Page images
PDF
EPUB

"Ye Gods, whom destiny hath made
The Guardians of the voiceless shade,-
The voiceless shade of parted souls,
Where Phlegethon forever rolls,
And gloomy Chaos reigns,—
Forgive me that with living eye
I look upon your privacy,

And rend the sulphurous canopy
Which clothes your dark domains!"

(MAY, 1822.)

THE HOOPOE'S INVOCATION TO THE

NIGHTINGALE.

(From the Birds of ARISTOPHANES, 1. 209.)

WAKEN, dear one, from thy slumbers;
Pour again those holy numbers,
Which thou warblest there alone
In a heaven-instructed tone,

Mourning from this leafy shrine

Lost-lost Itys, mine and thine,
In the melancholy cry

Of a mother's agony;

Echo, ere the murmurs fade,

Bears them from the yew-tree's shade

To the throne of Jove; and there,
Phoebus with his golden hair
Listens long, and loves to suit
To his ivory-mounted lute
Thy sad music;-at the sound
All the gods come dancing round,
And a sympathetic song

Peals from the immortal throng.

(SEPTEMBER, 1826.)

FROM LUCRETIUS, Bk. ii. 1 1-33.

OH, sweet it is to listen on the shore

When the wild tempest mocks the seaboy's

cry;

And sweet to mark the tumult and the roar
When distant battle stalks in thunder by;
And do not say another's agony

Is happiness to us!-oh, rather deem

That the mind loves, in its own fantasy,

To wield the weapons and to scream the scream, And then to wake from death, and feel it was a dream.

But naught is sweeter than to hold our state,
Unchangeable, on Wisdom's guarded keep,
And look in silence on the low and great,
Who, in their sackcloth or their purple, creep
Beneath the summit of the viewless steep :
They dare the deserts, and they tempt the waves,
And serve, and monarchize, and laugh and

weep,

While Fortune scoffs alike at lords and slaves, And decks the perilous path with sceptres, and with graves.

Oh, wretched souls! oh, weak and wasted breath,

Painful in birth, and loathsome in decay! Eternal clouds are round us: doubt and death Lie dark between to-morrow and to-day; And thus our span of mourning flits away! If the veins glisten and the pulses glow,

If the free spirits innocently play,

Say, wilt thou seek for more? vain mortal, no! What more can Dust demand, or Destiny bestow?

Yet Nature hath more blessings, her own joys,
Unearned by labour, and unsought by prayer:
Be wise to-day !-perhaps no golden boys
O'er the thronged banquet fling the torches'
glare,

No rich aroma loads the languid air, No burnished silver gleams along the hall

In dazzling whiteness, no fond lute is there To wreathe the sweetness of its magic thrall O'er listening ears, rapt hearts, at some high festival;

Yet Nature's fondest sons and fairest daughters
On her green bosom love at eve to lie,
Where the lone rippling of the quiet waters
Goes syllabling all sweets, and hoar and high
The old oak lends his solemn canopy.

What do they reck beneath their tranquil bowers
Of guilt or grief?-then happiest, when the

sky

Laughs in the glad spring-dawning, and the hours Dress every hill and vale in herbs and odorous flowers!

(1826.)

STANS PEDE IN UNO.

-Kaì vûv ẻv 'Apeî μαρτυρήσαι κεν πόλις Αί

αντος ὀρθωθεῖσα ναύταις

ἐν πολυφθόρῳ Σαλάμις Διὸς ἔμβρῳ.

Pindar, Isth. v. 61.

NOVENA Pindi turba, licet Jovis
Antiqua cessent fulmiņa vatibus
Mentita, Divorumque voces

Per vacuum taceant Olympum,

At usque clivo vos Heliconio
Ludum vetustum ludite, vos aquas
Libate sollennes, lyrarum

Vos dominæ dominæque vatum

Audite! Nymphæ Pierides, quibus
Cordi est celebres martis honoribus
Ornare reges, et triumphos
Aonio resonare plectro,

Vos a quietis vos mihi montibus Adeste, Nymphæ! ferte per inclytas Urbes, et antiqua sacratos

Relligione domos; juvabit

« PreviousContinue »