Who, free from Jealousy's alarms, That mouth, from whence such music flows, I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die : TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH ON VIRGIL AND TIBULLUS. BY DOMITIUS MARSUS. He who sublime in epic numbers roll'd, And he who struck the softer lyre of love, By Death's unequal hand alike controli'd, Fit comrades in Elysian regions move! IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. 'Sulpicia ad Cerinthum.'-Lib. iv. CRUEL Cerinthus! does the fell disease Which racks my breast your fickle bosom please? Alas! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain, That I might live for love and you again : But now I scarcely shall bewail my fate; By death alone I can avoid your hate. TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS. Whom dearer than her eyes she loved : But lightly o'er her bosom moved : From whom no earthly power can save, For thou hast ta'en the bird away : From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow Thou art the cause of all her woe, Receptacle of life's decay. IMITATED FROM CATULLUS. OH! might I kiss those eyes of fire, Nought should my kiss from thine dissever; TRANSLATION FROM HORACE. [Justum et tenacem propositi virum, &c.] THE man of firm and noble soul No factious clamours can control; No threat'ning 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 fix'd, determined mind in vain. Ay, and the red right arm of Jove, He would unmoved, unawed behold. Again in crashing chaos roll'd, In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd, Might light his glorious funeral pile; [smile. Still dauntless 'midst the wreck of earth he'd FROM ANACREON. I WISH to tune my quivering lyre All, all in vain; my wayward lyre FROM ANACREON. [Μεσονυκτίαις ποθ' ώραις, κ. τ. λ.] "TWAS now the hour when Night had driven Her car half round yon sable heaven"; Boötes, only, seem'd to roll His arctic charge around the pole : While mortals, lost in gentle sleep, Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep: At this lone hour, the Paphian boy, Descending from the realms of joy, Quick to my gate directs his course, And knocks with all his little force. My visions fled, alarm'd I rose'What stranger breaks my blest repose?' 'Alas!' replies the wily child, In faltering accents sweetly mild, 'A hapless infant here I roam, Far from my dear maternal home. Oh! shield me from the wintry blast! The nightly storm is pouring fast. No prowling robber lingers here. A wandering baby who can fear?' I heard his seeming artless tale, I heard his sighs upon the gale: My breast was never pity's foe, But felt for all the baby's woe. I drew the bar, and by the light, Young Love, the infant, met my sight; His bow across his shoulders flung, And thence his fatal quiver hung (Ah! little did I think the dart Would rankle soon within my heart). With care I tend my weary guest, His little fingers chill my breast; His glossy curls, his azure wing, Which droop with nightly showers, I wring; His shivering limbs the embers warm ; And now reviving from the storm, Scarce had he felt his wonted glow, Than swift he seized his slender bow: 'I fain would know, my gentle host,' He cried, if this its strength has lost; fear, relax'd with midnight dews, The strings their former aid refuse.' With poison tipt, his arrow flies, Deep in my tortured heart it lies; Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd: 'My bow can still impel the shaft: 'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it ; Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?' · FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF ESCHYLUS. [Μηδαμ' ὁ πάντα νέμων, κ. τ. λ.] GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne Both gods and mortals homage pay, Ne'er may my soul thy power disown, Thy dread behests ne'er disobey. Oft shall the sacred victim fall In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall; My voice shall raise no impious strain, 'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. How different now thy joyless fate, Since first Hesione thy bride, When placed aloft in godlike state, The blushing beauty by thy side, Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled, And mirthful strains the hours beguiled. The Nymphs and Tritons danced around. Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd. TO EMMA. SINCE now the hour is come at last, When you must quit your anxious lover; Since now cur dream of bliss is past, One pang, my girl, and all is over. Alas! that pang will be severe, Which bids us part to meet no more; Well! we have pass'd some happy hours, Where from this Gothic casement's height, Whilst I, admiring, too remiss, Forgot to scare the hovering flies, Yet envied every fly the kiss It dared to give your slumbering eyes: In which I row'd you o'er the lake; WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss. For that would banish its repose. A glance from thy soul-searching eye Can raise with hope, depress with fear; Yet I conceal my love-and why? I would not force a painful tear. I ne'er have told my love, yet thou Hast seen my ardent flame too well; Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. Then let the secret fire consume, Let it consume, thou shalt not know: With joy I court a certain doom, Rather than spread its guilty glow. I will not ease my tortured heart, Each thought presumptuous I resign. No matron shall thy shame reprove; Though cureless pangs may prey on me, No martyr shalt thou be to love. TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, In sighs alone it breathed my name. Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret ; TO CAROLINE. WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm, Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe; For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm, And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive. Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring, That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere ; That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring, [tear; Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining [the breeze, Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining, Prove nature a prey to decay and disease. 'Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my features, [decree, Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of His creatures, [of me. In the death which one day will deprive you Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion, No doubt can the mind of your lover invade; He worships cach look with such faithful devotion, A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade. But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'ertake us, [sympathy glow, And our breasts, which alive with such Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake [low,When calling the dead, in earth's bosom laid Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure, [flow: Which from passion like ours may unceasingly Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full us, measure, And quaff the contents as our nectar below. TO CAROLINE. OH! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow? Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay? The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow But brings, with new torture, the curse of today. THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. 'Α Βαρβιτος δε χορδαίς Ερωτα μουνον έχει. —ANACREON, AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance; From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, no curses, I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me from bliss; For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this. Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning, Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage, On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning, [rage. With transport my tongue give a loose to its But now tears and curses, alike unavailing, Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight: Could they view us our sad separation bewailing, Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight. Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation, [cheer, Life beams not for us with one ray that can Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation; In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me, [fled? Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee, Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead. STANZAS TO A LADY. Who blames it but the envious fool, In single sorrow doom'd to fade? But not thy hapless fate the same. Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove; From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, [love! Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, Or the Nine be disposed from your service to ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL. WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own, When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne? As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place, So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate. Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, Pomposus holds you in his harsh control; Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd, With florid jargon, and with vain parade; With noisy nonsense and new-fangled rules, Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools, Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws, He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause ; With him the same dire fate attending Rome, TO THE DUKE OF DORSET. DORSET! whose early steps with mine have Exploring every path of Ida's glade; [stray'd, Whom still affection taught me to defend, And made me less a tyrant than a friend, Though the harsh custom of our youthful band Bade thee obey, and gave me to command ; * Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower The gift of riches, and the pride of power; wait On one by birth predestined to be great; And seek to blast the honours of thy name. For well I know that virtue lingers there. Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, But now new scenes invite me far away; Yes! I have mark'd within that generous mind, A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind. Ah! though myself by nature haughty, wild, Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favourite child; Though every error stamps me for her own, And dooms my fall, fain would fall alone; Though my proud heart no precept now can I love the virtues which I cannot claim. [tame, "Tis not enough, with other sons of power, To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour; To swell some peerage page in feeble pride, With long-drawn names that grace no page beside; At every public school, the junior boys are completely subservient to the upper forms till they attain a seat in the higher classes. From this state of probation very properly, no rank is exempt; but after a certain period, they command in turn those who succeed. Then share with titled crowds the common lot- Turn to the annals of a former day; Another view, not less renown'd for wit; Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue, Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep, For me, in future, neither friend nor foe, |