Part 25

Take, brother, gifts a brother's tears Bedewed with sorrow as they fell, And 'Greeting' to the end of years, And to the end of years 'Farewell'.

H.W.G.

_101_

FRIEND, if the mute and shrouded dead Are touched at all by tears, By love long fled and friendship sped And the unreturning years,

O then, to her that early died, O doubt not, bridegroom, to thy bride Thy love is sweet and sweeteneth The very bitterness of death.

H.W.G.

_103_

SICK, Cornificius, is thy friend, Sick to the heart: and sees no end Of wretched thoughts that gathering fast Threaten to wear him out at last.

And yet you never come and bring, Though 'twere the least and easiest thing, A comfort in that talk of thine. You vex me. This to love of mine?

Prithee a little talk, for ease, Full as the tears of sad Simonides!

LEIGH HUNT.

_110_

AVAUNT, ye vain bombastic crew, Crickets that swill no Attic dew: Good-bye, grammarians crass and narrow, Selius, Tarquitius, and Varro: A pedant tribe of fat-brained fools, The tinkling cymbals of the schools! Sextus, my friend of friends, good-bye, With all our pretty company! I'm sailing for the blissful shore, Great Siro's high recondite lore, That haven where my life shall be From every tyrant passion free. You too, sweet Muses mine, farewell, Sweet muses mine, for truth to tell Sweet were ye once, but now begone; And yet, and yet, return anon, And when I write, at whiles be seen In visits shy and far between.

T.H. WARREN.

I append Clough's _Lines Written in a Lecture Room_. The theme is that of Vergil inverted. But the mood in either poet is the same--that mood of passionate revolt against academicism which never comes to some people and never departs from others:

AWAY, haunt thou not me, Thou dull Philosophy! Little hast thou bestead, Save to perplex the head And leave the spirit dead. Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below, Fed by the skiey shower, And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high, Wisdom at once and Power, Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly? Why labour at the dull mechanic oar, When the fresh breeze is blowing, And the strong current flowing, Right onward to the Eternal Shore?

A.H. CLOUGH.

_116_

Dryden's version of this piece shows him at his best as a translator of Vergil. 'Methinks I come,' he writes, 'like a malefactor, to make a speech upon the gallows, and to warn all other poets, by my sad example, from the sacrilege of translating Vergil.' But in the _Georgics_, at any rate, which he reckons 'more perfect in their kind than even the divine Aeneids,' he can challenge comparison with most of his rivals.

O HAPPY, if he knew his happy state, The swain, who, free from bus'ness and debate, Receives his easy food from Nature's hand, And just returns of cultivated land! No palace, with a lofty gate, he wants, T' admit the tides of early visitants, With eager eyes devouring, as they pass, The breathing figures of Corinthian brass; No statues threaten, from high pedestals; No Persian arras hides his homely walls, With antic vests, which, through their shady fold, Betray the streaks of ill-dissembled gold: He boasts no wool, whose native white is dy'd With purple poison of Assyrian pride: No costly drugs of Araby defile, With foreign scents, the sweetness of his oil: But easy quiet, a secure retreat, A harmless life that knows not how to cheat, With home-bred plenty, the rich owner bless; And rural pleasures crown his happiness. Unvex'd with quarrels, undisturb'd with noise, The country king his peaceful realm enjoys-- Cool grots, and living lakes, the flow'ry pride Of meads, and streams that through the valley glide, And shady groves that easy sleep invite, And, after toilsome days, a sweet repose at night. Wild beasts of nature in his woods abound; And youth of labour patient, plough the ground, Inur'd to hardship, and to homely fare. Nor venerable age is wanting there, In great examples to the youthful train; Nor are the gods ador'd with rites profane. From hence Astraea took her flight, and here The prints of her departing steps appear. Ye sacred muses! with whose beauty fir'd, My soul is ravish'd, and my brain inspir'd-- Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear-- Would you your poet's first petition hear; Give me the ways of wand'ring stars to know, The depths of heav'n above, and earth below: Teach me the various labours of the moon, And whence proceed th' eclipses of the sun; Why flowing tides prevail upon the main, And in what dark recess they shrink again; What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays The summer nights, and shortens winter days. But if my heavy blood restrain the flight Of my free soul, aspiring to the height Of nature, and unclouded fields of light-- My next desire is, void of care and strife, To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life-- A country cottage near a crystal flood, A winding valley, and a lofty wood. Some god conduct me to the sacred shades, Where Bacchanals are sung by Spartan maids, Or lift me high to Haemus' hilly crown, Or in the plains of Tempe lay me down, Or lead me to some solitary place, And cover my retreat from human race. Happy the man, who, studying Nature's laws, Through known effects can trace the secret cause-- His mind possessing in a quiet state, Fearless of Fortune, and resign'd to Fate! And happy too is he, who decks the bow'rs Of sylvans, and adores the rural pow'rs-- Whose mind, unmov'd, the bribes of courts can see, Their glitt'ring baits, and purple slavery-- Nor hopes the people's praise, nor fears their frown, Nor, when contending kindred tear the crown, Will set up one, or pull another down. Without concern he hears, but hears from far, Of tumults, and descents, and distant war; Nor with a superstitious fear is aw'd, For what befalls at home or what abroad. Nor envies he the rich their happy store, Nor his own peace disturbs with pity for the poor. He feeds on fruits, which of their own accord, The willing ground and laden trees afford. From his lov'd home no lucre him can draw; The senate's mad decrees he never saw: Nor heard, at bawling bars, corrupted law. Some to the seas, and some to camps, resort; And some with impudence invade the court: In foreign countries, others seek renown; With wars and taxes, others waste their own, And houses burn, and household gods deface, To drink in bowls which glitt'ring gems enchase, To loll on couches, rich with citron steds, And lay their guilty limbs on Tyrian beds. This wretch in earth entombs his golden ore, Hov'ring and brooding on his buried store. Some patriot fools to pop'lar praise aspire Of public speeches, which worse fools admire, While, from both benches, with redoubled sounds, Th' applause of lords and commoners abounds. Some, through ambition, or through thirst of gold, Have slain their brothers, or their country sold, And, leaving their sweet homes, in exile run To lands that lie beneath another sun. The peasant, innocent of all these ills, With crooked ploughs the fertile fallows tills, And the round year with daily labour fills: And hence the country markets are supplied: Enough remains for household charge beside, His wife and tender children to sustain, And gratefully to feed his dumb deserving train. Nor cease his labours till the yellow field A full return of bearded harvest yield-- A crop so plenteous, as the land to load, O'ercome the crowded barns, and lodge on ricks abroad. Thus ev'ry sev'ral season is employ'd, Some spent in toil, and some in ease enjoy'd. The yeaning ewes prevent the springing year: The laden boughs their fruits in autumn bear: 'Tis then the vine her liquid harvest yields, Bak'd in the sunshine of ascending fields, The winter comes; and then the falling mast For greedy swine provides a full repast: Then olives, ground in mills, their fatness boast, And winter fruits are mellow'd by the frost. His cares are eas'd with intervals of bliss; His little children, climbing for a kiss, Welcome their father's late return at night; His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight. His kine with swelling udders ready stand, And, lowing for the pail, invite the milker's hand. His wanton kids, with budding horns prepar'd, Fight harmless battles in his homely yard: Himself in rustic pomp, on holy-days, To rural pow'rs a just oblation pays, And on the green his careless limbs displays. The hearth is in the midst: the herdsmen, round The cheerful fire, provoke his health in goblets crown'd. He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize: The groom his fellow-groom at butts defies, And bends, and levels with his eyes, Or stript for wrestling, smears his limbs with oil, And watches, with a trip, his foe to foil. Such was the life the frugal Sabines led: So Remus and his brother-god were bred, From whom th' austere Etrurian virtue rose; And this rude life our homely fathers chose. Old Rome from such a race deriv'd her birth (The seat of empire, and the conquer'd earth), Which now on sev'n high hills triumphant reigns, And in that compass all the world contains. Ere Saturn's rebel son usurp'd the skies, When beasts were only slain for sacrifice, While peaceful Crete enjoy'd her ancient lord, Ere sounding hammers forg'd th' inhuman sword, Ere hollow drums were beat, before the breath Of brazen trumpets rung the peals of death, The good old god his hunger did assuage, With roots and herbs, and gave the golden age.

I append a portion of Cowley's unequal paraphrase (beginning from the words _Felix qui potuit_):

HAPPY the man, I grant, thrice happy he Who can through gross effects their causes see: Whose courage from the deeps of knowledge springs, Nor vainly fears inevitable things, But does his walk of virtue calmly go, Through all the allarms of death and hell below. Happy, but next such conquerors, happy they Whose humble life lies not in fortune's way. They unconcerned from their safe-distant seat Behold the rods and sceptres of the great. The quarrels of the mighty without fear And the descent of foreign troops they hear. Nor can ev'n Rome their steddy course misguide With all the lustre of her perishing pride. Them never yet did strife or avarice draw Into the noisy markets of the law, The camps of gownëd war, nor do they live By rules or forms that many mad men give. Duty for Nature's bounty they repay, And her sole laws religiously obey.

COWLEY.

_118_

(Beginning at _At cantu commotae...._)

THEN from the deepest deeps of Erebus, Wrung by his minstrelsy, the hollow shades Came trooping, ghostly semblances of forms Lost to the light, as birds by myriads hie To greenwood boughs for cover, when twilight-hour Or storms of winter chase them from the hills; Matrons and men, and great heroic frames Done with life's service, boys, unwedded girls, Youths placed on pyre before their fathers' eyes. Round them, with black slime choked and hideous weed, Cocytus winds; there lies the unlovely swamp Of dull dead water, and to pen them fast, Styx with her ninefold barrier poured between. Nay, even the deep Tartarean Halls of death Stood lost in wonderment, the Eumenides, Their brows with livid locks of serpents twined, E'en Cerberus held his triple jaws agape, And, the wind hushed, Ixion's wheel stood still. And now with homeward footstep he had passed All perils scathless, and, at length restored, Eurydice, to realms of upper air Had well-nigh won behind him following-- So Proserpine had ruled it--when his heart A sudden mad desire surprised and seized-- Meet fault to be forgiven, might Hell forgive. For at the very threshold of the day, Heedless, alas! and vanquished of resolve, He stopped, turned, looked upon Eurydice-- His own once more. But even with the look, Poured out was all his labour, broken the bond Of that fell tyrant, and a crash was heard Three times like thunder in the meres of hell. 'Orpheus! what ruin hath thy frenzy wrought On me, alas! and thee? Lo! once again The unpitying fates recall me, and dark sleep Closes my swimming eyes. And now, farewell: Girt with enormous night I am borne away, Outstretching toward thee, thine, alas! no more, These helpless hands.' She spoke, and suddenly, Like smoke dissolving into empty air, Passed and was sundered from his sight; nor him, Clutching vain shadows, yearning sore to speak, Thenceforth beheld she, nor no second time Hell's boatman lists he pass the watery bar.

JAMES RHOADES

_119 a_

ONCE a slender silvan reed Answered all my shepherd's need; Once to farmer lads I told All the lore of field and fold: Well they liked me, for the soil Beyond their dreams repaid their toil. Ah! who am I, 'mid war's alarms, To 'sing the hero and his arms'?

H.W.G.

_121_

I give first the version of Conington--an excellent specimen of his skill and its limitations; and I add Pope's imitation--a piece as graceful as anything he wrote:

THINK not those strains can e'er expire, Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre I sing with arts unknown before. Though Homer fill the foremost throne, Yet grave Stesichorus still can please, And fierce Alcaeus holds his own With Pindar and Simonides. The songs of Teos are not mute, And Sappho's love is breathing still: She told her secret to the lute, And still its chords with passion thrill. Not Sparta's queen alone was fired By broidered robe and braided tress, And all the splendours that attired Her lover's guilty loveliness: Not only Teucer to the field His arrows brought, not Ilion Beneath a single conqueror reeled: Not Crete's majestic lord alone, Or Sthenelus, earned the Muses' crown: Not Hector first for child and wife, Or brave Deiphobus, laid down The burden of a manly life. Before Atrides men were brave, But ah! oblivion dark and long Has locked them in a tearless grave, For lack of consecrating song. 'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death, What difference? _You_ shall ne'er be dumb, While strains of mine have voice and breath: The dull neglect of days to come Those hard-won honours shall not blight: No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright When Fortune smiles and when she lowers: To greed and rapine still severe, Spurning the gain men find so sweet: A consul not of one brief year, But oft as on the judgement-seat You bend the expedient to the right, Turn haughty eyes from bribes array, Or bear your banners through the fight, Scattering the foeman's firm array. The lord of countless revenues Salute not him as happy: no, Call him the happy who can use The bounty that the gods bestow, Can bear the load of poverty, And tremble not at death, but sin: No recreant he when called to die In cause of country or of kin.

J. CONINGTON.

LEST you should think that verse shall die, Which sounds the silver Thames along, Taught on the wings of Truth to fly Above the reach of vulgar song;

Though daring Milton sits sublime, In Spenser native Muses play; Nor yet shall Waller yield to time, Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay--

Sages and chiefs long since had birth Ere Caesar was, or Newton, named; Those raised new empires o'er the earth, And these new heavens and systems framed.

Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died. In vain they schemed, in vain they bled! They had no poet, and are dead.

POPE.

_124_

ANGEL of Love, high-thronëd in Cnidos, Regent of Paphos, no more repine: Leave thy loved Cyprus; too long denied us Visit our soberly censëd shrine.

Haste, and thine Imp, the fiery-hearted, Follow, and Hermes; and with thee haste The Nymphs and Graces with robe disparted, And, save thou chasten him, Youth too chaste.

H.W.G.

_125_

WHAT slender youth bedewed with liquid odours Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha, for whom bindst thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he On faith and changed gods complain: and seas Rough with black winds and storms Unwonted shall admire: Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Who always vacant, always amiable Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they To whom thou untried seem'st fair. Me in my vowed Picture the sacred wall declares to have hung My dank and dripping weeds To the stern God of Sea.

MILTON.

Milton's version has been a good deal criticized. Yet, though it lacks the lightness of its original, it remains a nobler version than any other. Of other versions the most interesting is, perhaps, that of Chatterton (made from a literal English translation), and the most graceful that of William Hamilton of Bangour. Of the latter I quote a few lines:

WITH whom spend'st thou thy evening hours Amid the sweets of breathing flowers? For whom retired to secret shade, Soft on thy panting bosom laid, Set'st thou thy looks with nicest care, O neatly plain? How oft shall he Bewail thy false inconstancy! Condemned perpetual frowns to prove, How often weep thy altered love, Who thee, too credulous, hopes to find, As now, still golden and still kind!

W. HAMILTON.

_126_

Of this often-translated poem I give first the version of Herrick and then that of Gladstone. There is an amusing adaptation in the Poems of Soame Jenyns, _Dialogue between the Rt. Hon. Henry Pelham and Modern Popularity_.

_Hor._ WHILE, Lydia, I was lov'd of thee, Nor any was preferr'd 'fore me To hug thy whitest neck: than I, The Persian King liv'd not more happily.

_Lyd._ While thou no other didst affect, Nor Cloe was of more respect; Then Lydia, far-fam'd Lydia, I flourish't more than Roman Ilia.

_Hor._ Now Thracian Cloe governs me, Skilfull i' th' Harpe, and Melodie: For whose affection, Lydia, I (So Fate spares her) am well content to die.

_Lyd._ My heart now set on fire is By Ornithes sonne, young Calais; For whose commutuall flames here I (To save his life) twice am content to die.

_Hor._ Say our first loves we sho'd revoke, And sever'd, joyne in brazen yoke: Admit I Cloe put away, And love again love-cast-off Lydia?

_Lyd._ Though mine be brighter than the Star; Thou lighter than the Cork by far; Rough as th' Adratick sea, yet I Will live with thee, or else for thee will die.

HERRICK.

_Hor._ WHILE no more welcome arms could twine Around thy snowy neck than mine, Thy smile, thy heart while I possessed, Not Persia's monarch lived as blessed.

_Lyd._ While thou didst feed no rival flame, Nor Lydia after Chloe came, Oh then thy Lydia's echoing name Excelled ev'n Ilia's Roman fame.

_Hor._ Me now Threician Chloe sways, Skilled in soft lyre and softer lays; My forfeit life I'll freely give So she, my better life, may live.

_Lyd._ The son of Ornytus inspires My burning breast with mutual fires; I'll face two several deaths with joy So Fate but spare my Thracian boy.

_Hor._ What if our ancient love awoke, And bound us with its golden yoke? If auburn Chloe I resign And Lydia once again be mine?

_Lyd._ Though fairer than the stars is he, Thou rougher than the Adrian sea And fickle as light cork, yet I With thee would live, with thee would die.

GLADSTONE.

Prior's 'echo' of this poem is well known:

'SO when I am weary of wandering all day, To thee, my delight, in the evening I come; No matter what beauties I saw in my way, They were but my visits, but thou art my home.

Then finish, dear Cloe, this pastoral war, And let us, like Horace and Lydia, agree; For thou art a girl as much brighter than her As he was a poet sublimer than me.'

(_Answer to Chloe Jealous_).

_127_

O CRUEL, still and vain of beauty's charms, When wintry age thy insolence disarms,[10] When fall those locks that on thy shoulders play, And youth's gay roses on thy cheeks decay, When that smooth face shall manhood's roughness wear, And in your glass another form appear, Ah, why, you'll say, do I now vainly burn, Or with my wishes not my youth return?

FRANCIS.

_135_

I print Dryden's version in its entirety. 'I have endeavoured to make it my masterpiece in English,' he says. It is perhaps the only translation of the _Odes_ which retains what Dryden calls their 'noble and bold purity' and at the same time keeps the friendly and familiar strokes of style which lighten Horace's graver moods.

DESCENDED of an ancient line, That long the Tuscan sceptre swayed, Make haste to meet the generous wine Whose piercing is for thee delayed. The rosie wreath is ready made And artful hands prepare The fragrant Syrian oil that shall perfume thy hair

When the wine sparkles from afar And the well-natured friend cries 'Come away', Make haste and leave thy business and thy care, No mortal interest can be worth thy stay.

Leave for awhile thy costly country seat, And--to be great indeed--forget The nauseous pleasures of the great: Make haste and come, Come, and forsake thy cloying store, Thy turret that surveys from high The smoke and wealth and noise of Rome, And all the busie pageantry That wise men scorn and fools adore: Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.

Sometimes 'tis grateful to the rich to try A short vicissitude and fit of Poverty; A savoury dish, a homely treat, Where all is plain, where all is neat, Without the stately spacious room, The Persian carpet or the Tyrian loom Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.

The Sun is in the Lion mounted high, The Syrian star Barks from afar, And with his sultry breath infects the sky; The ground below is parched, the heavens above us fry; The shepherd drives his fainting flock Beneath the covert of a rock And seeks refreshing rivulets nigh. The Sylvans to their shade retire, Those very shades and streams new streams require, And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.

Thou, what befits the new Lord May'r, And what the City Faction dare, And what the Gallique arms will do, And what the quiverbearing foe, Art anxiously inquisitive to know. But God has wisely hid from human sight The dark decrees of future fate, And sown their seeds in depth of night: He laughs at all the giddy turns of state When mortals search too soon and learn too late.

Enjoy the present smiling hour, And put it out of Fortune's power. The tide of business, like the running stream, Is sometimes high and sometimes low, A quiet ebb or a tempestuous flow, And always in extreme. Now with a noiseless gentle course It keeps within the middle bed, Anon it lifts aloft its head And bears down all before it with tempestuous force;

And trunks of trees come rolling down, Sheep and their folds together drown, Both house and homestead into seas are borne, And rocks are from their old foundations torn, And woods, made thin with winds, their scattered honours mourn.

Happy the man--and happy he alone,-- He who can call to-day his own, He who, secure within, can say 'To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day: Be fair or foul or rain or shine, The joys I have possessed in spite of Fate are mine, Not Heaven itself upon the Past has power, But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.'