Chapter II: Preface (2)

POEM.--February in Rome.
_On Viol and Flute_. Edmund W. Gosse. P. 53.

POEM.--What he saw in Europe.
_Current Literature_. Vol. xxxvi, p. 365.

POEM.--Rome Unvisited.
_The Poems of Oscar Wilde_. Vol. i, p. 64.

POEM.--Roman Girl's Song.
_Poetical Works_. Mrs. Hemans. P. 227.

ITALY OF TO-DAY

"No sudden goddess through the rushes glides,
No eager God among the laurels hides;
Jove's eagle mopes beside an empty throne,
Persephone and Ades sit alone
By Lethe's hollow shore."
--Nora Hopper

SONNET.--On Approaching Italy.
_The Poems of Oscar Wilde_. Vol. i, p. 59.

NAPLES.
_Lectures_. John L. Stoddard. Naples. Vol. viii, p. 115.
_Peeps at Many Lands_. Italy. John Finnemore. Chap. xiii.

CERTAIN THINGS IN NAPLES.
_Italian Journeys_. W.D. Howells. P. 80.

A SCHOOL IN NAPLES.
_Italian Journeys_. W.D. Howells. P. 139.

ITALIAN RECOLLECTIONS.
More Letters of a Diplomat's Wife. Mary King Waddington.
_Scribner's Magazine_. Vol. xxxvii, p. 204.

THE ITALIAN PEASANTRY.
_Roma Beata_. Maud Howe. P. 34.
_Peeps at Many Lands_. Italy. John Finnemore. Chap. xix.

A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN HILL.
_The Marble Faun_. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Chap. xii.

HOTELS IN ITALY.
_Roman Holidays and Others_. W.D. Howells. Chap. vi, p. 68.

A MODERN ITALIAN FARMYARD AS SEEN BY SHELLEY.
_The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley_. Harry Buxton Forman.
Vol. iv, p. 43.

SCHOOL LIFE IN ITALY.
Glimpses of School Life in Italy. Mary Sifton Pepper. _Chautauqua_.
Vol. xxxv, p. 550.
Education in Italy. Alex Oldrini. _Chautauqua_. Vol. xviii, p. 413.

A NIGHT IN ITALY.
_Exits and Entrances_. Charles Warren Stoddard. P. 41.

POEM.--In Italy.
_Poetical Works_. Bayard Taylor. P. 130.

LIFE IN MODERN ITALY.
In Italy. John H. Vincent. _Chautauqua_. Vol. xviii, p. 387.
Life in Modern Italy. Bella H. Stillman. _Chautauqua_. Vol. xi,
p. 6.

O TEMPORA! O MORES!

"The seeds of godlike power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!"
--Matthew Arnold

POEM.--The Watch of the Old Gods.

POVERTY AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMANS.
_Society in Rome under the Caesars_. William Ralph Inge. Chap. iii.
_The Private Life of the Romans_. H.W. Johnston. P. 305.
_The Ancient City_. Fustel De Coulanges. P. 449.

POVERTY AMONG THE AMERICANS.
The Problem of Poverty. Robert Hunter. _Outlook_. Vol. lxxix,
p. 902.
The Weary World of Human Misery. _World's Work_. Vol. xvi,
p. 10526.
_How the Other Half Lives_. Jacob Riis. Chap. xxii, p. 255.

THE CRAZE FOR AMUSEMENT AMONG THE ANCIENT ROMANS.
_Society in Rome under the Caesars_. William Ralph Inge. Chap. ix.
_Readings in Ancient History_. Rome and the West. William Stearns
Davis. P. 194.

THE CRAZE FOR AMUSEMENT AMONG THE AMERICANS.
What New York spends at the Theaters. _Literary Digest_. Vol. xlv,
p. 19.

LUXURY AND EXTRAVAGANCE IN ANCIENT ROME.
_Rome: The Eternal City_. Clara Erskine Clement. Vol. ii, pp. 524,
529.
_Society in Rome under the Caesars_. William Ralph Inge. P. 262.
_Readings in Ancient History_. Rome and the West. William Stearns
Davis. P. 305.

LUXURY AND EXTRAVAGANCE AMONG AMERICANS.
Newport: The City of Luxury. Jonathan T. Lincoln. _Atlantic
Monthly_. Vol. cii, p. 162.
Housekeeping on Half-a-million a Year. Emily Harington.
_Everybody's_. Vol. xiv, p. 497.
_The Passing of the Idle Rich_. Frederick Townsend Martin. Chap.
ii, p. 23.

POEM.--_Tempora Mutantur_.
_Poetical Works_. John G. Saxe. P. 98.

* * * * *

SELECTIONS THAT MAY BE USED

FOR THE PROGRAMS

* * * * *

A PLEA FOR THE CLASSICS[1]

A Boston gentleman declares,
By all the gods above, below,
That our degenerate sons and heirs
Must let their Greek and Latin go!
Forbid, O Fate, we loud implore,
A dispensation harsh as that;
What! wipe away the sweets of yore;
The dear "_amo, amas, amat?_"

The sweetest hour the student knows
Is not when poring over French,
Or twisted in Teutonic throes,
Upon a hard collegiate bench;
'Tis when on roots and kais and gars
He feeds his soul and feels it glow,
Or when his mind transcends the stars
With "_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_"

So give our bright, ambitious boys
An inkling of these pleasures, too--
A little smattering of the joys
Their dead and buried fathers knew;
And let them sing--while glorying that
Their sires so sang, long years ago--
The songs "_amo, amas, amat_"
And "_Zoa mou, sas agapo!_"

--Eugene Field

[Footnote in original book (published 1916):
Copyright. Used by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.]

ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT BOOK

I remember the very day when the schoolmaster gave it to me.... And I remember that the rather stern and aquiline face of our teacher relaxed into mildness for a moment. Both we and our books must have looked very fresh and new to him, though we may all be a little battered now; at least, my _New Latin Tutor_ is. It is a very precious book, and it should be robed in choice Turkey morocco, were not the very covers too much a part of the association to be changed. For between them I gathered the seed-grain of many harvests of delight; through this low archway I first looked upon the immeasurable beauty of words....

What liquid words were these: _aqua_, _aura_, _unda_! All English poetry that I had yet learned by heart--it is only children who learn by heart, grown people "commit to memory"--had not so awakened the vision of what literature might mean. Thenceforth all life became ideal....

Then human passion, tender, faithful, immortal, came also by and beckoned. "But let me die," she said. "Thus, thus it delights me to go under the shades." Or that infinite tenderness, the stronger even for its opening moderation of utterance, the last sigh of Aeneas after Dido,--

Nec me meminisse pigebit Elissam
Dum memor ipse mihi, dum spiritus hos regit artus....

Or, with more definite and sublime grandeur, the vast forms of Roman statesmanship appear: "Today, Romans, you behold the commonwealth, the lives of you all, estates, fortunes, wives and children, and the seat of this most renowned empire, this most fortunate and beautiful city, preserved and restored to you by the distinguished love of the immortal gods, and by my toils, counsels, and dangers."

What great thoughts were found within these pages, what a Roman vigor was in these maxims! "It is Roman to do and suffer bravely." "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country." "He that gives himself up to pleasure, is not worthy the name of a man."...

There was nothing harsh or stern in this book, no cynicism, no indifference; but it was a flower-garden of lovely out-door allusions, a gallery of great deeds; and as I have said before, it formed the child's first real glimpse into the kingdom of words.

I was once asked by a doctor of divinity, who was also the overseer of a college, whether I ever knew any one to look back with pleasure upon his early studies in Latin and Greek. It was like being asked if one looked back with pleasure on summer mornings and evenings. No doubt those languages, like all others, have fared hard at the hands of pedants; and there are active boys who hate all study, and others who love the natural sciences alone. Indeed, it is a hasty assumption, that the majority of boys hate Latin and Greek. I find that most college graduates, at least, retain some relish for the memory of such studies, even if they have utterly lost the power to masticate or digest them. "Though they speak no Greek, they love the sound on't." Many a respectable citizen still loves to look at his Horace or Virgil on the shelf where it has stood undisturbed for a dozen years; he looks, and thinks that he too lived in Arcadia.... The books link him with culture, and universities, and the traditions of great scholars.

On some stormy Sunday, he thinks, he will take them down. At length he tries it; he handles the volume awkwardly, as he does his infant; but it is something to be able to say that neither book nor baby has been actually dropped. He likes to know that there is a tie between him and each of these possessions, though he is willing, it must be owned, to leave the daily care of each in more familiar hands....

I must honestly say that much of the modern outcry against classical studies seems to me to be (as in the case of good Dr. Jacob Bigelow) a frank hostility to literature itself, as the supposed rival of science; or a willingness (as in Professor Atkinson's case) to tolerate modern literature, while discouraging the study of the ancient. Both seem to commit the error of drawing their examples of abuse from England, and applying their warnings to America.... Because the House of Commons was once said to care more for a false quantity in Latin verse than in English morals, shall we visit equal indignation on a House of Representatives that had to send for a classical dictionary to find out who Thersites was?...

Granted, that foreign systems of education may err by insisting on the arts of literary structure too much; think what we should lose by dwelling on them too little! The magic of mere words; the mission of language; the worth of form as well as of matter; the power to make a common thought immortal in a phrase, so that your fancy can no more detach the one from the other than it can separate the soul and body of a child; it was the veiled half revelation of these things that made that old text-book forever fragrant to me. There are in it the still visible traces of wild flowers which I used to press between the pages, on the way to school; but it was the pressed flowers of Latin poetry that were embalmed there first. These are blossoms that do not fade.

--Thomas Wentworth Higginson

SAINT AUGUSTINE'S LOVE OF LATIN

Andrew Lang, in his _Adventures Among Books_, writes:

"Saint Augustine, like Sir Walter Scott at the University of Edinburgh, was 'The Greek Dunce.' Both of these great men, to their sorrow and loss, absolutely and totally declined to learn Greek. 'But what the reason was why I hated the Greek language, while I was taught it, being a child, I do not yet understand.' The Saint was far from being alone in that distaste, and he who writes loathed Greek like poison--till he came to Homer. Latin the Saint loved, except 'when reading, writing, and casting of accounts was taught in Latin, which I held not far less painful or penal than the very Greek. I wept for Dido's death, who made herself away with the sword,' he declares, 'and even so, the saying that two and two makes four was an ungrateful song in mine ears, whereas the wooden horse full of armed men, the burning of Troy, and the very Ghost of Creusa, was a most delightful spectacle of vanity.'"

THE WATCH OF THE OLD GODS

Were the old gods watching yet, From their cloudy summits afar, At evening under the evening star, After the star is set, Would they see in these thronging streets, Where the life of the city beats With endless rush and strain, Men of a better mold, Nobler in heart and brain, Than the men of three thousand years ago, In the pagan cities old, O'er which the lichens and ivy grow?

Would they not see as they saw In the younger days of the race, The dark results of broken law, In the bent form and brutal face Of the slave of passions as old as earth, And young as the infants of last night's birth? Alas! the old gods no longer keep Their watch from the cloudy steep; But, though all on Olympus lie dead Yet the smoke of commerce still rolls From the sacrifice of souls, To the heaven that bends overhead.

OLD AND NEW ROME

Still, as we saunter down the crowded street,
On our own thoughts intent, and plans and pleasures,
For miles and miles beneath our idle feet,
Rome buries from the day yet unknown treasures.

The whole world's alphabet, in every line
Some stirring page of history she recalls,--
Her Alpha is the Prison Mamertine,
Her Omega, St. Paul's, without the walls.

Above, beneath, around, she weaves her spells,
And ruder hands unweave them all in vain:
Who once within her fascination dwells,
Leaves her with but one thought--to come again.

So cast thy obol into Trevi's fountain--
Drink of its waters, and, returning home,
Pray that by land or sea, by lake or mountain,
"All roads alike may lead at last to Rome."

--Herman Merivale

THE FALL OF ROME

Rome ruled in all her matchless pride,
Queen of the world, an empire-state;
Her eagles conquered far and wide;
Her word was law, her will was fate.

Within her immemorial walls
The temples of the gods looked down;
Her forum echoed with the calls
To greater conquest and renown.

All wealth, all splendor, and all might
The world could give, before her lay;
She dreamed not there could come a night
To dim the glory of her day.

Rome perished: Legions could not save,
Nor wealth, nor might, nor majesty,--
The Roman had become a slave,
But the barbarian was free.

--Arthur Chamberlain

A CHRISTMAS HYMN

It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars-- Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain: Apollo, Pallas, Jove and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago.

'Twas in the calm and silent night! The senator of haughty Rome Impatient, urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home: Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway: What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago?

Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay, Falling through a half shut stable-door Across his path. He passed--for naught Told what was going on within: How keen the stars, his only thought-- The air how calm, and cold and thin In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago!

Oh, strange indifference! low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares; The earth was still--but knew not why, The world was listening, unawares. How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world forever! To that still moment, none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever-- In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago!

It is the calm and silent night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness--charmed and holy now! The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay, new-born, The peaceful prince of earth and heaven, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago!

--Alfred Dommett

ROMAN GIRL'S SONG

Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!
On thy seven hills of yore
Thou satt'st a queen.

Thou hadst thy triumphs then
Purpling the street,
Leaders and sceptred men
Bow'd at thy feet.

They that thy mantle wore,
As gods were seen--
Rome, Rome! thou art no more
As thou hast been!

Rome! thine imperial brow
Never shall rise:
What hast thou left thee now?--
Thou hast thy skies!

Blue, deeply blue, they are,
Gloriously bright!
Veiling thy wastes afar,
With color'd light.

Thou hast the sunset's glow,
Rome, for thy dower,
Flushing tall cypress bough,
Temple and tower!

And all sweet sounds are thine,
Lovely to hear,
While night, o'er tomb and shrine
Rests darkly clear.

Many a solemn hymn,
By starlight sung,
Sweeps through the arches dim,
Thy wrecks among.

Many a flute's low swell,
On thy soft air
Lingers, and loves to dwell
With summer there.

Thou hast the south's rich gift
Of sudden song--
A charmed fountain, swift,
Joyous and strong.

Thou hast fair forms that move
With queenly tread;
Thou hast proud fanes above
Thy mighty dead.

Yet wears thy Tiber's shore
A mournful mien:
Rome, Rome! Thou art no more
As thou hast been!

--Mrs. Hemans

CAPRI

Rising from the purpling water With her brow of stone, Sprite or nymph or Triton's daughter, Rising from the purpling water, Capri sits alone--

Sits and looks across the billow Now the day is done Resting on her rocky pillow Sits and looks across the billow Toward the setting sun.

Misty visions trooping sadly Glimmer through her tears, Shapes of men contending madly,-- Misty visions trooping sadly From the vanished years.

Here Tiberius from his palace On the headland gray Hurls his foes with gleeful malice, Proud Tiberius at his palace Murd'ring men for play.

There Lamarque's recruits advancing Scale yon rocky spot, 'Neath the moon their bright steel glancing, See Lamarque's recruits advancing Through a storm of shot.

But today the goat bells' tinkle And the vespers chime, Vineyards shade each rock-hewn wrinkle, And today the goat bells' tinkle Marks a happier time.

Soft the olive groves are gleaming, War has found surcease, And as Capri sits a-dreaming Soft the olive groves are gleaming, Crowning her with peace.

--Walter Taylor Field

PALLADIUM

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;
And Hector was in Ilium, far below,
And fought, and saw it not--but there it stood!

It stood, and sun and moonshine rain'd their light
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.
Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight
Round Troy,--but while this stood, Troy could not fall.

So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul.
Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air;
Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll;
We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!

Men will renew the battle in the plain
Tomorrow; red with blood will Xanthus be;
Hector and Ajax will be there again,
Helen will come upon the wall to see.

Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife,
And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,
And fancy that we put forth all our life,
And never know how with the soul it fares.

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,
Upon our life a ruling effluence send;
And when it fails, fight as we will, we die,
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.

--Matthew Arnold

AFTER CONSTRUING

Lord Caesar, when you sternly wrote
The story of your grim campaigns
And watched the ragged smoke-wreath float
Above the burning plains,

Amid the impenetrable wood,
Amid the camp's incessant hum
At eve, beside the tumbling flood,
In high Avaricum,

You little recked, imperious head,
When shrilled your shattering trumpets' noise,
Your frigid sections would be read
By bright-eyed English boys.

Ah me! Who penetrates today
The secret of your deep designs?
Your sovereign visions, as you lay
Amid the sleeping lines?

The Mantuan singer pleading stands;
From century to century
He leans and reaches wistful hands,
And cannot bear to die.

But you are silent, secret, proud,
No smile upon your haggard face,
As when you eyed the murderous crowd
Beside the statue's base.

I marvel: That Titanic heart
Beats strongly through the arid page,
And we, self-conscious sons of art,
In this bewildering age,

Like dizzy revellers stumbling out
Upon the pure and peaceful night,
Are sobered into troubled doubt,
As swims across our sight,

The ray of that sequestered sun,
Far in the illimitable blue,--
The dream of all you left undone,
Of all you dared to do.

--Arthur Christoher Benson

A ROMAN MIRROR

They found it in her hollow marble bed, There where the numberless dead cities sleep, They found it lying where the spade struck deep A broken mirror by a maiden dead.

These things--the beads she wore about her throat, Alternate blue and amber, all untied, A lamp to light her way, and on one side The toll men pay to that strange ferry-boat.

No trace today of what in her was fair! Only the record of long years grown green Upon the mirror's lustreless dead sheen, Grown dim at last, when all else withered there

Dead, broken, lustreless! It keeps for me One picture of that immemorial land, For oft as I have held thee in my hand The chill bronze brightens, and I dream to see

A fair face gazing in thee wondering wise And o'er one marble shoulder all the while Strange lips that whisper till her own lips smile And all the mirror laughs about her eyes.

It was well thought to set thee there, so she Might smooth the windy ripples of her hair And knot their tangled waywardness or ere She stood before the queen Persephone.

And still it may be where the dead folk rest She holds a shadowy mirror to her eyes, And looks upon the changelessness, and sighs And sets the dead land lilies in her hand.

--Rennell Rodd

THE DOOM OF THE SLOTHFUL

When through the dolorous city of damned souls The Florentine with Vergil took his way, A dismal marsh they passed, whose fetid shoals Held sinners by the myriad. Swollen and grey, Like worms that fester in the foul decay Of sweltering carrion, these bad spirits sank Chin-deep in stagnant slime and ooze that stank.

Year after year forever--year by year, Through billions of the centuries that lie Like specks of dust upon the dateless sphere Of heaven's eternity, they cankering sigh Between the black waves and the starless sky; And daily dying have no hope to gain By death or change or respite of their pain.

What was their crime, you ask? Nay, listen: "We Were sullen--sad what time we drank the light, And delicate air, that all day daintily Is cheered by sunshine; for we bore black night And murky smoke of sloth, in God's despite, Within our barren souls, by discontent From joy of all fair things and wholesome pent:

Therefore in this low Hell from jocund sight And sound He bans us; and as there we grew Pallid with idleness, so here a blight Perpetual rots with slow-corroding dew Our poisonous carcase, and a livid hue Corpse-like o'erspreads these sodden limbs that take And yield corruption to the loathly lake."

--John Addington Symonds

HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE

_Andromache_

Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain, Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain, Stalks Peleus' ruthless son? Who, when thou glid'st amid the dark abodes, To hurl the spear and to revere the gods, Shall teach thine Orphan One?

_Hector_

Woman and wife beloved--cease thy tears; My soul is nerved--the war-clang in my ears! Be mine in life to stand Troy's bulwark!--fighting for our hearths, to go In death, exulting to the streams below, Slain for my father-land!

_Andromache_

No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall-- Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall-- Fallen the stem of Troy! Thou go'st where slow Cocytus wanders--where Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air Is dark to light and joy!

_Hector_

Longing and thought--yea, all I feel and think May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink, But my love not! Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls! I hear! Gird on my sword--Belov'd one, dry the tear-- Lethe for love is not!

--Schiller

ENCELADUS

Under Mount Etna he lies, It is slumber, it is not death; For he struggles at times to arise, And above him the lurid skies Are hot with his fiery breath.

The crags are piled on his breast, The earth is heaped on his head; But the groans of his wild unrest, Though smothered and half suppressed, Are heard, and he is not dead.

And the nations far away Are watching with eager eyes; They talk together and say, "Tomorrow, perhaps today, Enceladus will arise!"

And the old gods, the austere Oppressors in their strength, Stand aghast and white with fear At the ominous sounds they hear, And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"

Ah me! for the land that is sown With the harvest of despair! Where the burning cinders, blown From the lips of the overthrown Enceladus, fill the air.

Where ashes are heaped in drifts Over vineyard and field and town, Whenever he starts and lifts His head through the blackened rifts Of the crags that keep him down.

See, see! the red light shines! 'Tis the glare of his awful eyes! And the storm-wind shouts through the pines, Of Alps and of Apennines, "Enceladus, arise!"

--Henry W. Longfellow

NIL ADMIRARI

When Horace in Venusian groves Was scribbling wit or sipping "Massic," Or singing those delicious loves Which after ages reckon classic, He wrote one day--'twas no vagary-- These famous words:--_Nil admirari!_

"Wonder at nothing!" said the bard; A kingdom's fall, a nation's rising, A lucky or a losing card, Are really not at all surprising; However men or manners vary, Keep cool and calm: _Nil admirari!_

If kindness meet a cold return; If friendship prove a dear delusion; If love, neglected, cease to burn, Or die untimely of profusion,-- Such lessons well may make us wary, But needn't shock: _Nil admirari!_

Ah! when the happy day we reach When promisers are ne'er deceivers; When parsons practice what they preach, And seeming saints are all believers, Then the old maxim you may vary, And say no more, _Nil admirari!_

--John G. Saxe

PERDIDI DIEM

The Emperor Titus, at the close of a day in which he had neither
gained any knowledge nor conferred benefit, was accustomed to
exclaim, "Perdidi diem," "I have lost a day."

Why art thou sad, thou of the sceptred hand? The rob'd in purple, and the high in state? Rome pours her myriads forth, a vassal band, And foreign powers are crouching at thy gate; Yet dost thou deeply sigh, as if oppressed by fate.

"_Perdidi diem!_"--Pour the empire's treasure, Uncounted gold, and gems of rainbow dye; Unlock the fountains of a monarch's pleasure To lure the lost one back. I heard a sigh-- One hour of parted time, a world is poor to buy.

"_Perdidi diem!_"--'Tis a mournful story, Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell, Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory, Hope's honey left within the withering bell And plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed so well.

Hail, self-communing Emperor, nobly wise! There are, who thoughtless haste to life's last goal. There are, who time's long squandered wealth despise. _Perdidi vitam_ marks their finished scroll, When Death's dark angel comes to claim the startled soul.

--Mrs. Sigourney

JUPITER AND HIS CHILDREN

A Classic Fable

Once, on sublime Olympus, when Great Jove, the sire of gods and men, Was looking down on this our Earth, And marking the increasing dearth Of pious deeds and noble lives, While vice abounds and meanness thrives,-- He straight determined to efface At one fell swoop the thankless race Of human kind. "Go!" said the King Unto his messenger, "and bring The vengeful Furies; be it theirs, Unmindful of their tears and prayers, These wretches,--hateful from their birth,-- To wipe from off the face of earth!" The message heard, with torch of flame And reeking sword, Alecto came, And by the beard of Pluto swore The human race should be no more! But Jove, relenting thus to see The direst of the murderous three, And hear her menace, bade her go Back to the murky realms below. "Be mine the cruel task!" he said, And, at a word, a bolt he sped, Which, falling in a desert place, Left all unhurt the human race! Grown bold and bolder, wicked men Wax worse and worse, until again The stench to high Olympus came, And all the gods began to blame The monarch's weak indulgence,--_they_ Would crush the knaves without delay! At this, the ruler of the air Proceeds a tempest to prepare, Which, dark and dire, he swiftly hurled In raging fury on the world! But not where human beings dwell (So Jove provides) the tempest fell. And still the sin and wickedness Of men grew more, instead of less: Whereat the gods declare, at length, For thunder bolts of greater strength Which Vulcan soon, at Jove's command, Wrought in his forge with dexterous hand. Now from the smithy's glowing flame Two different sorts of weapons came: To _hit_ the mark was one designed; As sure to _miss_, the other kind. The second sort the Thunderer threw, Which not a human being slew; But roaring loudly, hurtled wide On forest-top and mountain-side!

MORAL

What means this ancient tale? That _Jove_ In wrath still felt a parent's love: Whatever crimes he may have done, The father yearns to spare the son.

--John G. Saxe

THE PRAYER OF SOCRATES

_Socrates_

Ere we leave this friendly sky, And cool Ilyssus flowing by, Change the shrill cicala's song For the clamor of the throng, Let us make a parting prayer To the gods of earth and air.

_Phaedrus_

My wish, O Friend, accords with thine, Say thou the prayer, it shall be mine.

_Socrates_

This then, I ask, O thou beloved Pan, And all ye other gods: Help, as ye can, That I may prosper in the inner man;

Grant ye that what I have or yet may win Of those the outer things may be akin And constantly at peace within;

May I regard the wise the rich, and care Myself for no more gold, as my earth-share, Than he who's of an honest heart can bear.

--John H. Finley

BY THE ROMAN ROAD

"Poetry and paganism do not mix very well nowadays. The Hellenism of
our versifiers is, as a rule, not Greek; it is derived partly from
Swinburne and partly from Pater. But now and then there comes a poet
who has real appreciation of the beauty of classic days; who can
express sincerely and vividly the haunting charm of Greek or Roman
culture. Such an one is the anonymous writer of these lines, which
appeared in the London _Punch_."

The wind it sang in the pine-tops, it sang like a humming harp; The smell of the sun on the bracken was wonderful sweet and sharp. As sharp as the piney needles, as sweet as the gods were good, For the wind it sung of the old gods, as I came through the wood! It sung how long ago the Romans made a road, And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode.

It sang of the wayside altars (the pine-tops sighed like the surf), Of little shrines uplifted, of stone and scented turf, Of youths divine and immortal, of maids as white as the snow That glimmered among the thickets a mort of years ago! All in the cool of dawn, all in the twilight gray, The gods came up from Italy along the Roman way.

The altar smoke it has drifted and faded afar on the hill; No wood-nymphs haunt the hollows; the reedy pipes are still; No more the youth Apollo shall walk in his sunshine clear; No more the maid Diana shall follow the fallow-deer (The woodmen grew so wise, the woodmen grew so old, The gods went back to Italy--or so the story's told!).

But the woods are full of voices and of shy and secret things The badger down by the brook-side, the flick of a woodcock's wings, The plump of a falling fir-cone, the pop of the sunripe pods, And the wind that sings in the pine-tops the song of the ancient gods-- The song of the wind that says the Romans made a road, And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode!

A NYMPH'S LAMENT

O Sister Nymphs, how shall we dance or sing Remembering What was and is not? How sing any more Now Aphrodite's rosy reign is o'er? For on the forest-floor Our feet fall wearily the summer long, The whole year long: No sudden goddess through the rushes glides, No eager God among the laurels hides; Jove's eagle mopes beside an empty throne, Persephone and Ades sit alone, By Lethe's hollow shore. And hear not any more Echoed from poplar-tree to poplar-tree, The voice of Orpheus making sweetest moan For lost Eurydice. The Fates walk all alone In empty kingdoms, where is none to fear Shaking of any spear. Even the ghosts are gone From lightless fields of mint and euphrasy: There sings no wind in any willow-tree, And shadowy flute-girls wander listlessly Down to the shore where Charon's empty boat, As shadowed swan doth float, Rides all as listlessly, with none to steer. A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about our woodland ways, bereft, The endless summertide. Queen Venus draws aside And passes, sighing, up Olympus' hill. And silence holds her Cyprian bowers, and claims Her flowers, and quenches all her altar-flames, And strikes dumb in their throats Her doves' complaining notes: And sorrow Sits crowned upon her seat: nor any morrow Hears the Loves laughing round her golden chair. (Alas, thy golden seat, thine empty seat!) Nor any evening sees beneath her feet The daisy rosier flush, the maidenhair And scentless crocus borrow From rose and hyacinth their savour sweet. Without thee is no sweetness in the morn, The morn that was fulfilled of mystery, It lies like a void shell, desiring thee, O daughter of the water and the dawn, Anadyomene! There is no gold upon the bearded corn, No blossom on the thorn; And in wet brakes the Oreads hide, forlorn Of every grace once theirs: no Faun will follow By herne or hollow Their feet in the windy morn.

Let us all cry together "Cytherea!" Lock hands and cry together: it may be That she will heed and hear And come from the waste places of the sea, Leaving old Proteus all discomforted, To cast down from his head Its crown of nameless jewels, to be hurled In ruins, with the ruined royalty Of an old world. The Nereids seek thee in the salt sea-reaches, Seek thee; and seek, and seek, and never find: Canst thou not hear their calling on the wind? We nymphs go wandering under pines and beeches, And far--and far behind We hear Paris' piping blown After us, calling thee and making moan (For all the leaves that have no strength to cry, The young leaves and the dry), Desiring thee to bless these woods again, Making most heavy moan For withered myrtle-flowers, For all thy Paphian bowers Empty and sad beneath a setting sun; For dear days done!

The Naiads splash in the blue forest-pools-- "Idalia--Idalia!" they cry. "On Ida's hill, With flutings faint and shrill,-- On Ida's hill the shepherds vainly try Their songs, and coldly stand their damsels by, Whatever tunes they try; For beauty is not, and Love may not be, On land or sea-- Oh, not in earth or heaven, on land or sea, While darkness holdeth thee." The Naiads weep beside their forest-pools, And from the oaks a hundred voices call, "Come back to us, O thou desired of all! Elsewhere the air is sultry: here it cools And full it is of pine scents: here is still The world-pain that has driven from Ida's hill Thine unreturning feet.

Alas! the days so fleet that were, and sweet, When kind thou wert, and dear, And all the loves dwelt here! Alas! thy giftless hands, thy wandering feet! Oh, here for Pithys' sake the air is sweet And here snow falls not, neither burns the sun Nor any winds make moan for dear days done. Come, then: the woods are emptied all of glee, And all the world is sad, desiring thee!"

--Nora Hopper

HELEN OF TROY

I am that Helen, that very Helen
Of Leda, born in the days of old:
Men's hearts as inns that I might dwell in:
Houseless I wander to-night, and cold.

Because man loved me, no God takes pity:
My ghost goes wailing where I was Queen!
Alas! my chamber in Troy's tall city,
My golden couches, my hangings green!

Wasted with fire are the halls they built me,
And sown with salt are the streets I trod,
Where flowers they scattered and spices spilt me--
Alas, that Zeus is a jealous God!

Softly I went on my sandals golden;
Of love and pleasure I took my fill;
With Paris' kisses my lips were holden,
Nor guessed I, when life went at my will,
That the fates behind me went softlier still.

--Nora Hopper

AN ETRUSCAN RING

Where, girt with orchard and with oliveyard,
The white hill-fortress glimmers on the hill,
Day after day an ancient goldsmith's skill
Guided the copper graver, tempered hard
By some lost secret, while he shaped the sard
Slowly to beauty, and his tiny drill,
Edged with corundum, ground its way until
The gem lay perfect for the ring to guard.

Then seeing the stone complete to his desire, With mystic imagery carven thus, And dark Egyptian symbols fabulous, He drew through it the delicate golden wire, And bent the fastening; and the Etrurian sun Sank behind Ilva, and the work was done.

What dark-haired daughter of a Lucumo
Bore on her slim white finger to the grave
This the first gift her Tyrrhene lover gave,
Those five-and-twenty centuries ago?
What shadowy dreams might haunt it, lying low
So long, while kings and armies, wave on wave,
Above the rock-tomb's buried architrave
Went trampling million-footed to and fro?

Who knows? but well it is so frail a thing, Unharmed by conquering Time's supremacy, Still should be fair, though scarce less old than Rome. Now once again at rest from wandering Across the high Alps and the dreadful sea, In utmost England let it find a home.

--J. W. Mackail

ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves when he did sing: To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung: as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep or hearing, die.

--William Shakespeare

A HYMN IN PRAISE OF NEPTUNE

Of Neptune's empire let us sing
At whose command the waves obey;
To whom the rivers tribute pay,
Down the high mountains sliding:
To whom the scaly nation yields
Homage for the crystal fields
Wherein they dwell:
And every sea-god pays a gem
Yearly out of his wat'ry cell
To deck great Neptune's diadem.

The Tritons dancing in a ring
Before his palace gates do make
The waters with their echoes quake,
Like the great thunder sounding:
The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,
And the sirens, taught to kill
With their sweet voice,
Make every echoing rock reply
Unto their gentle murmuring noise
The praise of Neptune's empery.

--Thomas Campion

HORACE'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE