Chapter II: Part 2

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 unblamed 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;
Then I pass’d into the citizen’s garden, and marked a tree clipt into
shape,
(The giant’s locks had been shorn by the Dalilahshears 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 bulfinch,
Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draweth 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 thyself another:
A maiden’s heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling
upwards,
And it needeth 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.

Of Friendship.

Choose judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable,
Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop thy
‘H’s’.
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 minutiæ of thy head-dress and
petticoat,
For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin.

Of Reading.

Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of
common life;
Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet intelligible:
Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth not:
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 realise the Ideal, thou shalt at least idealise
the Real.

TRANSLATIONS. {105}

LYCIDAS.

YET once more, O ye laurels! and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, sisters, of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may some gentle muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud:
For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose, at evening, bright,
Toward Heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damætas loved to hear our song.
But oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear
Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie;
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream:
Ay me! I fondly dream!
Had ye been there, for what could that have done?
What could the muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The muse herself for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days,
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. “But not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears;
“Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.”
O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the herald of the sea
That came in Neptune’s plea;
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap had doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings,
That blows from off each beaked promontory:
They knew not of his story,
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed,
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge,
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
“Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, “my dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake,
Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:
“How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearer’s feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest;
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdsman’s art belongs!
What reeks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strow the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurled,
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold;
Look homeward, angel now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves,
Where other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray,
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropped into the western bay;
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue,
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

LYCIDAS.

EN! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricæ
Pallentes, nullique hederæ quæ ceditis ævo.
Has venio baccas, quanquam sapor asper acerbis,
Decerptum, quassumque manu folia ipsa proterva,
Maturescentem prævortens improbus annum.
Causa gravis, pia cansa, subest, et amara deûm lex;
Nec jam sponte mea vobis rata tempora turbo.
Nam periit Lycidas, periit superante juventa
Imberbis Lycidas, quo non præstantior alter.
Quis cantare super Lycida neget? Ipse quoque artem
Nôrat Apollineam, versumque imponere versu
Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum
Flente, voluteturque arentes corpus ad auras,
Indotatum adeo et lacrymæ 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, urnæ:
Et gressus prætergrediens convertat, et “Esto”
Dicat “amoena quies atra tibi veste latenti:”
Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur: eosdem
Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram.
Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam,
Aurora reserante oculos, cæpere videri,
Urgebamus equos ad pascua: novimus horam
Aridus audiri solitus qua clangor asili;
Rore recentes greges passi pinguescere noctis
Sæpius, albuerat donec quod vespere sidus
Hesperios axes prono inclinasset Olympo.
At pastorales non cessavere camœnæ,
Fistula disparibus quas temperat apta cicutis:
Saltabant Satyri informes, nec murmure læto
Capripedes potuere diu se avertere Fauni;
Damætasque modos nostros longævus amabat.
Jamque, relicta tibi, quantum mutata videntur
Rura—relicta tibi, cui non spes ulla regressûs!
Te sylvæ, 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 lætum motare cacumen:—
Quale rosis scabies; quam formidabile vermis
Depulso jam lacte gregi, dum tondet agellos;
Sive quod, indutis verna jam veste, pruinæ
Floribus, albet ubi primum paliurus in agris:
Tale fuit nostris, Lycidam periisse, bubulcis.
Qua, Nymphæ, latuistis, ubi crudele profundum
Delicias Lycidam vestras sub vortice torsit?
Nam neque vos scopulis tum ludebatis in illis
Quos veteres, Druidæ, Vates, illustria servant
Nomina; nec celsæ setoso in culmine Monæ,
Nec, quos Deva locos magicis amplectitur undis.
Væ mihi! delusos exercent somnia sensus:
Venissetis enim; numquid venisse juvaret?
Numquid Pieris ipsa parens interfuit Orphei,
Pieris ipsa suæ sobolis, qui carmine rexit
Corda virum, quem terra olim, quam magna, dolebat,
Tempore quo, dirum auditu strepitante caterva,
Ora secundo amni missa, ac foedata cruore,
Lesbia præcipitans ad litora detulit Hebrus?
Eheu quid prodest noctes instare diesque
Pastorum curas spretas humilesque tuendo,
Nilque relaturam meditari rite Camoenam?
Nonne fuit satius lusus agitare sub umbra,
(Ut mos est aliis,) Amaryllida sive Neæram
Sectanti, ac tortis digitum impediisse capillis?
Scilcet ingenuum cor Fama, novissimus error
Illa animi majoris, uti calcaribus urget
Spernere delicias ac dedi rebus agendis.
Quanquam—exoptatam jam spes attingere dotem;
Jam nec opinata remur splendescere flamma:—
Cæca sed invisa cum forfice venit Erinnys,
Quæ resecet tenui hærentem subtemine vitam.
“At Famam non illa,” refert, tangitque trementes
Phœbus Apollo aures. “Fama haud, vulgaris ad instar
Floris, amat terrestre solum, fictosque nitores
Queis inhiat populus, nec 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 famæ manet æthera nactis.”
Fons Arethusa! sacro placidus qui laberis alveo,
Frontem vocali prætextus arundine, Minci!
Sensi equidem gravius carmen. Nunc cetera pastor
Exsequor. Adstat enim missus pro rege marino,
Seque rogâsse refert fluctus, ventosque rapaces,
Quæ sors dura nimis tenerum rapuisset agrestem.
Compellasse refert alarum quicquid ab omni
Spirat, acerba sonans, scopulo, qui cuspidis instar
Prominet in pelagus; fama haud pervenerat illuc.
Hæc ultro pater Hippotades responsa ferebat:
“Nulli sunt nostro palati carcere venti.
Straverat æquor aquas, et sub Jove compta sereno
Lusum exercebat Panope nymphæque sorores.
Quam Furiæ struxere per interlunia, leto
Fetam 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, “prædulce meum me pignus ademit?”
Post hos, qui Galilæa 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: quot serpunt ventribus acti,
Vi quot iter faciunt spretis in ovilia muris.
Hic labor, hoc opus est, pecus ut tondente magistro
Præripiant epulas, trudatur dignior hospes.
Capti oculis, non ore! pedum tractare nec ipsi
Norunt; quotve bonis sunt upilionibus artes.
Sed quid enim refert, quove eat opus, omnia nactis?
Fert ubi mens, tenue ac deductum carmen avenam
Radit stridentem stipulis. Pastore negato
Suspicit ægra pecus: vento gravis ac lue tracta
Tabescit; mox foeda capit contagia vulgus.
Quid dicam, stabulis ut clandestinus oberrans
Expleat ingluviem tristis lupus, indice nullo?
Illa tamen bimanus custodit machina portam,
Stricta, paratque malis plagam non amplius unam.”
En, Alphee, redi! Quibus ima cohorruit unda
Voces præteriere: redux quoque Sicelis omnes
Musa voca valles; huc pendentes hyacinthos
Fac jaciant, teneros huc flores mille colorum.
O nemorum depressa, sonant ubi crebra susurri
Umbrarum, et salientis aquæ, Zephyrique protervi;
Queisque virens gremium penetrare Canicula parcit:
Picturata modis jacite huc mihi lumina miris,
Mellitos imbres queis per viridantia rura
Mos haurire, novo quo tellus vere rubescat.
Huc ranunculus, ipse arbos, pallorque ligustri,
Quæque relicta perit, vixdum matura feratur
Pnimula: quique ebeno distinctus, cætera flavet
Flos, et qui specie nomen detrectat eburna.
Ardenti violæ 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
Saltem 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 quæ monstra profundum;
Sive (negavit enim precibus te Jupiter udis)
Cum sene Bellero, veterum qui fabula, dormis,
Qua custoditi montis prægrandis 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 moeroris origo,
Marmorei quanquam fluctus hausere cadentem.
Sic et in æquoreum se condere sæpe cubile
Luciferum videas; nec 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, quem peditem mare sustulit, usus amico.
Nunc campos alios, alia errans stagna secundum,
Rorantesque lavans integro nectare crines,
Audit inauditos nobis cantari Hymenæos,
Fortunatorum sedes ubi mitis amorem
Lætitiamque affert. Hic illum, quotquot Olympum
Prædulces habitant turbæ, venerabilis ordo,
Circumstant: aliæque canunt, interque canendum
Majestate sua veniunt abeuntque catervæ,
Omnes ex oculis lacrymas arcere paratæ.
Ergo non Lycidam jam lamentantur agrestes.
Divus eris ripæ, puer, hoc ex tempore nobis,
Grande, nec immerito, veniens in munus; opemque
Poscent usque tuam, dubiis quot in æstubus errant.
Hæc 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 præcipitaverat alveum.
Surrexit tandem, glaucumque retraxit amictum;
Cras lucos, reor, ille novos, nova pascua quæret.

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;

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.

IN MEMORIAM.

NON hora myrto, non violis sinit
Nitere mensas. Trux Aquilo foras
Bacchatur, ac passim pruina
Tigna sagittifera coruscant;

Horretque saltus spinifer, algidæ
Sub falce lunæ, dum nemori imminet,
Quod stridet illiditque costis
Cornua, jam vacuis honorum,

Ferrata; nimbis prætereuntibus,
Ut incubent tandem implacido sali
Qui curvat oras. Tu Falernum
Prome, dapes strue, dic coronent

Crateras: ignis cor solidum, graves
Repone truncos. Jamque doloribus
Loquare securus fugatis
Quæ socio loquereris illo;

Hunc dedicamus lætitiæ diem
Lyræque musisque. Illius, illius
Da, quicquid audit: nec silebunt
Qui numeri placuere vivo.

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,
Lags 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 Erostratas 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.

Blood in every vein is gushing,
Vixen vengeance lulls my heart;
See, the Gorgon gang is rushing!
Never, never let us part.

NÆNIA.

O QUOT odoriferi voitatis in aëre venti,
Cæruleum tegmen vestra sit ala mihi:
Tuque sedens Parnassus ubi caput erigit ingens,
Dextra veni, Clio: teque docente canam.

Jam suaves somnos Tholus affectare Theatri
Cœperat, igniflui trans laqueare poli:
Alectûs consanguineam quo tempore Erinnyn,
Suave soporatam, coepit 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 tristiæ fas concessisse superbæ:
Admissum Pietas scitque premitque nefas.

Respice! Nonne vides ut Erostratus alter ad ædem
Rursus agat flammas, spreta Diana, tuam?
Mox, Acheronteis quas Parca eduxit ab antris,
Druriacam nubes corripuere domum.

O ubi purpurei motus pueri alitis? o qui
Me mihi turbineis surripis, angor, aquis!
Duc, labyrintheum, duc me, mare, tramite recto
Quo rapidi fontes, pigra caterva, ruunt!

Jamque—soporat enim pectus Vindicta Virago;
Omnibus a venis sanguinis unda salit;
Gorgoneique greges præceps (adverte!) feruntur—
Sim, precor, o! semper sim tibi junctus ego.

“LEAVES HAVE THEIR TIME TO FALL.”

FELICIA HEMANS.

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 overwhelming shower,
A time for softer tears: but all are thine.

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!

“FRONDES EST UBI DECIDANT.”

FRONDES est ubi decidant,
Marcescantque rosæ flatu Aquilonio:
Horis astra cadunt suis;
Sed, Mors, cuncta tibi tempera vindicas.

Curis nata virûm 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: quæque tamen tua.

Virgo, seu rosa pullulans,
Tantum quippe nitent ut nequeant mori?
Rident te? Neque enim soles
Prædæ parcere, dum flos adoleverit.

“LET US TURN HITHERWARD OUR BARK.”

R. C. TRENCH.

“LET us turn hitherward our bark,” they cried,
“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 godlike 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.

“QUIN HUC, FREMEBANT.”

“QUIN huc,” fremebant, “dirigimus ratem:
Hic, dote læti divitis insulæ,
Paullisper hæremus, futuri
Nec memores operis, nec acti:

“Curas refecti cras iterabimus,
Si qua supersunt emeritis novæ
Pexisse pernices acuta
Canitiem pelagi carina.”

O rebus olim nobilioribus
Pares: origo Dî quibus ac Deæ
Heroës! oblitine famiæ
Hæc struitis, generisque summi?

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 præëuntium,
Quorum ossa sol siccantque venti,
Candet adhuc quibus omnis ora.

CARMEN SÆCULARE.

MDCCCLIII.

“Quicquid agunt homines, nostri est farrago libelli.”

ACRIS hyems jam venit: hyems genus omne perosa
Foemineum, et senibus glacies non æqua rotundis:
Apparent rari stantes in tramite glauco;
Radit iter, cogitque nives, sua tela, juventus.
Trux matrona ruit, multos dominata per annos,
Digna indigna minans, glomeratque volumina crurum;
Illa parte senex, amisso 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)
Quærit bacciferas, tunica pendente, {145a} tabernas:
Pervigil ecce Baco furva depromit ab arca
Splendidius quiddam solito, plenumque saporem
Laudat, et antiqua jurat de stripe Jamaicæ.
O fumose puer, nimium ne crede Baconi:
Manillas vocat; hoc prætexit nomine caules.
Te vero, cui forte dedit maturior ætas
Scire potestates herbarum, te quoque quanti
Circumstent casus, paucis (adverte) docebo.
Præcipue, seu raptat amor te simplicis herbæ, {145b}
Seu potius tenui Musam meditaris avena,
Procuratorem fugito, nam ferreus idem est.
Vita semiboves catulos, redimicula vita
Candida: de coelo descendit σῶζε σεαυτόν.
Nube vaporis item conspergere præter euntes
Jura vetant, notumque furens quid femina possit:
Odit enim dulces succos anus, odit odorem;
Odit Lethæi diffusa volumina fumi.
Mille modis reliqui fugiuntque feruntque laborem.
Hic vir ad Eleos, pedibus talaria gestans,
Fervidus it latices, nec quidquam acquirit eundo: {146a}
Ille petit virides (sed non e gramine) mensas,
Pollicitus meliora patri, tormentaque {146b} flexus
Per labyrintheos plus quam mortalia tentat,
Acre tuens, loculisque pilas immittit et aufert.
Sunt alii, quos frigus aquæ, tenuisque phaselus
Captat, et æquali surgentes ordine remi.
His edura cutis, nec ligno rasile tergum;
Par saxi sinus: esca boves cum robore Bassi.
Tollunt in numerum fera brachia, vique feruntur
Per fluctus: sonuere viæ clamore secundo:
Et piceâ 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 {147a} currum.
Nosco purpureas vestes, clangentia nosco
Signa tubæ, 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.
Aspicias alios ab iniqua sepe rotari
In caput, ut scrobibus quæ sint fastigia quærant;
Eque rubis aut amne pigro trahere humida crura,
Et fœdam faciem, defloccatumque galerum.
Sanctius his animal, cui quadravisse rotundum {148a}
Musæ suadet amor, Camique ardentis imago,
Inspicat calamos contracta fronte malignos,
Perque Mathematicum pelagus, loca turbida, anhelat.
Circum dirus “Hymers,” nec pondus inutile, “Lignum,”
“Salmoque,” et pueris tu detestate, “Colenso,”
Horribiles visu formæ; livente notatæ
Ungue omnes, omnes insignes aure canina. {148b}
Fervet opus; tacitum pertentant gaudia pectus
Tutorum; “pulchrumque mori,” dixere, “legendo.”
Nec vero juvenes facere omnes omnia possunt.
Atque unum memini ipse, deus qui dictus amicis,
Et multum referens de rixatore {148c} 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
Lævius, et duræ gravat inclementia Mortis: {149a}
Agmen iners; queis mos alienâ vivere quadrâ, {149b}
Et lituo vexare viros, calcare caballos.
Tales mane novo sæpe admiramur euntes
Torquibus in rigidis et pelle Libystidis ursæ;
Admiramur opus {149c} tunicæ, vestemque {149d} sororem
Iridis, et crurum non enarrabile tegmen.
Hos inter comites implebat pocula sorbis
Infelix puer, et sese reereabat ad ignem,
“Evœ, {150a} BASSE,” fremens: dum velox præterit ætas;
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 Camenæ.
Nocte dieque legas, cum tertius advenit annus:
Tum libros cape; claude fores, et prandia defer.
Quartus venit: ini, {150b} rebus jam rite paratis,
Exultans, et coge gradum conferre magistros.
His animadversis, fugies immane Barathrum.
His, operose puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas,
Tu rixator eris. Saltem non crebra revises
Ad stabulum, {151a} et tota moerens carpere juventa;
Classe nec amisso nil profectura dolentem
Tradet ludibriis te plena leporis HIRUDO. {151b}

TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE.

TO A SHIP. OD. i. 14.

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,

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 pitiless sea-waves tossed

Too rudely. Goodly canvas is not thine,
Nor gods, to hear thee now, when need is sorest:—
Though thou—a Pontic pine,
Child of a stately forest,—

Boastest high name and empty pedigree,
Pale seamen little trust the gaudy sail:
Stay, unless doomed to be
The plaything of the gale.

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.

TO VIRGIL. OD. i. 24.

UNSHAMED, 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?

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.

TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA. OD. iii. 13.

BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky!
Thine is the flower-crown’d bowl, for thee shall die,
When dawns again yon sun, the kid;
Whose budding horns, half-seen, half-hid,

Challenge to dalliance or to strife—in vain!
Soon must the hope of the wild herd be slain,
And those cold springs of thine
With blood incarnadine.

Fierce glows the Dog-star, but his fiery beam
Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream
To labour-wearied ox,
Or wanderer from the flocks:

And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain:
My harp shall tell how from yon cavernous mountain,
Topt by the brown oak-tree,
Thou breakest babblingly.

TO IBYCUS’S WIFE. OD. ii. 15.

SPOUSE of penniless Ibycus,
Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies,
All thy studious infamy:—
Nearing swiftly the grave—(that not an early one)—
Cease girls’ sport to participate,
Blurring stars which were else cloudlessly brilliant.
What suits her who is beautiful
Suits not equally thee: rightly devastates
Thy fair daughter the homes of men,
Wild as Thyad, who wakes stirred by the kettle-drums.
Nothus’ beauty constraining her,
Like some kid at his play, holds she her revelry:
Thy years stately Luceria’s
Wools more fitly become—not din of harpsichords,
Not pink-petallèd roseblossoms,
Not casks drained by an old lip to the sediment.

SORACTE. OD. i. 9.

ONE dazzling mass of solid snow
Soracte stands; 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
Grey 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;

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.

TO LEUCONÖE. OD. i. 11.

SEEK not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall
be;
Ask not of Chaldæa’s science what God wills, Leuconöe:
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
sandstone-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.

JUNO’S SPEECH. OD. iii. 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.

Jove’s wandering son reached, thus endowed,
The fiery bastions of the skies;
Thus Pollux; with them Cæsar lies
Beside his nectar, radiant-browed.

For this rewarded, tiger-drawn
Rode Bacchus, reining necks before
Untamed; for this War’s horses bore
Quirinus up from Acheron,

When in heav’n’s conclave Juno said,
Thrice welcomed: “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.

“No more the Greek girl’s guilty guest
Sits splendour-girt: 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.

“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 hoof-trod, and the she-wolf breeds
Securely there, unharmed shall stand
Rome’s lustrous Capitol, her hand
Impose proud laws on trampled Medes.

“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) resolute to spurn,
And not to man’s base uses turn
With hand that spares not things divine.

“Earth’s utmost end, where’er it be,
May her hosts reach; careering proud
O’er lands where watery rain and cloud,
Or where wild suns hold revelry.

“But, to the soldier-sons 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.

“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
God-utterances in puny verse
That may but mar a mighty theme.

TO A FAUN. OD. iii. 18.

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 thrice on their foe, the soil.

TO LYCE. OD. iv. 13.

LYCE, the gods have listened to my prayer;
The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey,
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?

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.

TO HIS SLAVE. OD. i. 38.

PERSIAN grandeur I abhor;
Linden-wreathèd crowns, avaunt:
Boy, I bid thee not explore
Woods which latest roses haunt:

Try on nought thy busy craft
Save plain myrtle; so arrayed
Thou shalt fetch, I drain, the draught
Fitliest ’neath the scant vine-shade.

THE DEAD OX. GEORG. IV.

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 volumes o’er the cragstones to the plain.
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-freshen’d stream
Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.

FROM THEOCRITUS. IDYLL. VII.

SCARCE midway were we yet, nor yet descried
The stone that hides what once was Brasidas:
When there drew near a wayfarer from Crete,
Young Lycidas, the Muses’ votary.
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, Simichides?
For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall,
The crested lark hath closed his wandering wing.
Speed’st thou, a bidd’n guest, to some reveller’s board?
Or townwards, to the treading of the grape?
For lo! recoiling from thy hurrying feet
The pavement-stones ring out right merrily.”

SPEECH OF AJAX. SOPH. AJ. 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.
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 her white steeds, the Day:
Stern tempest-blasts at last sing lullaby
To groaning seas: even the arch-tyrant, Sleep,
Doth loose his slaves, not hold them chained for ever.
And shall not mankind too learn discipline?
_I_ 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.

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 blissful 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 to 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!
So, 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.
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-cornicèd echo:—
Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward,
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
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 broadswords;
But all-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 shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of Reason;
When too 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.
Matter mingled and massed into indissoluble union
Does not exist. For we see how wastes each separate substance;
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 substance,
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 HOMER. _Il_. I.