No More Learning

_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. '

Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does Man, her slave, oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleased to bless;
Still various and unconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she's kind,
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away.
The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned:
Content with poverty my soul I arm,
And Vertue, tho' in rags, will keep me warm.

What is't to me,
Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,
If storms arise and clouds grow black,
If the mast split and threaten wrack?
Then let the greedy merchant fear
For his ill-gotten gain,
And pray to gods that will not hear,
While the debating winds and billows bear
His wealth into the main.
For me, secure from Fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,
In my small pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blustering roar:
And running with a merry gale
With friendly stars my safety seek
Within some little winding creek,
And see the storm ashore.

DRYDEN.


_136_

O PRECIOUS Crock, whose summers date,
Like mine, from Manlius' consulate,
I wot not whether in your breast
Lie maudlin wit or merry jest,
Or sudden choler, or the fire
Of tipsy Love's insane desire,
Or fumes of soft caressing sleep,
Or what more potent charms you keep;
But this I know, your ripened power
Befits some choicely festive hour!
A cup peculiarly mellow
Corvinus asks: so come, old fellow,
From your time-honoured bin descend,
And let me gratify my friend!
No churl is he your charms to slight,
Though most intensely erudite:
And ev'n old Cato's worth, we know,
Took from good wine a nobler glow.

Your magic power of wit can spread
The halo round a dullard's head,
Can make the sage forget his care,
His bosom's inmost thoughts unbare,
And drown his solemn-faced pretence
Beneath your blithesome influence.
Bright hope you bring and vigour back
To minds outworn upon the rack,
And put such courage in the brain
As makes the poor be men again,
Whom neither tyrants' wrath affrights
Nor all their bristling satellites.

Bacchus, and Venus, so that she
Bring only frank festivity,
With sister Graces in her train,
Twining close in lovely chain,
And gladsome taper's living light,
Shall spread your treasures o'er the night,
Till Phoebus the red East unbars,
And puts to rout the trembling stars.

THEODORE MARTIN.


_139_

I give the first stanza of this poem in the effective paraphrase of
Herrick, and the first two stanzas in the rather diffuse rendering of
Byron. Byron's version is one of his earliest pieces but not altogether
wanting in force.

NO wrath of Men, or rage of Seas,
Can shake a just man's purposes:
No threats of Tyrants, or the Grim
Visage of them can alter him;
But what he doth at first entend
That he holds firmly to the end.

HERRICK.

THE man of firm and noble soul
No factious clamours can control:
No threatening tyrant's darkling brow
Can swerve him from his just intent;
Gales the warring waves which plough,
By Auster on the billows spent,
To curb the Adriatic main
Would awe his fixed determined mind in vain.

Ay, and the red right arm of Jove,
Hurtling his lightnings from above,
With all his terrors there unfurled,
He would unmoved, unawed behold.
The flames of an expiring world,
Again in crushing chaos rolled,
In vast promiscuous ruin hurled,
Might light his glorious funeral pile,
Still dauntless 'mid the wreck of earth he'd smile.

BYRON.


_145_

BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky!
Thine is the flower-crowned bowl, for thee shall die
When dawns yon sun, the kid
Whose horns, half-seen, half-hid,

Challenge to dalliance or to strife--in vain.
Soon must the firstling of the wild herd be slain,
And these 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 thy cavernous mountain,
Where the brown oak grows tallest,
All babblingly thou fallest.

C. S. CALVERLEY.


_148_

The rendering that follows is printed in the author's _Ionica_ not as a
translation, but as a poem, under the title _Hypermnestra_. It
represents our poem of Horace from the 25th line onwards.

LET me tell of Lydè of wedding-law slighted,
Penance of maidens and bootless task,
Wasting of water down leaky cask,
Crime in the prison-pit slowly requited.

Miscreant brides! for their grooms they slew.
One out of many is not attainted,
One alone blest and for ever sainted,
False to her father, to wedlock true.

Praise her! she gave her young husband the warning.
Praise her for ever! She cried, 'Arise!
Flee from the slumber that deadens the eyes;
Flee from the night that hath never a morning.

Baffle your host who contrived our espousing,
Baffle my sisters, the forty and nine,
Raging like lions that mangle the kine,
Each on the blood of a quarry carousing.

I am more gentle, I strike not thee,
I will not hold thee in dungeon tower.
Though the king chain me, I will not cower,
Though my sire banish me over the sea.

Freely run, freely sail, good luck attend thee;
Go with the favour of Venus and Night.
On thy tomb somewhere and some day bid write
Record of her who hath dared to befriend thee. '

W. JOHNSON CORY.


_149_

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?
O Honour, O 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, Vergil, 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.

C. S. CALVERLEY.


_152, ii_

THE snow, dissolv'd, no more is seen,
The fields and woods, behold, are green;
The changing year renews the plain,
The rivers know their banks again;
The sprightly Nymph and naked Grace
The mazy dance together trace;
The changing year's successive plan
Proclaims mortality to Man.
Rough winter's blasts to spring give way,
Spring yields to summer's sovran ray;
Then summer sinks in autumn's reign,
And winter holds the world again.
Her losses soon the moon supplies,
But wretched Man, when once he lies
Where Priam and his sons are laid,
Is naught but ashes and a shade.
Who knows if Jove, who counts our score,
Will toss us in a morning more?
What with your friend you nobly share
At least you rescue from your heir.
Not you, Torquatus, boast of Rome,
When Minos once has fixed your doom,
Or eloquence or splendid birth
Or virtue shall restore to earth.
Hippolytus, unjustly slain,
Diana calls to life in vain,
Nor can the might of Theseus rend
The chains of hell that hold his friend.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.


_153_

NOW have I made my monument: and now
Nor brass shall longer live, nor loftier raise
The royallest pyramid its superb brow.
Nor ruin of rain or wind shall mar its praise,
Nor tooth of Time, nor pitiless pageantry
O' the flying years. In death I shall not die
Wholly, nor Death's dark Angel all I am
Make his; but ever flowerlike my fame
Shall flourish in the foldings of the Mount
Capitoline, where the Priests go up, and mute
The maiden Priestesses.
From mean account
Lifted to mighty, where the resolute
Waters ot Aufidus reverberant ring
O'er fields where Daunus once held rustic state,
Of barren acres simple-minded king,--
There was I born, and first of men did mate
To lyre of Latium Aeolic lay.
Clothe thee in glory, Muse, and grandly wear
Thy hardly-gotten greatness, and my hair
Circle, Melpomene, with Delphian bay.

H. W. G.


_161_

HE who sublime in epic numbers rolled,
And he who struck the softer lyre of love,
By Death's unequal hand alike controlled,
Fit comrades in Elysian regions move!

BYRON.


_166_

HAD he not hands of rare device, whoe'er
First painted Love in figure of a boy?
He saw what thoughtless beings lovers were,
Who blessings lose, whilst lightest cares employ.

Nor added he those airy wings in vain,
And bade through human hearts the godhead fly;
For we are tost upon a wavering main;
Our gale, inconstant, veers around the sky.

Nor, without cause, he grasps those barbed darts,
The Cretan quiver o'er his shoulder cast;
Ere we suspect a foe, he strikes our hearts;
And those inflicted wounds for ever last.

In me are fix'd those arrows, in my breast;
But sure his wings are shorn, the boy remains;
For never takes he flight, nor knows he rest;
Still, still I feel him warring through my veins.

In these scorch'd vitals dost thou joy to dwell?
Oh shame! to others let thy arrows flee;
Let veins untouch'd with all thy venom swell;
Not me thou torturest, but the shade of me.

Destroy me--who shall then describe the fair?
This my light Muse to thee high glory brings:
When the nymph's tapering fingers, flowing hair,
And eyes of jet, and gliding feet she sings.

ELTON.


_179_

NO longer, Paullus, vex with tears my tomb:
There is no prayer can open the black gate.
When once the dead have passed beneath the doom,
Barred is the adamant and vows too late.

E'en though the lord of hell should list thy prayer,
Thy tears shall idly soak the sullen shores:
Vows may move heaven; when Charon holds his fee,
The grass-grown pile stands closed by lurid doors.

So the sad trumpets told their funeral tale
While from the bier the torch dislodged my frame;
What did my husband, what my sires avail,
Or all these numerous pledges of my fame?

Did I, Cornelia, find the fates less harsh?
Five fingers now can lift my weight complete.
Accursed nights, and stagnant Stygian marsh,
And every sluggish wave that clogs my feet,

Early yet guiltless came I to this bourne;
So let the sire deal gently with my shade
If Aeacus sit judge with ordered urn,
By kin upon my bones be judgement made:

There let his brothers sit, the Furies fill
By Minos' seat the Court, an audience grave.
Let Sisyphus rest, Ixion's wheel be still,
And Tantalus once grasp the fleeting wave;

To-day let surly Cerberus hunt no shade,
By the mute bar loose let his fetters lie.
I plead my cause: if guilty, be there laid
On me that urn, the sisters' penalty.

If any may boast trophies of old days,
Still Libya tells my sires the Scipios' name;
My mother's line their Libo peers displays,
And each great house stands propp'd by scrolls of fame.

When I doffed maiden garb 'neath torches' glow,
And with the nuptial band my locks were tied,
'Twas to thy bed I came, doomed thus to go:
Let my stone say I was but once a bride.

Those ashes by Rome reverenced I attest,
Whose titles tell how Afric's pride was shorn,
Perseus that feigned his sire Achilles' breast,
And him that brought Achilles' house to scorn;

For me the censor's rule ne'er swerved from place,
Your hearth need never blush for shame of mine:
Cornelia brought such relics no disgrace,
Herself a model to her mighty line.

I never changed, I lived without a stain
Betwixt the marriage and the funeral fire:
Nature gave laws drawn from my noble strain,
Fear of no judge could higher life inspire.

Let any urn pass sentence stern on me:
None will be shamed that I should sit beside;
Not she, rare maid of tower-crowned Cybele,
That hauled the lagging goddess up the tide;

Not she for whom, when Vesta claimed her fire,
The linen white revealed the coals aglow.
What changed in me but fate would'st thou desire,
Sweet mother mine? I never wrought thee woe.

Her tears, the city's grief, applaud my fame:
And Caesar's sobs plead for these bones of mine;
His daughter's worthy sister's loss they blame,
And we saw tears upon that face divine.

And yet I won the matron's robe of state,
'Twas from no barren house that I was torn:
Paullus and Lepidus, balm of my fate,
Upon your breast my closing eyes were borne.

My brother twice I saw in curule place,
Consul what time his sister ceased to be.
Child, of thy father's censorship the trace,
Cleave to one husband only, copy me.

Prop the great race in line: my bark of choice
Sets sail, my loss so many to restore.
Woman's last triumph is when common voice
Applauds the pyre of her whose work is o'er.

These common pledges to thee I commend:
Still burned into my ashes breathes this care.
Father, the mother's offices attend:
This my whole troop thy shoulders now must bear.

When thou shalt kiss their tears, kiss too for me:
Henceforth thy load must be the house complete.
If thou must weep with them not there to see,
When present, with dry cheeks their kisses cheat.

Enough those nights thou weariest out for me,
Those dreams that often shall my semblance feign;
And with my shade in secret colloquy,
Speak as to one to answer back again.

But should the gate confront another bed,
And on my couch a jealous step-dame sit,
Laud, boys, and praise the bride your sire has wed;
She will be won charmed with your ready wit.

Nor praise your mother overmuch; she may
Feel contrast and free words to insult turn.
But if contented with my shade he stay,
And hold my ashes of such high concern;

His coming age learn to anticipate,
Leave to the widower's cares no path confessed.
Be added to your years what mine abate,
And in my children Paullus' age be blessed.

'Tis well: for child I ne'er wore mourning weed;
But my whole troop came to my obsequies.
My plea is done. While grateful earth life's meed
Repays, in tears ye witnesses arise.
Heaven opes to such deserts; may mine me speed
To join my honoured fathers in the skies.

L. J. LATHAM.


_217_

I give a part of the version of Stepney, whom Dr. Johnson describes as
'a very licentious translator'.

IF mighty gods can mortal sorrows know,
And be the humble partners of our woe,
Now loose your tresses, pensive Elegy,--
Too well your office and your name agree.
Tibullus, once the joy and pride of Fame,
Lies now--rich fuel--on the trembling flame;
Sad Cupid now despairs of conquering hearts,
Throws by his empty quiver, breaks his darts,
Eases his useless bows from idle strings.
Nor flies, but humbly creeps with flagging wings--
He wants, of which he robbed fond lovers, rest,--
And wounds with furious hands his pensive breast.
Those graceful curls which wantonly did flow,
The whiter rivals of the falling snow,
Forget their beauty and in discord lie,
Drunk with the fountain from his melting eye.
. . . . . . . .
In vain to gods (if gods there are) we pray,
And needless victims prodigally pay;
Worship their sleeping deities, yet Death
Scorns votaries and stops the praying breath:
To hallowed shrines intending Fate will come,
And drag you from the altar to the tomb.
Go, frantic poet, with delusions fed,
Thick laurels guard your consecrated head--
Now the sweet master of your art is dead.
What can _we_ hope, since that a narrow span
Can measure the remains of thee, Great Man?
. . . . . . . .
If any poor remains survive the flames
Except thin shadows and mere empty names,
Free in Elysium shall Tibullus rove,
Nor fear a second death should cross his love.
There shall Catullus, crowned with bays, impart
To his far dearer friend his open heart;
There Gallus (if Fame's hundred tongues all lie)
Shall, free from censure, no more rashly die.
Such shall our poet's blest companions be,
And in their deaths, as in their lives, agree.
But thou, rich Urn, obey my strict commands,
Guard thy great charge from sacrilegious hands;
Thou, Earth, Tibullus' ashes gently use,
And be as soft and easy as his Muse.

G. STEPNEY.


_240_

AFTER death nothing is, and nothing death--
The utmost limits of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hope of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concerned which way, or where,
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring Time swallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul Fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery goals,
Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimsies and no more.

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER.


_261_

AND so Death took him. Yet be comforted:
Above this sea of sorrow lift thy head.
Death--or his shadow--look, is over all;
What but an alternating funeral
The long procession of the nights and days?
The starry heavens fail, the solid earth
Fails and its fashion. Why, beholding this,
Why with our wail o'er sad mortality
Mourn we for men, mere men, that fade and fall?
Battle or shipwreck, love or lunacy,
Some warp o' the will, some taint o' the blood, some touch
Of winter's icy breath, the Dog-star's rage
Relentless, or the dank and ghostly mists
Of Autumn--any or all of these suffice
To die by. In the fee and fear of Fate
Lives all that is. We one by one depart
Into the silence--one by one. The Judge
Shakes the vast urn: the lot leaps forth: we die.
But _he_ is happy, and you mourn in vain.
He has outsoared the envy of gods and men,
False fortune and the dark and treacherous way,
--Scatheless: he never lived to pray for death,
Nor sinned--to fear her, nor deserved to die.
We that survive him, weak and full of woes,
Live ever with a fearful eye on Death--
The how and when of dying: 'Death' the thunder,
'Death' the wild lightning speaks to us.
In vain,--
Atedius hearkens not to words of mine.
Yet shall he hearken to the dead: be done,
Sweet lad he loved, be done with Death, and come,
Leaving the dark Tartarean halls, come hither;
Come, for thou canst: 'tis not to Charon given,
Nor yet to Cerberus, to keep in thrall
The innocent soul: come to thy father, soothe
His sorrow, dry his eyes, and day and night
A living voice be with him--look upon him,
Tell him thou art not dead (thy sister mourns,
Comfort her, comfort as a brother can)
And win thy parents back to thee again.

H. W. G.


_262_

WHAT sin was mine, sweet, silent boy-god, Sleep,
Or what, poor sufferer, have I left undone,
That I should lack thy guerdon, I alone?
Quiet are the brawling streams: the shuddering deep
Sinks, and the rounded mountains feign to sleep.
The high seas slumber pillowed on Earth's breast;
All flocks and birds and beasts are stilled in rest,
But my sad eyes their nightly vigil keep.
O! if beneath the night some happier swain,
Entwined in loving arms, refuse thy boon
In wanton happiness,--come hither soon,
Come hither, Sleep. Let happier mortals gain
The full embrace of thy soft angel wing:
But touch me with thy wand, or hovering
Above mine eyelids sweep me with thy train.

W. H. FYFE.

I append six _Sonnets to Sleep_ by six English poets of very different
genius, none of whom, save perhaps Drummond, seems to have been
influenced by Statius. Cowley's poem _To Sleep_ in the _Mistress_ may
perhaps also be read--the last line shows that Cowley recalled Statius.

COME, Sleep, O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:
Oh, make in me those civil wars to cease!
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind of light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

SIDNEY.

CARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light;
With dark forgetting of my care, return:
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease dreams, the images of day's desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising Sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

DANIEL.

SLEEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince whose approach peace to all mortal brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief opprest;
Lo! by thy charming-rod all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spares, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, oh come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show;
With feignèd solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and that thou wilt bequeath,--
I long to kiss the image of my death.

DRUMMOND.

A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds, and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;--
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie
Sleepless; and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessèd barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

WORDSWORTH.

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

KEATS.

THE crackling embers on the hearth are dead;
The indoor note of industry is still;
The latch is fast; upon the window-sill
The small birds wait not for their daily bread;
The voiceless flowers--how quietly they shed
Their nightly odours; and the household ill
Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill
The vacant expectation, and the dread
Of listening night. And haply now She sleeps;
For all the garrulous noises of the air
Are hushed in peace; the soft dew silent weeps,
Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair:--
Oh! that I were the happy dream that creeps
To her soft heart, to find my image there.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

Side by side with these sonnets may be placed Thomas Warton's _Ode_--a
fine poem, too little known:--

ON this my pensive pillow, gentle Sleep,
Descend in all thy downy plumage drest,
Wipe with thy wings these eyes that wake to weep,
And place thy crown of poppies on my breast.
O steep my senses in Oblivion's balm,
And soothe my throbbing pulse with lenient hand,
This tempest of my boiling blood becalm--
Despair grows mild, Sleep, in thy mild command.

Yet ah! in vain, familiar with the gloom,
And sadly toiling through the tedious night,
I seek sweet slumber while that virgin bloom
For ever hovering haunts my unhappy sight.
Nor would the dawning day my sorrows charm:
Black midnight and the blaze of noon alike
To me appear, while with uplifted arm
Death stands prepared, but still delays, to strike.

T. WARTON.


_287_

AH! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
To what unknown region borne
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

BYRON.

Byron's version is a weak piece of youthful work. I add here Pope's
_Dying Christian to his Soul_, a noble poem suggested by that of
Hadrian, and emphasizing powerfully the contrast between pagan and
Christian sentiment:--

VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark, they whisper; angels say,
'Sister spirit, come away! '
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave, where is thy victory?
O Death, where is thy sting?

POPE.


_368_

HAPPY the man who his whole time doth bound
Within the enclosure of his little ground.
Happy the man whom the same humble place,
The hereditary cottage of his race,
From his first rising infancy has known,
And by degrees sees gently bending down
With natural propension to that earth
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth.
Him no false distant lights by Fortune set
Could ever into foolish wanderings get.
He never dangers either saw or feared;
The dreadful storms at sea he never heard,
He never heard the shrill allarms of war,
Or the worse noises of the lawyers' Bar.
No change of consuls marks to him the year;
The change of seasons is his calender.
The cold and heat Winter and Summer shows,
Autumn by fruits, and Spring by flowers he knows.
He measures time by landmarks, and has found
For the whole day the Dial of his ground.
A neighbouring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees.
He's only heard of near Verona's name,
And knows it, like the Indies, but by fame:
Does with a like concernment notice take
Of the Red Sea and of Benacus Lake.
Thus health and strength he to a third age enjoys,
And sees a long posterity of boys.
About the spacious world let others roam,
The Voyage Life is longest made at home.

COWLEY.

I append the version of a poet who was accounted in his time 'the best
translator since Pope'.

BLEST who, content with what the country yields,
Lives in his own hereditary fields;
Who can with pleasure his past life behold,
Whose roof paternal saw him young and old;
And, as he tells his long adventures o'er,
A stick supports him where he crawled before;
Who ne'er was tempted from his farm to fly,
And drink new streams beneath a foreign sky:
No merchant, he, solicitous of gain,
Dreads not the storms that lash the sounding main:
Nor soldier, fears the summons to the war,
Nor the hoarse clamours of the noisy bar.
Unskilled in business, to the world unknown,
He ne'er beheld the next contiguous town.
Yet nobler objects to his view are given,
Fair flowery fields and star-embellished heaven.
He marks no change of consuls, but computes
Alternate consuls by alternate fruits;
Maturing autumns store of apples bring,
And flowerets are the luxury of spring.
His farm that catches first the sun's bright ray
Sees the last lustre of his beams decay:
The passing hours erected columns show,
And are his landmarks and his dials too.
Yon spreading oak a little twig he knew,
And the whole grove in his remembrance grew.
Verona's walls remote as India seem,
Benacus is th' Arabian Gulph to him.
Yet health three ages lengthens out his span,
And grandsons hail the vigorous old man.
Let others vainly sail from shore to shore--
Their joys are fewer and their labours more.

F. FAWKES.




NOTE UPON THE SATURNIAN METRE


This metre is illustrated by Nos. 1-4 (? ), 5-6, 8, 10, 12-13 in this
selection. Three views have been taken of its character.

1. It was at one time supposed to be purely quantitative. This view had
the support of Bentley, who in the _Phalaris_ (226-8) identified the
Saturnian with a metre of Archilochus. [11] 'There's no difference at
all', he says blithely. In more recent times the quantitative theory, in
one form or another, has numbered among its adherents scholars of
repute: e. g. Ritschl, Lucian Mueller, Christ, Havet. To-day it may be
said to be a dead superstition. Its place has been taken by what may be
called the 'semi-quantitative' theory.

2. The 'semi-quantitative' theory was popularized in this country by H.
Nettleship[12] and J. Wordsworth[13]. It enjoyed the vogue which
commonly attends a compromise; and it still has its adherents, as, for
example, E. V. Arnold[14] (who follows the Plautine scholar F. Leo). But
the more it is examined the more it tends, I think, to melt into a
'pure-accentual' theory. 'It allows the shortening of a long syllable
when unaccented (_dĕvictis_)', says Nettleship[15]. Surely to say that
_dĕvictis_ is 'allowed' for _dēvictis_ is to abandon the cause outright.
But it is considerations of a more general character which seem likely
to render untenable both the 'quantitative' and the 'semi-quantitative'
theories. The recent researches of Sievers[16] and others into the
earliest metrical forms tend to shew that this metre is an
'Indo-European' heritage, and that it must be judged in the light of its
Eastern and Germanic cognates.

3. The best opinion, therefore, in recent years has been strongly on the
side of the view which makes the principle of the Saturnian metre purely
accentual. At the moment this view may, in fact, be said to hold the
field. Unhappily those who agree in regarding the metre as purely
accentual agree in little else. We may distinguish two schools:

(a) There is, first, what I may perhaps be allowed to call the
Queen-and-Parlour school. 'There cannot be a more perfect Saturnian
line', says Macaulay, 'than one which is sung in every English nursery--

The queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey'.

Place beside this English line the Latin line which has come to be
regarded as the typical Saturnian--

dabunt malum Metelli Naeuio poetae.

If we accent these five words as Naevius and the Metelli would in
ordinary speech have accented them, we shall have to place our accents
thus:--

dábunt málum Metélli Naéuio poétae;

since by what is known as the Law of the Penultimate the accent in Latin
always falls on the penultimate syllable save in those words of three
(or more) syllables which have a short penultimate and take the accent
consequently on the ante-penultimate syllable. But those who accommodate
the Latin saturnian to the rhythm of 'The queen was in her parlour . . . '
have to postulate an anomalous accentuation:--

dabúnt malúm Metélli | Naéuió poétae.

The Saturnian line is, they hold, a verse falling into two cola, each
colon containing three accented (and an undefined number of unaccented)
syllables--word-accent and verse-accent (i. e. metrical _ictus_)
corresponding necessarily only at the last accented syllable in each
colon (as Metélli . . . poétae above).

Now here there are at least four serious difficulties:

1. While the principle of the verse is accentual half the words in any
given line may be accented as they were never accented anywhere else.

2. Sometimes verse-accent and word-accent do not correspond even at the
last accent in a colon. There is, for example, no better authenticated
Saturnian than

Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus:

and it is incredible that at any period in the history of the Latin
language the word-accent ever fell on the middle syllable of
_Lucius_[17].

3. The incidence of word-accent is left unfixed save so far as the
incidence of verse-accent enables us to fix it. But the incidence of the
verse-accent is itself hopelessly uncertain. In a very large percentage
of saturnian lines we abandon the natural word-accent and have at the
same time no possible means of determining upon what syllable of what
word we are to put the verse-accent.

dabúnt malúm Metélli Naéuió poétae

is simple enough: but when we come to

sin illos deserant fortissimos uiros
magnum stuprum populo fieri per gentes

or

dedet Tempestatibus aide meretod

we come, to speak frankly, to chaos.

4. A large number of well-attested saturnians yield only two accents in
the second _colon_.

(b) Beside the 'Queen-and-Parlour' theory there is what I may call the
Normal Accent Theory. It originated with two papers by W. M.