean-gales Breathe round those hidden islands of the blest, Steeped in the glory spread, when day-light fails, Far in the sacred West. How unto them, beyond our mortal night, Shines ever more in strength the golden day ; TRANSLATIONS 447 " Prasaga mail mens " COR concitatum, quassaque senseram Instante leto pectora ; senseram Terrore pallescens, et artus Auguriis tremefactus atris : Dixique tandem : " Verterer alitem Nunc in columbam ! scilicet in loca Longinqua deportarer, almae Pacis amans ; et inhospitales Inter Gelonos, his fugiens procul Terris, manerem. Nulla fugam mora Tardaret, exosi procellse Ssevitiem, pluviosque ventos." "Arva, beat a Petamus arva " *" I ^UM graviore canit vera oblectamina plectro, J. Beatiore queis in insula frui Integros maneat vita? ; quae fasque fidesque Diuque culta veritas det assequi. Utque marina supra secretes usque piorum Agros susurret aura temperatius ; Agros, occidui saturet quos gloria Phcebi, Sacris in Occidentis ultimi locis. Utque procul nobis, tenebris procul omnibus, illos Inauret usque vividus micans dies ; 448 TRANSLATIONS And meadows with purpureal roses bright Bloom round their feet alway ; And how 'twas given thro' virtue to aspire To golden seats in ever-calm abodes; Of mortal men, admitted to the quire Of high immortal Gods. TRENCH. FROM THE ANALOGY, CH. I. AND it is certain, that the bodies of all animals are in a constant flux, from that never-ceasing attrition which there is in every part of them. Now things of this kind un- avoidably teach us to distinguish between these living agents ourselves, and large quantities of matter in which we are very nearly interested : since these may be alienated, and actually are in a daily course of succession, and changing their owners ; while we are assured, that each living agent remains one and the same permanent being. And this general observation leads us to the following ones. First; that we have no way of determining by experience what is the certain bulk of the living being each man calls himself : and yet, till it be determined that it is larger in bulk than the solid elementary particles of matter, which there is no ground to think any natural power can dissolve, there is no sort of reason to think death to be the dissolution of it, of the living being, even though it should not be absolutely indis- cerptible. BUTLER. TRANSLATIONS 449 Purpureis distincta rosis ubi gleba perenni Nitore crura condat ambulantium. Tanta dari castis. Utque affectetur ab isdem In aureis serena sedibus domus ; Mortalesque viros tandem immortalis in altum Receperit sedile numinum chorus. "Non omnis mortar" ID quoque constat, uti, quot corpora sunt animantum, Non cessent fluere, assiduis quippe obvia plagis Omni ex parte. Quibus monito distare fatendumst Te qui vivis agisque, et molem materiai Quantamvis, quacum sis nexus conque ligatus. Has alienari quoniam vulgoque videmus Trudi alias aliis, nee demum addicier ulli. At, qui vivis agisque, manes certe unus et idem. Queis animadversis audi quse deinde sequantur. Principio, nunquam cognoveris experiundo Mole sit id vivum quanta, quam quisque vocet se. Quod tamen incerto sit majus mole minusve Quam solida ilia fuant corpuscula materiai, (Quse quis enim reputet natura posse resolvi?) Nulla patet ratio cur solvi morte putaris Hoc vivum, sit et hocce jicet delebile tandem. 450 TRANSLATIONS FOUNTAIN THAT SPARKLEST FOUNTAIN, that sparkiest through the shady place, Making a soft sad murmur o'er the stones That strew thy lucid way ! Oh, if some guest Should haply wander near, with slow disease Smitten, may thy cold springs the rose of health Bring back, and the quick lustre to his eye ! The ancient oaks that on thy margin wave, The song of birds, and through the rocky cave The clear stream gushing, their according sounds Should mingle, and like some strange music steal Sadly, yet soothing, o'er his aching breast. And thou pale exile from thy native shores Here drink (O could'st thou ! as of Lethe's stream !) Nor friends, nor bleeding country, nor the views Of hills or streams beloved, nor vesper's bell, Heard in the twilight vale, remember more ! FROM THE CHRISTIAN YEAR G O up and watch the new-born rill Just trickling from its mossy bed, Streaking the heath-clad hill With a bright emerald thread. Canst thou her bold career foretell, What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend, How far in Ocean's swell Her freshening billows send ? TRANSLATIONS 451 "jitvat integros accedere fontes Atqtee haurire " Lt*t,'i OQUI umbrosa micas inter loca, perque notantes Lucidum iter lapides, Fons, ita molle canis ; Molle quidem sed triste tamen : si forte quis hospes Erret ad has, lenta tabe peractus, aquas ; Tu, precor, huic roseam gelido refer amne salutem, Inque oculo saliat, qualiter ante, nitor ! Scilicet antique, riparum insignia, quercus, Puraque per durum quae specus unda salit, Voxque avium carmen poterunt sociare, quod illi Serpat ut insuetae corda per segra lyrae. Sunt etenim mulcent quos tristia. Tuque paternis Qui procul ex oris pallidus exsul abes, Hinc bibe si posses Lethasum flumen ! amici Nee tibi, nee moriens Roma sit ipsa morse ; Non juga, non dulces fluvii, campana nee actum Sub ferruginea valle locuta diem. " Parva metu primo " INUPER ortum suspice rivulum, Vix e virenti qua trepidat toro, Clivumque vestitum genista Caerulei notat instar auri. Die quo feratur scilicet insolens ? Quae scindet aut quae transiliet juga ? Quorsumve, die, fluctus tumentem Mittet in Oceanum salubres? ^ ^x 452 TRANSLATIONS Perchance that little brook shall flow The bulwark of some mighty realm, Bear navies to and fro With monarchs at their helm. Or canst thou guess, how far away Some sister nymph, beside her urn Reclining night and day, 'Mid reeds and mountain fern, Nurses her store, with thine to blend When many a moor and glen are past, Then in the wide sea end f - / > Their spotless lives at last. KEBLE. WINTER LOW the woods Bow their hoar head ; and ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray, Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox (W Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man TRANSLATIONS 453 TiKVo H* <'. Quern cernis est ut mmlus, imperi Factus potentis presidium, rates Hinc inde sit vecturus, ipsis Consulibus ratium magistris. An scire fas est te, quibus in jugis Acclinis urnse nympha soror die Noctuque, montanaque tecta Carice arundineaque ripa, (.***.* * Quodcunque apud se est pascat ? At aviis Elapsa silvis mox sociabitur Tecum, sub ^Egaeo patent! Innocuam positura vitam. " Aspera venit hiems " CANA laborantes demittunt culmina silvae. Sol quoque languidior. Necdum jubar illius, orto Vespere,ab Hesperiis trepidum se prodidit oris, At tellus, quam magna, latet : stant frigore campi, Ferales late campi candore maligno, Obruiturque labos hominum. Stat taurus arator Languida colla gravis multa nive : quid labor ilium ^ / a 1"* Aut benefacta juvant ? Domat inclementia creli Aerias volucres ; vannumque frequenter lacchi Stipantes, quae parva pater munuscula parvis Donet habere Deus, poscunt. Deque omnibus una, Rubro nota sinu, (propriam dixere Penates,) Haud Jovis imprudens coelum miscentis, in arvis Illastabilibus et spinifero dumeto Frigentes linquit socios, ac visit in annum ' (^ ^- 454 TRANSLATIONS His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats ; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth ; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is ; Till more familiar grown, the table crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair ; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the wither'd herbs through heaps of snow. THOMSON. "LEAVES HAVE THEIR TIME TO FALL" LEAVES have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath And stars to set : but all, Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! Day is for mortal care, Eve for glad meetings at the joyous hearth, Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer : But all for thee, thou mightiest of the earth ! The banquet has its hour, The feverish hour of mirth and song and wine : There comes a day for grief's o'erwhelming shower, A time for softer tears : but all are thine. TRANSLATIONS 455 Tecta virum, fidens animi. Primumque fenestram Spemque metumque inter, pulsat ; mox acriter almum Invasura focum. Dein interiora per aulse (Ridentes transversa tuens) it passibus aequis, Quaque sit admirans, rostro petit et tremit alas. Jamque levi pede, rebus ubi se assuevit, in ipsa Frusta legit mensa. Furvum genus aspera mittunt (Defit enim cibus) arva. Lepus, cui pectus inaudax, Quam plaga quamque canes et plurima mortis imago, Quamque premit cunctis homo durior, ipsa propinquat (Vim dedit esuries) hortos. Videt sethera tristem Balantum pecus, arva videt splendentia, muto Spem positam fassum obtutu. Turn tmtiter im9 T^u-k. w K E nive marcentes effossum spargitur herbas. " Debemur morti nos nostraqite " FRONDES est ubi decidant, Marcescantque rosse flatu Aquilonio : Horis astra cadunt suis ; Sed, Mors, cuncta tibi tempora vindicas. Curis nata virum dies ; Vesper colloquiis dulcibus ad focum ; Somnis nox magis, et preci : Sed nil, Terrigenum maxima, non tibi. Festis hora epulis datur, (Fervens hora jocis, carminibus, mero ;) Fusis altera lacrymis Aut fletu tacito : quaeque tamen tua. 456 TRANSLATIONS Youth and the opening rose May look like things too glorious for decay, , And smile at thee ! but thou art not of those That wait the ripen'd bloom to seize their prey ! FELICIA HEMANS. MY BROTHER MY boyish days are nearly gone, My breast is not unsullied now j And worldly cares and woes will soon Cut their deep furrows on my brow. And life will take a darker hue From ills my brother never knew : And human passions o'er my soul Now hold their dark and fell control : And fear and envy, hate and rage, Proclaim approaching manhood's age. And I have made me bosom friends, And loved and linked my heart with others ; But who with mine his spirit blends As mine was blended with my brother's ? When years of rapture glided by, The spring of life's unclouded weather, Our souls were knit ; and thou and I, My brother, grew in love together. The chain is broke that bound us then When shall I find its like again ? MOULTRIE. TRANSLATIONS 457 Virgo, sen rosa pullulans, Tantum quippe nitent ut nequeant mori ? Rident te ? Neque enim soles Pnedae parcere, dum flos adoleverit. " Ille ?neos, primum qui me sibijunxit, amores Abstulit. Ille habeat secum servetque sepulcro " PR^TEREUNT nostne, vel praeteriere, juvents Tempora ; nee maculam nescit, ut ante, sinus. Mox venient rerum curse rerumque dolores ; Et fronte in juveni ruga senilis erit. Caligare mihi mox ipsa videbitur a^tas, ' Tincta novis (frater nesciit ilia) malis. Nunc etiam qujcunque viris solet esse libido Torva regunt animum truxque caterva meum : Nunc livorque odiumque et mista timoribus ira Exagitant trepidum, Virque, loquuntur, eris. Unanimos equidem legi coluique sodales ; Fovi equidem multos interiore sinu : Qua vero partem illam animae, pars altera, quseram ? Frater erat nostri pars ita, fratris ego. Tune, ubi felices labi non sensimus annos, Fulsit ubi verno sol sine nube polo ; Frater, erant nobis animi per mutua nexi ; Par tibi tune annis, par et amore fui. Copula dissiluit qua nectebamur : at illi Die quibus in latebris, qua sequar arte, parem ? 458 TRANSLATIONS "LET US TURN HITHERWARD OUR BARK" " T ET us turn hitherward our bark," they cried, J / " And, 'mid the blisses of this happy isle, Past toil forgetting and to come, abide In joyfulness awhile. And then, refreshed, our tasks resume again, If other tasks we yet are bound unto, Combing the hoary tresses of the main With sharp swift keel anew." O heroes, that had once a nobler aim, O heroes, sprung from many a god-like line, What will ye do, unmindful of your fame, And of your race divine ? But they, by these prevailing voices now Lured, evermore draw nearer to the land, Nor saw the wrecks of many a goodly prow, That strewed that fatal strand ; Or seeing, feared not warning taking none From the plain doom of all who went before, Whose bones lay bleaching in the wind and sun, And whitened all the shore. TRENCH. TRANSLATIONS 459 " /~\UIN hue," fremebant, " dirigimus ratem \ Hie, dote laeti divitis insulae, Paullisper hseremus, futuri Nee memores operis, nee acti : " Curas refecti eras iterabimus, Si qua supersunt emeritis novae : Pexisse pernices acuta Canitiem pelagi carina." O rebus olim nobilioribus Pares : origo Di quibus ac Deae Heroes ! oblitine famae Haec struitis, generisque sum mi ? Atqui propinquant jam magis ac magis, Ducti magistra voce, solum : neque Videre prorarum nefandas Fragmina nobilium per oras ; Vidisse seu non poenitet ominis Incuriosos tot praeeuntium, Quorum ossa sol siccantque venti, Candet adhuc rmibus omnis ora. 460 TRANSLATIONS CENONE O MOTHER, hear me yet before I die. Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone, Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me Walking the cold and starless road of Death Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love With the Greek woman. I will rise and go Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says A fire dances before her, and a sound Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What this may be I know not, but I know That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire. TENNYSON. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM OUR bugles sang truce, for the night clouds had lowered, And the sentinel stars kept a watch in the sky ; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep and the wounded to die. When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track : 'Twas autumn and sunshine arose on my way To the home of my father, that welcomed me back. TRANSLATIONS 461 " longam incomitata videtur Ire viam " QUAS moriens loquor, Ida parens, en accipe voces : Accipe tu, tellus. Non ibo sola sub umbras ; Fortunatorum risus ne verberet aurem, Dum caligantes campos, jam frigida, Leti, Jam nullo comitante, tero, priscumque maritum Pellex Graia tenet. Quin ibo ac Dorica castra Deveniam : necdum surgentibus adloquar astris *^KA Amentem Cassandram animi. Nam lumina coram Scintillare refert ignes, et murmur ad aurem Tanquam armatorum nunquam cessare rotari. Quse quid monstra ferant, non auguror : id mihi demum Nosse satis : quocunque feror noctuque dieque, Igni stare mero tellusque videtur et aer. " Cur htzc ego somnia vidi 1 " NOX jam densa ruit : vigil undique sidus in sethra ( , "^** Excubat. Auditis ponimus arma tubis. Mille peracta virum fluxerunt corpora campo, Occupet ut letum saucia, fessa sopor. At mihi quem fultum custodit stramine parco Presidium caesis flamma lupisque metus, Nocte super media dulcissima venit imagOj Somniaque ante ortum ter rediere diem. Arma feramque aciem mihi deseruisse videbar, Et desolatis longum iter ire viis. Venerat auctumnus : desideriumque meorum Ad patrios ieram, sole favente, lares. 462 TRANSLATIONS I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young ; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And I knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part ; My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. " Stay, stay with us rest ; thou art weary and worn : " And fain was the war-broken soldier to stay : But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away CAMPBELL. THE BUTTERFLY AS rising on its purple wing The insect-queen of eastern spring, O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer Invites the young pursuer near, And leads him on from flower to flower A weary chase and wasted hour, Then leaves him, as it soars on high, With panting heart and tearful eye : So Beauty lures the full-grown child, With hue as bright, and wing as wild ; A chase of idle hopes and fears, Begun in folly, closed in tears, If won, to equal ills betray'd, Woe waits the insect and the maid ; A life of pain, the loss of peace, TRANSLATIONS 463 Quos jam in procinctu vitae, jamque inscius sevi, Lustrabam toties, transferor ales agris : Audieram balare meas in rupe capellas ; Fallebat veteri carmine messor opus. Sum quoque pollicitus, socia inter pocula, nunquam Flentibus a sociis ire, meaque domo. Oscula dant centum parvi, dein altera, nati : Uxoris gremium rumpit anhelus amor : " Fessus et seger ades, nobis ades usque," susurrat. Fractus idem bellis miles et ipse volo. Nequicquam. Redeunte die rediere dolores. Audieram voces : sed sopor illud erat. " Neque enim levia aut ludicra petuntur " PENNIS ut ostro tollitur semulis Quse ver Eoiim papilio regit, Per gramen invitans smaragdo Lucidius puerum sequacem ; Vel has vel illas detinet ad rosas Fessum vagandi, nee bene prodigum Horse ; relinquens dein anhelo Ore, genis, abit ales, udis : Per spes adultum sic puerum rapit Metusque vanos, sic vario nitens Splendore, sic pennata, virgo ; Ccepta miser flet inepta sero. Vincas : ad unum virgine prodita Vermique fatum, par superest dolor Utrique ; seu lascivus infans, 464 TRANSLATIONS From infant's play and man's caprice : The lovely toy so fiercely sought Hath lost its charm by being caught, For every touch that woo'd its stay Hath brush'd its brightest hues away, Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone Tis left to fly or fall alone. BYRON. GLENIFFER KEEN blaws the wind o'er the braes o' Gleniffer, The auld castle turrets are cover'd wi' snaw, How changed frae the time when I met wi' my lover, Amang the broom bushes by Stanley green shaw. The wild flowers o' simmer were spread a' sae bonnie, The mavis sang sweet frae the green birken tree ; But far to the camp they ha'e march'd my dear Johnnie, And now it is winter wi' nature and me. Then ilk thing around us was blythesome and cheerie, Then ilk thing around us was bonnie and braw ; Now naething is heard but the wind whistling drearie, And naething is seen but the wide-spreading snaw. The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie, They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they flee ; And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie ; Tis winter wi' them and 'tis winter wi' me. TANNAHILL. TRANSLATIONS 465 Sive virum dederit libido Vitam inquietam, ac mille gravem malis. Sectamur acres dulcia : quae simul Prensaris, amisere formam ; Suasor enim digitus morarum Sensim colores proterit aureos ; Donee recessit forma, color, venus : Te deinde secure, volarint Seu jaceant viduata campo. " Versa loci fades " RADIT Aricina2 vallis latus acriter aura, Nix grave longaevis turribus haeret onus : Non erat ilia loci facies, ubi tecta genista Ad lucum viridem fabar, Amate veni. Injussas jucunda rosas ibi pandidit aestas ; Cantanti merulae betula tegmen erat : Nunc ad castra meus procul exsulat actus Amyntas Nunc eadem terris et mihi venit hiems. Plurima laetitise tune undique risit imago, Cuique erat in gremio vis, et in ore nitor : Nunc nihil audieris nisi maesti sibila venti, Nunc nihil aspicias hinc nisi et inde nivem. Arbos muta ; silent pavefactae, interque volandum Excutiunt alis sessile frigus, aves ; Voce loqui visas blanda, Ploramus Amyntam. Venit hiems illis : et mihi venit hiems. H H 466 TRANSLATIONS HE sung what spirit thro' the whole mass is spread, Everywhere all : how Heavens God's laws approve And think it rest eternally to move : How the kind Sun usefully comes and goes, Wants it himself, yet gives to Man repose : He sung how Earth blots the Moon's gilded wane Whilst foolish men beat sounding brass in vain, Why the great waters her slight horns obey, Her changing horns not constanter than they : He sung how grisly comets hung in air, Why swords and plagues attend their fatal hair, God's beacons for the world, drawn up so far To publish ills, and raise all earth to war : What radiant pencil draws the watery bow, What ties up hail, and picks the fleecy snow ; What palsy of the Earth here shakes fix'd hills From off her brows, and here whole rivers spills. Thus did this Heathen Nature's secrets tell, And sometimes missed the cause, but sought it well. COWLEY. THE NEREIDS THE Nereid maids in days of yore Saw the lost pilot loose the helm, Saw the wreck blacken all the shore, And every wave some head o'erwhelm. Afar the youngest of the train Beheld (but fear'd and aided not) A minstrel from the billowy main Borne breathless near her coral grot : TRANSLATIONS 467 " Est Deus in nobis : agitante calescimus illo " NAMQUE canebat uti, penetrans omnem undique, totam Spiritus intus agat molem : confirmet ut aether Jura Dei, requiemque putet sine fine moveri. Sol ut eat redeatque suos iter almus in usus, Detque viris, quanquam desideret ipse, soporem. Aureaque ut lucem premat objice Cynthia terra, At stulti temere sera viri crepitantia plangant : Unde regat parvis eadem mare cornubus ingens, Queis mare non levius, non inconstantius, ipsum. Cur visas in coelo tristes pendere cometae, Fatalemque comam morbique ensesque sequantur. Ilia deos dare signa viris, et figere coelo, Quo vulgent mala, quove vocent in praelia gentes. Quis radio pluvium describat gentibus arcum, Vellera quid pectet nivis, ac tortum alliget imbrem. Unde tremens tellus, nunc deturbarit in ipsa Fronte sitos monies, nunc totum effuderit amnem. Barbarus explicuit sic rerum arcana ; latentes Impar saepe loqui, par semper quaerere, causas. " Sedet aternumque sedebit " "XT EREIDES (sic fama refert) videre puellae 1 \| Rector ut excideret puppe, subactus aquis : Litus uti fractis nigresceret omne carinis, Omnis et abreptum volveret unda caput. At procul a pelago stans una, novissima natu (Ni metus obstaret, forte tulisset opem), Semanimum vatem spumosis vidit ab undis Ad se curalio tecta latebat agi. 468 TRANSLATIONS Then terror fled, and pity rose, " Ah me," she cried, " I come too late ! Rather than not have soothed his woes, I would, but may not, share his fate." She raised his hand. " What hand like this Could reach the heart athwart the lyre ? What lips like these return my kiss, Or breathe, incessant, soft desire ? " From eve to morn, from morn to eve, She gazed his features o'er and o'er, And those who love and who believe, May hear her sigh along the shore. W. S. LANDOR. WEEP NO MORE WEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan ; Sorrow calls no time that 's gone ; Violets plucked, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh nor grow again : Trim thy locks, look cheerfully ; Fate's hidden ends eyes cannot see : Joys as winged dreams fly fast ; Why should sadness longer last ? Grief is but a wound to woe ; Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no mo. FLETCHER. TRANSLATIONS 469 Turn retro metus omnis iit, miserataque casum " Veni ego," conclamat, " vte mihi ! sera nimis. " Mallem equideni, tantos quam non mulsisse dolores, " Ipsa pari possein si modo sorte niori." Inde levans dextram, " Num par," ait, " illius unquam "Perveniet tacta cordis ad ima lyra? " Talibus aut quisquam mihi dividet oscula labris, " Dum tenerum id numquam dicere cessat, Amo ? " Jamque dies nocti subit altera, noxque diei, At sedet, at vultum perlegit ilia viri. Illam, si quis amans et non incredulus idem est, Audiat ut circa litus anhelet adhuc. " Ne doieas plus mmio " FLENDI jam satis, et satis gemendi. Nee tempus lacrymis vocaris actum, Carptis nee violis benigna quamvis Nasci dat pluvia ac virere rursum. Quin crines colis explicasque vultum ? Fati cseca nefas videre nobis. Somni par fugit alitis voluptas : Quidni tristitias modus sit idem ? Fletu nil nisi prorogas dolorem. Sat, dulcissima Philli, sat dolendi. 470 TRANSLATIONS GLUMDALCLITCH'S LAMENT WHY did I trust thee with that giddy youth ? Who from a page can ever learn the truth ? Versed in court-tricks, that money-loving boy To some lord's daughter sold the living toy ; Or rent him limb from limb in cruel play, As children tear the wings of flies away. From place to place o'er Brobdingnag I'll roam, And never will return, or bring thee home. But who hath eyes to trace the passing wind ? How these thy fairy footsteps can I find ? Dost thou bewilder'd wander all alone In the green thicket of a mossy stone ; Or, tumbled from the toadstool's slippery round, Perhaps, all maim'd, lie grovelling on the ground ? Dost thou, embosom'd in the lovely rose, Or sunk, within the peach's down, repose ? Within the kingcup if thy limbs are spread, Or in the golden cowslip's velvet head, O show me Flora, 'midst those sweets, the flower Where sleeps my Grildrig in the fragrant bower ? But ah ! I fear thy little fancy roves On little females, and on little loves ; Thy pigmy children, and thy tiny spouse, The baby playthings that adorn thy house, Doors, windows, chimneys, and the spacious rooms, Equal in size to cells of honeycombs : Hast thou for these now ventured from the shore, Thy bark a bean-shell and a straw thy oar ? POPE. TRANSLATIONS 471 " Ilium absens absentem auditque videtquc " MENS levis est juvenum. Quid te commisimus illi ? Quisve putet famulo cuilibet esse fidem ? Tene, ut Tulliolis esses ludibria vivus, Vendidit aularum doctus amansque lucri ? Ceuve solent pueri pennas avellere muscis, Ossibus horribili distulit ossa joco ? At Cyclopeas errabo hinc inde per oras : At referar nunquam, te nisi nacta, domum. Sed quis enim celeres oculo deprenderit auras ? Qua Lemurum similes prosequar arte pedes ? Muscosusne lapis, frondens te silva, fatigat, Quaerentem socios exanimemque metu ? An teretis nimium lapsus de vertice fungi, Cernuus incunibis membraque truncus humi ? Purpureine lates tectus lanugine mali ? An rosa te gremio dulce soporat onus ? Si calice in calthi totus jam extenderis, aut si Aureus in molli te vehit axe crocus : Monstra, Flora, mihi, qui flos e millibus unus Silvula delicias condit odora meas ! Quanquam ah ! quam vereor ne parvi forsan amores, Duxerit et parvum femina parva sinum. Pigmaei pueri, veraque minutior uxor, Quotque tuos ornent frivola cunque lares : Porta, fenestra, foci, spatiosse scilicet aulee, Mole pares cellis qua thyma condit apis ; Hseccine sunt litus pro queis abscondere nostrum Ausus eras, remo stramine, lintre faba ? 472 TRANSLATIONS LAURA MATILDA'S DIRGE FROM "REJECTED ADDRESSES" BALMY zephyrs, lightly flitting, Shade me with your azure wing ; On Parnassus' summit sitting, Aid me, Clio, while I sing. Softly slept the dome of Drury O'er the empyreal crest, When Alecto's sister-fury Softly slumb'ring sunk to rest. Lo ! from Lemnos limping lamely, I^ags the lowly Lord of Fire, Cytherea yielding tamely To the Cyclops dark and dire. Clouds of amber, dreams of gladness, Dulcet joys and sports of youth, Soon must yield to haughty sadness; Mercy holds the veil to Truth. See Erostratus the second Fires again Diana's fane ; By the Fates from Orcus beckon'd Clouds envelop Drury Lane. Where is Cupid's crimson motion ? Billowy ecstasy of woe, Bear me straight, meandering ocean, Where the stagnant torrents flow. TRANSLATIONS 473 Nccnia. OQUOT odoriferi volitatis in acre venti, Creruleum tegmen vestra sit ala mihi : Tuque sedens Parnassus ubi caput erigit ingens, Dextra veni, Clio : teque docente canam. Jam suaves somnos Tholus affectare Theatri Coeperat, igniflui trans laqueare poli : AlectCis consanguineam quo tempore Erinnyn, Suave soporatam, cccpit adire quies. Lustra sed ecce labans claudo pede Lemnia linquit Luridus (at lente lugubriterque) Deus : Amisit veteres, amisit inultus, amores ; Teter habet Venerem terribilisque Cyclops. Electri nebulas, potioraque somnia vero ; Quotque placent pueris gaudia, quotque joci ; Omnia tristitiae fas concessisse superbae : Admissum Pietas scitque premitque nefas. Respice ! Nonne vides ut Erostratus alter ad aedem Rursus agat flammas, spreta Diana, tuam ? Mox, Acheronteis quas Parca eduxit ab antris, Druriacum nubes corripuere domum. O ubi purpurei motus pueri alitis ? o qui Me mihi turbineis surripis, angor, aquis ! Due, labyrintheum, due me, mare, tramite recto Quo rapidi fontes, pigra caterva, ruunt ! 474 TRANSLATIONS Blood in every vein is gushing, Vixen vengeance lulls my heart ; See the Gorgon gang is rushing ! Never, never let us part. HERRICK. AMARILLIS. Herrick. MY dearest love, since thou wilt go, And leave me here behind thee ; For love or pitie, let me know The place where I may find thee. Am. In country meadowes, pearled with dew, And set about with lilies : There, filling maunds with cowslips, you May find your Amarillis. Her. What have the meades to do with thee, Or with thy youthfull houres ? Live thee at court where thou may'st be The Queen of men, not flowers. Let country wenches make 'em fine With posies, since 'tis fitter For thee with richest jemmes to shine, And like the starres to glitter. HERRICK. TRANSLATIONS 475 Jamque soporat enim pectus Vindicta Virago ; Omnibus a venis sanguinis unda salit ; Gorgoneique greges pneceps (adverte ! ) feruntur Sim, precor, o ! semper sim tibi junctus ego. In pratis studiosa florum Hor. OQUJE sola places mihi, Si vis ire tamen, nosque relinquere, Die te si quis amor mei, Si restat pietas quo repetam loco ? Am. Inter pascua, ros ubi Par gemmae rutilat, dsedala liliis, Implentem calathos, tuam Illic invenias fors Amaryllida. Hor. Quid te pascua detinent Annis te teneris ? I pete Csesaris Aulam ; non ibi flosculos Flectes imperiis, sed potius viros. Certet rustica Phidyle Se jactare rosis : te decorarier Gemmis rectius Indise Et lucere parem sideris aurei. 476 TRANSLATIONS CA' THE EWES AS I gaed down the waterside, There I met my shepherd lad, He row'd me sweetly in his plaid, And he ca'd me his dearie. Chor. Ca' the ewes to the knowes, Ca' them where the heather grows, Ca' them where the burnie flows, My bonnie dearie. Will ye gang down the waterside, And see the waves sae sweetly glide, Beneath the hazels spreading wide ? The moon it shines fu' clearly. I was bred up at nae sic school, My shepherd lad, to play the fool, And a' the day to sit in dool, And naebody to see me. Ye shall get gowns and ribbons meet, Cauf-leather shoon upon your feet, And in my arms ye's lie and sleep, And ye shall be my dearie. If ye'H but stand to what you've said, I's gang wi' you, my shepherd lad, And ye may rowe me in your plaid, And I sail be your dearie. TRANSLATIONS 477 Pastor, Virgo Virgo PASTOR erranti mihi propter amnem Obvius venit meus, ambiensquc Suaviter palla, " Mihi," dixit, " una es, Phylli, voluptas." Ambo. Due ad acclives tumulos, genista Due ubi frondent juga, rivulusque Volvitur, matres gregis, o meorum Finis amorum ! Pas. An libet ferri tibi propter amnem ; Cernere et fluctus ut eant amceni Subter umbrosas corylos, nee abdant Nubila lunam ? Vir. Non erat primis mihi mos ab annis Prosequi lusus, puer, inficetos ; Non queri, quam longa, diem, nee unquam Cernier ulli. Pas. Coaque, et vittae tibi, quasque tergum Det juvencorum solese ambulanti, Dos erunt, nostris et onus lacertis Dulce quiesces. Vir. Hcereas istis modo rite dictis, Turn libens tecum, bone pastor, ibo ; Pallium obduces mihi, meque dices Unus amatam. 478 TRANSLATIONS While waters wimple to the sea, While day blinks in the lift sae hie, Till clay-cauld death sail blind my eye Ye shall be my dearie. BURNS. o THE GENTLE SHEPHERD Peg. PATIE, let me gang, I mauna stay : We're baith cry'd hame, and Jeanie she's away. Pat. I'm laith to part sae soon ; now we're alane, And Roger he's away wi' Jeanie gane : They're as content, for aught I hear or see, To be alane themselves, I judge, as we. Here, where primroses thickest paint the green, Hard by this little burnie let us lean : Hark ! how the lav'rocks chant aboon our heads, How saft the westlin' winds sough through the reeds. Peg. The scented meadow-birds and healthy breeze, For aught I ken, may mair than Peggy please. Pat. Ye wrang me sair to doubt my being kind ; In speaking sae, ye ca' me dull and blind, Gif I could fancy aught's sae sweet and fair As my sweet Meg, or worthy of my care. Thy breath is sweeter than the sweetest briar, Thy cheek and breast the finest flowers appear : Thy words excel the maist delightfu' notes That warble through the merle or mavis' throats : With thee I tent nae flowers that busk the field, Or ripest berries that our mountains yield ; The sweetest fruits that hing upon the tree Are far inferior to a kiss of thee. RAMSAY. TRANSLATIONS 479 Pas. Dum patens amnes trepident in aequor, Rideat dum sol super arce coeli, Te, premet donee mea frigus Orel Lumina, amabo. Delia, Mopsus. D. DECEDAM sine, Mopse ; nefas mihi, Mopse, morari Phyllis abest, poscuntque domi me teque parentes. M. Tarn propere piget avelli ; nunc denique nulli Cernimur, et Corydon cum Phyllide cessit in agros. Si qua fides oculis aut auribus, haud minus illis Quam mihi quamque tibi solis, reor, esse voluntas. Hie, narcissus ubi viridem densissimus agrum Pingit, ad hunc tenuem flectamus corpora rivum. Audis quern cantum supra del alauda, notique Ut per arundineam suspirent leniter ulvam ? D. Suavis odor prati, volucresque aurasque salubres, Credo equidem sunt, Mopse, magis quam Delia cordi. M. Non equidem hoc merui : nostro diffidis amori ? Istud ais ? Nimirum oculis et mente vacarem, Fingere si possem tam dulce et amabile quidquam, Tamve meae dignum, quam dulcis Delia, curse. Ora halant tua suave magis quocunque roseto ; Flos sinus, ac florum splendent par nobile malas : At vox prsecellit quod jucundissimum ab ullo Aut turdi aut merulae stillatur gutture murmur. Me nulli alliciunr, pratorum insignia, flores, Bacca nee in clivis quamvis matura paternis, Sis modo tu mecum : praedulcia sustinet arbos Poma ; tamen pomis tua dulcius oscula Mopso. 4 8o TRANSLATIONS "POOR TREE" POOR tree ; a gentle mistress placed thee here, To be the glory of the glade around. Thy life has not survived one fleeting year, And she too sleeps beneath another mound. But mark what differing terms your fates allow, Though like the period of your swift decay ; Thine are the sapless root and wither'd bough ; Hers the green memory and immortal day. CARLISLE. SONG " FAITHLESS SWALLOW " T7AIT HLESS Swallow, fly away, JL To purer air and brighter day ; But when spring shall deck the plain, Swallow, come again ! Thou could'st not brook the changing sky, Or autumn winds that sadly sigh, Too soon my fost'ring care forgot And thou hast left my cot. TRANSLATIONS 4 8i Flebilis Arbor TE dominae pia cura solo, miseranda, locarat Patentis, arbor, ut fores agri decus. At mansit tua vita brevem non amplius annum ; At ipsa dormit extero sub aggere. Quam diversa tamen sors est (adverte) duarum ! Fugax utramque vexit hora ; sed tibi, Arbor, truncus iners, frons arida restat : at illi Perenne lumen ac virens adhuc amor. Idem aliter redditum MOLLIS hue hera quam tulit caducam Ut saltus decus, arbor, emineres Anno non superas brevi peracto ; At cespes procul ambit arctus illam. Pares funere (dispares eaedem Quanto discite) marcuistis ambae. Frons restat tibi passa, sicca radix j Illi lux nova jugiter virenti. CELUM ubi candidius te, perfida, defer, hirundo Coelum ubi candidius, splendidiorque dies : Tempus erit tamen, arva redux quo pinget Aprilis; Illud ubi veniet, perfida, rursus ades. Scilicet impatiens cceli mutabilis, et qui Triste sub auctumnum ventus anhelat, eras : Hsec metuens, oblita manus quse fovit egentem, A laribus nostris post breve tempus abis, I l 482 TRANSLATIONS When, thy weary wand'rings o'er, Shelter thou shalt claim once more, Smiles alone shall greet thee here, Swallow, do not fear ! Again I'll watch thy pinions light, Around my head in airy flight, Again thy faithless love forget, And give thee welcome yet ! Faithless Swallow, fly away, To purer air and brighter day ; But when spring shall deck the plain, Swallow, come again ! HYMN TO THE MORNING ( Written in the Vale of Chamouni) AWAKE, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my song ! Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale ! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald : wake, O wake, and utter praise ! TRANSLATIONS 483 At cum fessa vise, jam tandem erroribus actis, Hospitis officium, qualiter ante, petes, Hue redeas ! reducem nos excipiemus, hirundo, Risibus assuetis ; exue quemque metum, Tecta levi rursus circumvectabere penna, Aeriumque oculis rite tuebor iter : Utque prius spretos ultro obliviscar amores, Utque prius dicam, Sit tua nostra domus. Ergo aliis infida locis te transfer hirundo, Lucet ubi ccelo candidiore dies : At cum prata, novum jam ver induta, nitescent, Ne dubites nostrum rursus adire larem. RUMPE moras, mea mens ! non tantum laudibus istis Nunc opus ! baud lacrymis satis est turgescere, casca Fervere Isetitia, ac tacitas persolvere grates : Excute, cor, somnos ! vosque adspirate canenti Graminese valles, glacieque rigentia saxa ! Incipe, vox arguta, melos ! Te, maxime regum, Te primum aggredior, vallis decus : humida cujus Nox caput invadit tenebris ; quern plurima longas Sidera per noctes, nunc sero orientia ccelo, Nunc obitura, petunt : rosei qui sideris instar, Luciferi comes ipse, diem lucemque reportas, Surge age, rumpe moras, laudesque effunde solutas ! Quis tua, quis solida posuit fundamina terra, 484 TRANSLATIONS Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever ? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ? And who commanded and the silence came " Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? " Ye icefalls ! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows ? Who with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? GOD ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer ! and let the ice plains echo, GOD ! GOD ! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice ! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD ! COLERIDGE. TRANSLATIONS 485 Sol ubi semper abest ? roseo quis lumine tingens Vultum fluminea fecit te prole parentem ? Vos etiam, quini qui flumina volvitis amnes Turbida laetitia ! quis vos a noctis acerba Sede, quis exitio, gelidisque excivit ab antris, Praecipites inter scopulos, et scrupea saxa Ire jubens, loca perpetua collapsa ruina ? Quis vobis nullo violandam vulnere vitam Laetitiamque alasque dedit ? vis unde, furorque, Spumseque insomnes, ac fulmina nescia sisti ? Quis pelago dixit subeuntque silentia dicto " Hie tumidi rigeant fluctus ; hie unda quiescat ? " Lympha gelu constricta ! fero quse vertice montis Devolvis rigidos per saxa horrentia fluctus Quamque equidem voces credo agnovisse Potentis, Et fremitum, atque omnem subito fraenasse furorem O tacitas decursus aquae ! O sine gurgite torrens ! Quis vobis fulgore dedit splendescere, quali Siderese portae, pleme sub frigora lunae ? Unde, precor, jussus vestras Sol Iride picta Vestit aquas ? qua serta manu funduntur, et una Caerulei flores, vivum decus ? Est Deus, alto Torrentes clamore fremant, voxque insonet ingens, Gentis opus ! vos arva gelu torrentia, plena Reddite voce, " Deum ! " vos prata recentia rivis, Et pineta sacrum foliis spirantia murmur ; Haec quoque, namque licet, nivea quse mole laborant Saxa " Deum ! " vasto revoluta a monte sonabunt. September 27^, 1848. 486 TRANSLATIONS * # * TJte six, following translations were made for "Hymns Ancient and Modern, with some Metrical Translations " etc.) published 1867. XLIV. CHRISTMAS LANIGEROS, acclinis humo, pastoria pubes Custodiebat dum greges ; Splendescente polo longe lateque, Jehovae Descendit ales nuntius. Qui "Quid" ait "tremitis?" namque anxia pectora terror Immanis occupaverat " Grata fero : magnum jubeo Isetarier et vos Et quicquid est mortalium. Namque in Davidis urbe, satus quoque Davidis idem E stirpe, jamjam nascitur Vestra Salus, Dominus vester, cognomine Christus ; Signoque vobis hoc erit : Invenietur ibi ccelestis scilicet Infans, Spectabiturque jam viris ; Fascia velarit meritum non talia corpus, Condente prsesepi caput." Dixerat ales. Eo simul apparere videres Dicente lucentem chorum Arce profectorum supera ; paeanaque laetum His ordiebantur modis : " Qui colit alta Deo summi tribuantur honores, Virisque pax arrideat ; Protenus excipiat coeli indulgentia terras Haud dirimenda saeculis." TRANSLATIONS 487 cxxx. PENTECOST profecti vis et ira nuntiae v_^ Fuere quondam Numinis : Ximbos secantis pedibus; instar ignium Hac parte, nigros altera. At prodeunti vis amorque denuo Ibant ministri ; mollius Sacer Palumbes dimovebat aera Quam mane primo flamina. Quot occuparant impetu flamm^ fero Arcem Sinai, suaviter Tot consecratum nunc in onme defluunt Caput, corona nobilis. Ac vox uti praegrandis arrectas metu, Ut clangor aures perculit, (Ccelestium quo coetus audito tremunt,) E nocte trepidans nubium ; Sic prodeunte Spiritu Dei suos, Ut pastor, inventum greges, Late sonabat vox, profecta ccelitus, Tumultuosi turbinis. Templum Jehovoe qua, scatetque criminum Fecundus orbis undique ; In pervicaci scilicet demum sinu Desideratura locum. Hue, Numen, adsis ! Vis, Amor, Prudentia, Adsis ut aures audiant ; Bene ominatum quisque captet ut diem Amore sospes an metu. TRANSLATIONS CXXXIX I pretium nostrse vitam dedit, ante " Supremum Valete " quam vix edidit, Solamenque Ducemque viris legarat eundem, Quo contubernales forent. Venit at Ille suse partem dulcedinis ultro Ut hospes efflaret bonus, Nactus ubi semel esset, amat qua sede morari, Casti latebras pectoris. Hinc illse auditse voces, qualemque susurrum Nascente captes Vespero ; Quo posuere metus, patitur quo frena libido, Spirare viso ccelitus. Ac virtutis inest si quid tibi, si quid honorum Claro triumphis contigit ; Venerit in mentem si quid divinius unquam ; Hsec muneris sunt Illius. At candens, at mite veni nunc, Numen, opemque Nostrse fer impotentia? ; Cor nunc omne domus pateat tua; feceris omne Cor incola te dignius. Vosque Patrem, Natum vos tollite ; neve recuses Tu sancte laudem Spiritus : Dignus enim tolli, Tria qui Deus audit in Uno, Unumve malit in Tribus. TRANSLATIONS 489 CXCVII A UXILIUM quondam, nunc spes, Deus, unica nostri ; JT\. Flante noto portus, prseteritoque domus : Gens habitat secura tuae tua sedis in umbra ; Simus ut incolumes efficit una manus. Terras olim neque forma fuit neque collibus ordo : Tu, quot eunt anni, numen es unus idem. Saacla vides abiisse, fugax ut vesper ; ut actis Quse tenebris reducem prorogat hora diem. * Stant populi, ceu mane novo juga florea, quorum Marcidus ad noctem falce jacebit honos : * Tu " suboles terrena, redi " nee plura locuto, Quippe satae gentes pulvere pulvis erunt. Quos genuit, secum rotat usque volubilis aetas ; Ut sopor in cassum, luce solutus, eunt. Tu quondam auxilium, spes nunc, Deus, ultima nostri, Sis columen trepidis, emeritisque domus. * Two stanzas are translated here which do not appear in the received editions of Hymns Ancient and Modem. They are quoted as part of this hymn by Miss Bronte in Shirley, and run as follows : Thy word commands our flesh to dust "Return, ye sons of men ; " All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth again. Like flowery fields the nations stand, Fresh in the morning light ; The flowers beneath the mower's hand Lie withering ere 'tis night ! Possibly Miss Bronte quoted from memory, and the true version of the first stanza may be All nations rose from earth, and must Return to earth again. 490 TRANSLATIONS ccxx. O chaos ac tenebrze quondam fugere locuto, Supplicis, Omnipotens, accipe vota chori : Quaque jubar nondum micuit quod sole, quod astris Clarius est, dicas " Exoriare dies ! " Qui dignatus eras descendere more sequestri Alitis ad terram, luxque salusque virum ; ^gro mente salus, lux interioris egeno Luminis : at toto jam sit in orbe dies ! Unde fides, amor unde venit ; qui Spiritus audis ; Carpe, dator vitse, sancte Palumbes, iter : Incubet aetherios spargens tua forma nitores Fluctubus, ut terra? lustret opaca dies ! Quique, Triplex, splendes tamen integer ; ipse vicissim Robur, Amor, Virtus ; usque beate Deus : Quale superbit aquis indignaturque teneri Fine carens pelagus, crescat ubique dies ! CCXLII. DEDICATION OF A CHURCH VERBUM superni Numinis Qui cuncta comples, hanc domum Amore certo consecres Et feriatis annuas. E fonte pueros hoc fluit In criminosos gratia ; Beata cogit unctio Nitere nuper sordidos. Hie Christus animis dat cibo Corpus suum fidelibus ; TRANSLATIONS 491 Ccelestis agnus proprii Fert ipse calicem sanguinis. Hinc venia moestis ac salus Reis emenda ; dum favet Judex, et ingens gratia Scelere sepultos integral. Hie, regnat alte qui Deus, Benignus habitat ; hie pium Pectus gubernat atria Desiderantum coelica In dedicatam trux domum. Procella nequidquam furit ; Atrox eo vis Tartari Passura fertur dedecus. At robur, at laus tibi, Pater, Sit comparique Filio ; Diique amoris vinculo, Dum saecla currunt, Flamini. 492 TRANSLATIONS "JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN" JOHN Anderson, my jo, John, When we were first acquent Your locks were like the raven, Your bonnie brow was brent : But now you're grawing auld, John, Your locks are like the snow ; Yet blessings on your frosty pow, - M John Anderson, my jo ! John Anderson, my jo, John, I wonder what ye mean, To rise sae early in the morn, And sit sae late at e'en. Ye'll blear out a' your e'e, John ; And why should ye do so ? Gang sooner to your bed at e'en, John Anderson, my jo ! John Anderson, my jo, John, When Nature first began To try her canny hand, John, Her masterwork was man. And you amang them all, John, Sae trig frae top to toe, She proved to be nae journeywork, John Anderson, my jo ! TRANSLATIONS 493 IDEM GREECE REDDITUM. ' A NAHPI'AA, p/A' oto, /-A \ ~. , % . / a. JL Ta trputa. / XO^WVJJ vwv somag, xapa JE <7ov ovaio x ' Avftupftcty .' cc T/ 3^ /MtQuv, ava^ uv oucpouov kxaivitr tpyov avdpa? W/*j * \ V' >>/ > V ~ { craTf /xaA* aa^Evnv Ifl' a/er ?3>) woAX sff^o/jtsv ffu xayu. *E3bv3c > *X0EfT> f to^X. J\, , r , v o ET exTr^axHerflKV* , *.d*l' PROSE ARTICLES ON METRICAL TRANSLATION 1 SIR, A writer in a recent number 2 of this Magazine laid down that there could be no true translation of a Greek or Roman poet which did not reproduce his metre ; and that this had been successfully done by the Poet Laureate and others. I venture to think, on the contrary, that what resemblance there is between these modern experiments and their originals, is a primb facie resemblance, and vanishes upon inspection; and that the specimens which the Laureate gave us, whatever may be their value upon other grounds, are, as imitations of metre, worthless. That the likeness is not so perfect as it has been assumed to be may, perhaps, appear thus. Let us take Mr. Tennyson's alcaic stanzas the best alcaics, one may well suppose, which our language is capable of producing and consider a single line: " Calm as a mariner out in ocean." This, it will be said, is a perfectly unexceptionable English alcaic line. And such, no doubt, it is ; but does it really re- produce Horace? If so, then, supposing we constructed a 1 This and the two following articles afford a clear exposition of Cal verley 's views upon the subject of which he was so great a master, classical transla- tion. ED. 2 The article here commented on will be found in the " London Student," for June, 1868, p. 149. (On Metrical Translation. By Henry Ward Fortescue.) ED. ON METRICAL TRANSLATION 497 Latin line upon its model, we ought to have a fac simile of the normal Horatian line. Take Sol 2tt in ai;re lucet alto : Is this a fair sample of Horace ? It is a line which any element- ary lyric-book would tell us was bad ; a line the like of which could not be found in all Horace's Odes. The same experiment might be tried on any other metre with the same result. Coleridge's verse " In the pentameter aye lalling in melody back," has been often quoted for its ingenuity and beauty, and I do not presume to question either. I only say that &fac simile of it in Latin would be a pentameter so execrable, that the student of Ovid andTibullus would hardly recognize it as a pentameter at all. The truth I take to be this : that we modern experimentalists adopt and I dare say must adopt, to make metrical composition possible at all in English not merely a different, but a dia- metrically opposite, principle to what our predecessors followed. We study to produce such verses as it shall be impossible to read without, at the same time, involuntarily scanning them. They are to " scan themselves," to quote Dr. Whewell's phrase ; or, as Mr. Fortescue puts it, " The words, read as they are spoken, should fall rightly into the metre." The ancients, I contend, made it a special point that their verses should not " scan themselves," and every form of line which did so they held bad on that account. We select, in other words, for our standard precisely those lines which Horace or Ovid carefully excluded, frame verse after verse upon their model, and call the result a reproduction of Horace's or Ovid's versification. My first proposition, as to the principle on which the moderns work, I need hardly verify. As to the second, it may of course be said, that we cannot tell how the Greek and Roman poets read their lines. K K 498 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION We have, however, this evidence as to how they did not read them. There are in every metre certain types of line which the writers in it manifestly avoided. In an alcaic ode (for instance) such a line as I propounded just now, or a line of the forms, " Fortia corpora fudit Hector" " Fceda cadavera barbarorum" A pentameter, again, ending with a monosyllable, would not be found in all Latin literature. And so with other metres. This avoidance is a simple fact, and one for which we are bound to account in some way. Now if we suppose they meant their verses to be read as they are scanned, there is no apparent reason I think I may say there is no conceivable reason why any one of these types of line should have been objected to. " Ausa mori mulier marito," and "Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis" (read as accented), are rhythmically identical with fceda cadavera barbarorum, and with any other line which scans. A pentameter ending with a monosyllable is rhythmically identical with any other penta- metre scanned : e.g., there is surely no difference in sound between " Sidera tangit equi's," and " Si'dera tangite quis." On that supposition, I say, all these lines, which were as a matter of fact rejected, would be perfectly admissible. And in English, where the supposition is true, they are all (as one would expect) admitted freely. I appeal to Mr. Fortescue himself whether " Beautiful innocent, unrepining " " Crocus, anemone, tulip, iris " (which are identical in construction with two of my model bad Latin lines) would not be thought rather good than otherwise in English. As to any objection to pentameters which end with a monosyllable, they do so almost uniformly. If, on the other hand, we adopt the supposition that the old poets (like the modern) read their verses by an accent which was so far arbitrary that it was wholly independent of the scan- ON METRICAL TRANSLATION 499 sion, and was intended partially to conceal the scansion, then one sees at once why all these lines might have been disallowed. "Atisa m6ri rmilier marito," and "M6rdet aqua tacittirnus amnis " read as, rightly or wrongly, I was taught to read them at school are two different lines, and are both good because they do not carry their scansion upon their face ; and " Fortia corpora fudit Ajax " is bad because it does. This hypothesis, and no other that I can think of, would account for the con- demnation of all the lines, in what metre soever, which are actually condemned. Why, for instance, would such a verse as be a bad iambic ? The books would of course say that it has no caesura. But why is a verse bad which has no caesura? If all verses are to be scanned in reading them, a verse without a caesura sounds just the same as a verse with any number. What appears to me to be the almost universal fallacy ot metrical writers is the assumption that when you have got the scansion of a line you have got its rhythm. Mr. Fortescue speaks of " metre or rhythm " throughout as convertible terms. I deny that the rhythm of the Propria qua. maribus is the same as the rhythm of the " ^Eneid." Any metre may, no doubt, as he says, be imitated in English : lines, that is, may be made in any metre which scan. Even so intricate a one as Super alta vectus Atys is, I am told, copied, and that correctly, in the Laureate's " Boadicea." " Adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca deae." " Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy." " Soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, gentleman, apothecary." What the metre of the second and third may be, and how far they correspond with the first, I am not competent to say. The last I had always mistaken for prose. However, the lines in " Andromeda " are (most of them) undeniable hexameters : but 500 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION what then ? The lines "When little Samuel woke and heard his Maker's voice, At every word He spoke, how much did he rejoice," are equally undeniable iambics : and the same claim that Mr. Kingsley has to have reproduced the rhythm of Homer, Dr. \Vatts has to have reproduced that of ^ischylus. I do not suppose that if Mr. Fortescue had to translate the " Prometheus Vinctus," he would feel obliged to represent the iambic lines by the "Little Samuel" metre, and the anapsestic ones by the metre of Owen Meredith's " Lucile : " but I do not see how, consistently with his principles, he could do otherwise. Perhaps I may be allowed to make some comments on Mr. Fortescue's own versions, to which indeed he invites criticism that is to say, on their merits as imitations. As to the first l ode, I should say that he was bound, on his own showing, to trans- late it not only into sapphics but into Horatian sapphics. It would be no imitation of Pope's metre, for example, to write it as handled by Keats, or by Mr. Morris. Now the "dactyl in the middle," on which Mr. Fortescue's sapphic line is made to hinge, is not, I submit, a characteristic of Horace's line. It is there, of course, but it only appears when you take the verse to pieces : and I confess that my despised old friend, " Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded " seems to me more Horatian than any line in the copy before me. Could Mr. Fortescue read the ode he has translated into the metre into which he has put it? Of course he could if he scanned it all through ; and in that case I can only put my former question in a different form. Why is it that we never find in Horace such a line as Ease nudo terruit Hector arcem ? 1 The three odes, the translations of which are here criticised, are Hor. Lib. i. Od. ii. ; Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. ; Lib. i. Od. xiv. ED. ON METRICAL TRANSLATION 501 In an alcaic one naturally looks to the two final lines. Of Mr. Fortescue's third lines, one seems to me (for an obvious reason) really to resemble one of Horace's : the remainder to be much less like it than Mr. Jingle's fragment, " In hurry poste-haste for a licence." They are all exactly in the metre " My brother Jack was nine in May," if we substitute a dissyllable (" April " suppose) for the mono- syllable at the end. Can Horace's third lines be read, by scanning them or otherwise, into this metre? Some perhaps could, such as the first in this ode ; but that is no more a fair sample of Horace's versification than " Cornua velatarum obvertinius antennarum," is a fair sample of Virgil's. Of the fourth lines, I can only say that they scan too well ; the scansion is (of course intentionally) pronounced in all of them : and consequently they are all pre- cisely like each other, and none, to my ear, at all like Horace. As to the remaining ode, I should imagine that to a person un- acquainted with Horatian metres (and it is for the benefit, I presume of such that these translations are made) the first two lines of every stanza would appear to be lax Alexandrines, the third the metre of "When the British warrior-queen" (or of " Over rivers and mountains " occasionally, as in the case of the last stanza but two); and the fourth no recognizable metre whatsoever. One more criticism I would venture on upon a different point. I submit that "Trembled the" "Romans be" "turn the helm " (though the next word did not begin with a consonant) are not dactyls. Surely " helm " and " realm " are as dis- tinctly long syllables as any can be. I do not mean to say that we are to conform rigorously to the Greek and Latin rules. I should admit that the second syllable of words like "disallowed," 502 ON METRICAL TRANSLATION "warranted," or "organ-voiced" is short, and I think Mr. Tennyson made a false quantity when he placed " organ-voiced" where he did in the Milton alcaics. He might plead that with- out the aid of some actual Latin adjective such as " atlantean," or some exceptional English compound, such as "un-swan-like," for a central word, it seems impossible to imitate the most fre- quently recurring form of the Horatian third line. But at least we should remember that these rules were not arbitrary ones : it was from conformity to them, or rather to the theories of musical sound which they embodied, that the Greek verse de- rived its character, its melody and grace ; and we cannot surely ignore them utterly, as most metrical writers habitually do, without sacrificing what really, much more than the metre, constitutes the essence and the "rhythm" of the verse. A Greek line is, in fact, a succession of vowels, separated by con- sonants introduced sparingly, and under such restrictions that it flows on uninterruptedly from syllable to syllable. The flow of an English line is generally choked (so to speak) by blocks of consonants thrown in ad libitiim. Compare " Silenced but unconvinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith," or, " Clasped each other's hand, and interchanged pledges of friendship," with the first line of the " Iliad." " Silenc'd but " is a dactyl, encdb a short syllable. " Interchang'd pledges " is a reproduc- tion of pijviv aftSt. Only conceive the havoc that we should make in one of Homer's lines if we inserted here and there such encumbrances as ncdb, ndgpl, or even Mr. Fortescue's dth, nsb, etc., between two of the short vowels. Compare again a pentameter by one of the very best of our metrical writers : "Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife" ON METRICAL TRANSLATION 503 with " Impia quid dubitas Deianira mori." The Latin pentameter of which the former is really a counter- part, is this : Trains niter rent ob cor, versat per labor et stryx. Does this bear the faintest resemblance to one of Ovid's pen- tameters? I have a strong belief that any line which obeys the same laws of euphony as the Greeks and Romans observed such a line as " The moan of doves in immemorial elms," or as many of Mr. Kingsley's own resembles and reminds one of their poetry far more than these concatenations of so-called dactyls and spondees, which seem to me, even when they scan perfectly, to be not so much verses as skeletons of verses. * Metre (if I may end with a metaphor) is, in my view, a sort of framework whose office it is to support the verse. It is possible to train a rose or a vine upon a trellis so that, while it adheres firmly, it is still left to follow its own devices and form its own pattern over the laths, which are only seen here and there amongst the leaves and tendrils. It would also be possible to force every branch and spray into strict conformity with the lines of the frame, so that the outline of its squares should be the only outline visible. The former method seems to me to be the way in which Homer and Virgil, and all poets ancient or modern, whose works I am linguist enough to read, have dealt with metre ; and the latter the way it is dealt with by metrical translators. I am, Sir, yours very faithfully, C. S. CALVERLEY. f] . ^e^4-i "y fa u h> !> I. .if' fi'Jt, ,,.,'., :. 504 THE "/ENEID" OF VIRGIL A TRANSLATOR has two main duties to consider his J~\^ duty towards his original, and his duty towards his readers. Translators of the old school almost ignored the former consideration ; those of the new amongst whom Pro- fessor Conington's " Horace," and in a less degree his " ^Eneid," justify us in classing him on the contrary hold it paramount. Specimens of translation on the older principle may be found of course in Pope and Dryden passim : in Lord Derby not un- frequently, as when he renders " Dukes docta modos et citharae sciens " " Skilled with transcendent art To touch the lyre and breathe harmonious lays." This is Horace done into Johnsonese : or rather into that smooth commonplace which is nobody's style in particular, and Horace's least of all. Probably Brady and Tate went as far it is possible to go in this direction (though parallel instances might be easily found in Pope) in transmuting the single word " always " into " Through all the changing scenes of life, In trouble and in joy." We may take that as the extreme case of the one school ; and Milton's " storms unwonted shall admire," etc. (procellas emir- abitur insolens," K. r. X.), as the extreme case of the other. Professor Conington has not, as we hinted above, dealt with Virgil quite as he dealt with Horace, for reasons which he ex. plains in his preface. An ode of Horace, he says, is for close scrutiny, an vffoeid for rapid reading. Accordingly he has not attempted to represent " the characteristic art of Virgil's lan- 1 "The ^Eneid of Virgil translated into English Verse." By John Conington, M.A. (London : Longmans and Co. 1866.) THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL 505 guage." He has not sought for equivalents of his words or turns of speech striving rather to be readable, like Scott, than classical, like Milton. It may be said to this that Virgil's language is Virgil. His diction is an essential part of him ; and Milton has taken such pains to show how it may be recast in English, that we cannot help wishing Professor Conington had elected to take more hints from him than he has taken ; without becoming abso- lutely Miltonic, which would ill accord with Scott's metre. He has followed him at times, though perhaps unconsciously ; wisely at any rate ; as where " Night invests the world." (fiox operit terras. /En. iv. 352.) cf. "Night invests the sea." Par. Lost, i. 208. At others he has not, when he might have done so with advan- tage ; as in Mr\. v. 113: "Et tuba commissos medio canit aggere ludos : " " And from a mound the trump proclaims The festal onset of the games. " This is good, but conventional compared with Milton's "To arms the matin trumpet sang." Again, his "Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous- She knew not, eating death " are happy representations, one of a rhythm, and one of an idiom, so peculiar and characteristic as to be worth preserving. His " hope conceiving from despair " is palpably imitated from Virgil's " Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem," and expresses it perhaps more forcibly than Professor Coning- ton's rendering, which is neat enough nevertheless. But it is hardly fair to criticise Professor Conington for not 5o6 THE "^ENEID" OF VIRGIL having represented what he deliberately declines to represent. As a fair specimen of what he has done we will quote these lines (there are plenty as good) from ^En. vii. : " With measured pace they march along And make their monarch's deeds their song ; Like snow-white swans in liquid air, When homeward from their food they fare, And far and wide melodious notes Come rippling from their slender throats, While the broad stream and Asia s fen Reverberate to the sound again. Sure none had thought that countless crowd A mail-clad company : It rather seemed a dusky cloud Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud, Press landward from the sea." This passage from Book ii. seems to us very easy, and is most accurate : " Meantime Heaven shifts from light to gloom, And night ascends from Ocean's womb, Involving in her shadow broad Earth, sky, and Myrmidonian fraud : And through the city, stretched at will, Sleep the tired Trojans, and are still." Here the third and fourth lines are absolutely literal. We will add one ingenious rendering of a line similar in character to the second, which latter, by the way, we thought bore a differ- ent meaning to that assigned to it : l " Now dews precipitate the night, And setting stars to rest invite." (p. 35.) These extracts will bear us out in saying that Professor Con- mgton has produced a version singularly faithful (save in the 1 The line in question is in the original " Vertitur interea ccelum, et ruit Oceano nox. " Mi\. ii. 250. Ed. THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL 507 point which he abandons), and pleasant and spirited withal, of a poem, as he remarks, little known to English readers. He apologizes for appearing in the field after Dryden, and, we think, unnecessarily. Dryden was a great poet, but not a translator at all. His "Virgil" is in no sense Virgil, but Dryden simply. We conceive, with all deference to Professor Conington, that there was a radical difference between the Roman and the " Caroline " poet ; nay, more, that the heroic couplet (though opinions differ as to metres) is of its nature in- capable of representing hexameters or any Latin measure except elegiacs, and perhaps Ovid's hexameters, which are elegiacs in disguise. We admit the professor's plea for the occasional use of "mote" (might), "eyne," etc., on the strength of Virgil's archaisms ; though we protest against " treen," which appeared in one of " Horace's Odes," and which seemed to us not quite, but almost, as intolerable as " been " for the plural of " bee." We may notice in conclusion one characteristic of Professor Conington's work which adds greatly to its value that he never makes the vagueness of poetic phraseology a means of escape from a difficulty. A writer in " Frazer's Magazine " of September, upon recent translations of Horace (who ignores, by the way, Conington's " Horace " altogether), gives us incident- ally several model translations of his own, of which the follow- ing is a sample : ' ' Me the poetic doves in days far-gone Covered with fresh-cropt leaves, when found, A truant child that dared to pass Beyond my own Apulia's bound, Sleeping in Vultur's mountain grass, Tired out with lonely play in that long summer noon." The last two lines, it will be observed, are represented in the Latin by " ludo fatigatumque somno ; " except the one word " Vultur's." This we take to be the worst translation possible ; 508 THE "^NEID" OF VIRGIL not so much because the text is absurdly spun out, and has a perfectly gratuitous tail appended to it to eke out a needless Alexandrine, as because "fatigatum somno," the only am- biguous expression, is shirked entirely. We would advise the writer, if he intends completing the Odes, to glance meantime at Professor Conington's version of them, and if he is preparing a criticism of recent translations of Virgil, not to leave wholly unnoticed the very able work we have just reviewed. TENNYSONIAN^" 1 TO those who still love occasionally to "brood and live again in memory with those old faces of their infancy " under whose supervision they acquired the art and mystery of Latin versification, and to try upon the corpus vile poetantm hodiernorum if their hand retains aught of its ancient cunning, the Laureate's works offer many attractions. Besides being, as Mr. Church proclaims him to be, "poeta recentioris cetatis maximus" his muse is pre-eminently classical. He often con- sciously, often perhaps unconsciously, catches the tone of some ancient bard of Greece or of Rome. He likes now and then to cull a phrase or a line from one of them, and work it into his own poetry, as " This way and that dividing the swift mind." Though he does not of course adopt the actual rules of Latin prosody, his verse is framed always upon the rhythmical prin- ciples of which those rules were the embodiment ; and in con- sequence there is the same sort of grace and finish about it which distinguished the verse of Horace and of Virgil. Be- tween Horace especially, and the modern poet, there exist, we 1 " florae Tennysonianae ; sive Eclogae e Tennysono Latine Redditae." Cura A. J. Church, A.M. (London : Macmilhn and Co. 1869.) "HOR.E TENNYSONIAN.E" 509 think, in point of style and workmanship, many similarities. A stanza of " In Memoriam " is a thing compact feres atque rotun- dum, as is a stanza in a Horatian ode. Both writers are equally intolerant of any but the right word, and both have the gift of making it fit into its place apparently by a happy accident. The condensed phraseology, the abruptness, the ease (attained probably "per laborem phtrimiim" until art became a second nature) which characterize the odes of Horace characterize also the cantos, so to call them, of " In Memoriam." Even Mr. Tennyson's compound epithets are paralleled, and more than paralleled, in Horace, and indeed in Virgil. " Zephyris agitato, Tempe " is as much a compound epithet as " wind-swept " in English, and " Segnesque noduin solvere Gratia " is a three- barrelled compound epithet for which our language can furnish no equivalent. Latin literature is, in fact, far richer in elabor- ate compounds than English is, or ever could be, since the Latin tongue expressed naturally, by means of its inflections, what ours, barren of inflections, can only indicate in an artificial way by inserting a hyphen ; e.g. that " wind " is an ablative governed by "swept," a participle. The contributors to the present volume, however, have chosen to translate the Laureate, when he writes any metre other than blank verse, into Ovidian Elegiacs, rather than Horatian Alcaics or Asclepiads. Two only, the Editor and Professor Seeley have constructed each an Alcaic Ode out of the pages of "In Memoriam." Of Mr. Church's Ode, which opens the volume (as in its original English it opened Mr. Tennyson's), we may speak in almost unqualified praise, and the same may be said of his contributions generally. He has constantly succeeded in ex- pressing most difficult English in Latin that is never forced and always forcible, as only a true scholar could. In only one case that we have noted he has made no attempt, and as we think wisely, to find an equivalent for the phrase before him : 510 "HOR^E TENNYSONIAN^!" " Nocturna luce coruscans Unda tuum molli geminabat murmure nomen," does not of course pretend to represent " And rapt in wreaths of glowworm light The mellow breaker murmured Ida ; " but to intimate that it cannot be represented. Should not "rapt" be "lapt," by the way? Elsewhere "football" is printed for " footfall," and " spirited " for " spirted " purple. How Mr. Church can deal with English which is not absolutely impossible, the following extracts may suffice to show : " And doubtless unto thee is given A life that bears immortal fruit In such great offices that suit The full-grown energies of Heaven." "Tu quoque jam peragis, credo, felicius aevum, Quodque facis nunquam mors abolebit opus ; Tu quoque, crelicolum jam viribus auctus adultis, Officio fungi nobiliore poles." " This garden -rose that I found Forgetful of Maud and me, And lost in trouble and moving round Here at the head of a tinkling fall, And trying to pass to the sea. " " Hanc equidem inveni oblitam dominseque meique, Hie ubi fit strepitus desilientis aquae. Flos se perpetuos frustra volvebat in orbes, Si jungi sequoreis forte daretur aquis." What can be prettier ? Mr. Church's version of King Cophetua we think inferior to the preceding one by Mr. Hessey, except the last stanza, which is excellent. Per contra^ we prefer his rendering of " As through the land at eve we went " to the "altera versio " subjoined. We have devoted some space to the editor and largest con- tributor. As we have mentioned Professor Seeley's Ode, we "HOR.E TENNYSONIANjE" 511 may add that we have no possible fault to find, except with the first line, and perhaps with the last, which latter probably could not be put into Latin as simple as the English within the space allotted. The first line looks, at any rate, a terrific denunciation of the creature, " the linnet born within the cage," which Mr. Tennyson only says that he " envies not in any mood." The accident of the first word being printed in capitals gives to it a fictitious emphasis and glare. One of the editor's most able coadjutors is Mr. Kebble, of Lincoln. Notent tirones how " sandy bar " and " babble " are skilfully disposed of in the pentameter, " Visus arenosas increpuisse moras." Tesquis reminds one unfortunately of Bland. No. xxxiii. by the same author is a masterly production ; and take this extract from "Aylmer's Field:" " The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast, They cling together in the ghastly sack The land all shambles." " Stricta ducum procerumque ruentia pulvere colla ! Scilicet in tetris capiti caput hieret acervis. Csede fluit tellus." There are two good versions of " Come down, maid," by Messrs. Kebbel and Sotheby. The latter, in an attempt on "Tears, idle tears," has, we should say, like all his predecessors, signally failed. " Vivax " is not " fresh," nor " Forma fenestrarum sensim quadratior exstal " anything like "The casement slowly grows a glimmering square." The thing altogether is untranslatable. And the latter remark may possibly apply to " Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white," etc. 512 "HOR^E TENNYSONIAN.E" At any rate lines like these give, surely, no idea of the poetry and beauty of their original : " Regali in xysto cc.ssat nulare cupressus, Et niveus dormit puvpureusque calyx ; Mannoreo nee pinna, vides? micat aurea labro ; Seel pyralis vigilat : tu inihi, cara, vaca ! " etc. These and all the succeeding verses appear to us worthless, till we come to the last four, which are graceful and good. Recurring to No. xxv., is tamen (on p. 83) used for " but " ? We remember only one precedent, if so ; Ovid's line " Nil mihi rescribas, attamen ipse veni," which has been variously emended. The true reading, which has lain hid from the interpreters, is, we have no doubt, "attagen," the attagen lonicus of Horace, a bird whose name, dear to the epicure, would naturally pass into an equivalent for " deliciae," as our English word " duck " is said to have done. The last syllable of attagen (vocative) would be, of course, short, more Gmco. Honourable mention ought to be made of Mr. Day, for a most able version of part of the "Lotus eaters." The begin- ning of the poem is not done so successfully by another con- tributor : " Eja ! agite, o socii, validis incumbite remis ; In manibus terrse is no translation whatever of the original ; and the " wandering fields of barren foam " are wholly ignored, unless there is meant to be a glimpse of them in the final verse. Nor do we like " Character " and " The Blackbird as they appear here, from somewhat similar reasons, viz., that the Latin is vague and spun out. Lines 4-6 of the former are unintelligible without the English ; and what the construction or the meaning is of the three last on the same page we have failed, even by the "HOILE TENNYSOxNIAN^E" 513 light of the English, to discover. The opening line does not scan at all, and the tenth from the end scans only by the skin of its teeth. All this time we have omitted to notice what, considering the difficulty of the translator's task, and the ease with which it has been surmounted, is, perhaps, the gem of the volume a set of Hendecasyllables, " O Swallow, Swallow," by the late Professor Conington. Every stanza is a feat of scholarship, and the whole makes a charming little poem. We quote one stanza all are equally good : " Procne nostra, volans volans ad Austrum. Lautis incide tectulis, ibique Quse dico tibi die meae puellse." Of two or three other pieces by the same eminent hand we need only say that they are there. Mr. Brodribb's " Tithonus " abounds in beautiful passages, which we would quote if we had space. Is not "kindly," however (p. 132), used in the sense of the "kindly fruits of the earth," and does not genialis mean something different? " Meus proprius," again, is, we think, only found in prose. Turning back to Mr. Church's poem on p. 1 7, risu seems to be used for cum risu, " smilingly." Is this legitimate ? Surely you could not say, "Lacrymis sic fatur," unless "obortis" followed. "Risu cognoscere," "solvuntur risu," etc., are ac- countable enough. Then, is " Virgo inventrix " satisfactory for St. Cecily ? does not inventrix want a genitive ? We demur also to " male saucius," for "badly wounded," and are prepared to distinguish Horace's " male tussiit." Nor do we like " serrata " much more than we should " serrated " in the English. There are several words, such as xystus, trichila, and the prosaic pedetentim, which, it seems to us, unnecessarily mar this volume. From the foregoing remarks it will be seen that we think LL 5H "HORJE TENNYSONIAN^E" highly of these translations as such. Whether or no it is pure waste of time to translate at all is a question upon which cer- tainly much time has been wasted, and which, after all, concerns nobody except the translators. The title, we confess, puzzled us at first. The title-page hints that Horce means here Eclogce. Latins redditce, which simplifies things ; but then what is Horce. Paulinas? Does " Tennysonian hours" mean hours during which Tennyson was the presiding genius hours spent (by the contributors) in analyzing Tennyson? Anyhow these pages contain several admirable specimens of an art believed by many to be doomed doomed, perhaps not even "after many a summer " to decay and fall and pass away. CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AMD CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000179006 2