Eternal ages, roaming at his will

From sphere to sphere the tenfold heavens; or dwell
On the moon's side that nearest neighbours earth;

Or torpid on the banks of Lethe sit

Among the multitude of souls ordained

To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far distant region of this globe
Sequestered stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertowering Atlas on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrific even to the gods.

Never the Theban seer, whose blindness proved
His best illumination, him beheld

In secret vision: never him the son
Of Pleione, amid the noiseless night

Descending, to the prophet-choir revealed;
Him never knew the Assyrian priest, who yet
The ancestry of Ninus chronicles,

And Belus, and Osiris far-renowned;

Nor even thrice-great Hermes, although skilled
So deep in mystery, to the worshippers
Of Isis showed a prodigy like him.

And thou, who hast immortalised the shades

Of Academus,-if the schools received
This monster of the fancy first from thee,-
Either recall at once the banished bards

To thy republic, or, thyself evinced

A wilder fabulist, go also forth.

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TO HIS FATHER

OH that Pieria's spring would through my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush

No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!

That, for my venerable father's sake

All meaner themes renounced, my muse, on wings
Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my father! howsoe'er it please,

She frames this slender work; nor know I aught
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude :
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.

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This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Nought, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottoes, and in laurel bowers,

I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquired.
Verse is a work divine; despise not thou
Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more)

Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still
Some scintillations of Promethean fire,

Bespeaks him animated from above.

The gods love verse; the infernal powers themselves
Confess the influence of verse, which stirs

The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains

Of adamant both Pluto and the Shades.

In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale
Tremulous Sibyl, make the future known;

And he who sacrifices, on the shrine

Hangs verse, both when he smites the threatening bull, And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide

To scrutinize the fates enveloped there.

We too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies, and one eternal Now
Shall be the only measure of our being,

Crowned all with gold, and chanting to the lyre
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above,
And make the starry firmament resound.
And, even now, the fiery spirit pure

That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself,
Their mazy dance with melody of verse
Unutterable, immortal, hearing which
Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppressed,
Orion, softened, drops his ardent blade,
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load.
Verse graced of old the feasts of kings, ere yet
Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulf
Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere
Lyæus deluged yet the temperate board.
Then sat the bard a customary guest

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To share the banquet, and, his length of locks

With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse
The characters of heroes and their deeds

To imitation; sang of Chaos old,

Of Nature's birth, of gods that crept in search
Of acorns fallen, and of the thunder-bolt
Not yet produced from Ætna's fiery cave.
And what avails, at last, tune without voice,
Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps

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The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song
Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear,
And the oaks followed. Not by chords alone
Well touched, but by resistless accents more,
To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves
He moved: these praises to his verse he owes..
Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain
And useless, powers, by whom inspired thyself
Art skilful to associate verse with airs

Harmonious, and to give the human voice
A thousand modulations, heir by right
Indisputable of Arion's fame.

Now say, what wonder is it if a son
Of thine delight in verse, if, so conjoined
In close affinity, we sympathise

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In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us

Was Phoebus' choice; thou hast thy gift, and I
Mine also, and between us we receive,
Father and son, the whole inspiring god.

No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume
Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse,
My father! for thou never badest me tread
The beaten path and broad that leads right on
To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son
To the insipid clamours of the bar,

To laws voluminous and ill observed;

But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill

My mind with treasure, led'st me far away
From city din to deep retreats, to banks
And streams Aonian, and with free consent
Didst place me happy at Apollo's side.
I speak not now, on more important themes
Intent, of common benefits and such
As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts,
My father! who, when I had opened once
The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learned

The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks,
Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove,

Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers

That Gallia boasts, those too with which the smooth

Italian his degenerate speech adorns,

That witnesses his mixture with the Goth,
And Palestine's prophetic songs divine.

To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,

The earth beneath it, and the air between,

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The rivers and the restless deep, may all
Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will; science herself,
All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,
And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart,

I shrink not and decline her gracious boon.
Go now and gather dross, ye sordid minds
That covet it: what could my father more?
What more could Jove himself, unless he gave
His own abode, the heaven in which he reigns?
More eligible gifts than these were not
Apollo's to his son, had they been safe
As they were insecure, who made the boy
The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule
The radiant chariot of the day, and bind

To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath?
I therefore, although last and least, my place
Among the learned in the laurel grove
Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines,
Henceforth exempt from the unlettered throng
Profane, nor even to be seen by such.
Away, then, sleepless care; complaint, away;
And, envy, with thy "jealous leer malign!
Nor let the monster calumny shoot forth
Her venomed tongue at me. Detested foes!
Ye all are impotent against my peace,
For I am privileged, and bear my breast
Safe, and too high for your viperean wound.
But thou, my father! since to render thanks
Equivalent, and to requite by deeds
Thy liberality, exceeds my power,
Suffice it that I thus record thy gifts,

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And bear them treasured in a grateful mind!

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Ye too, the favourite pastime of my youth,
My voluntary numbers, if ye dare

To hope longevity and to survive

Your master's funeral pile not soon absorbed,
In the oblivious Lethæan gulf,

Shall to futurity perhaps convey

This theme, and by these praises of my sire
Improve the fathers of a distant age!

TO SALSILLUS

A ROMAN POET, MUCH INDISPOSED

The original is written in a measure called Scazon, which signifies limping, and the measure is so denominated because, though in other respects Iambic, it terminates with a Spondee, and has consequently a more tardy movement.

The reader will immediately see that this property of the Latin verse cannot be imitated in English.

My halting Muse, that dragg'st by choice along

Thy slow, slow step, in melancholy song,
And likest that pace expressive of thy cares
Not less than Deiopeia's sprightlier airs,

When in the dance she beats with measured tread
Heaven's floor, in front of Juno's golden bed;
Salute Salsillus, who to verse divine
Prefers, with partial love, such lays as mine.
Thus writes that Milton, then, who, wafted o'er
From his own nest on Albion's stormy shore
Where Eurus, fiercest of the Æolian band,
Sweeps with ungoverned rage the blasted land,
Of late to more serene Ausonia came
To view her cities of illustrious name,
To prove, himself a witness of the truth,

How wise her elders and how learn'd her youth.
Much good, Salsillus! and a body free
From all disease, that Milton asks for thee,
Who now endurest the languor and the pains
That bile inflicts, diffused through all thy veins,
Relentless malady! not moved to spare
By thy sweet Roman voice and Lesbian air!
Health, Hebe's sister, sent us from the skies,
And thou, Apollo, whom all sickness flies,
Pythius, or Pæan, or what name divine
Soe'er thou choose, haste, heal a priest of thine!
Ye groves of Faunus, and ye hills that melt
With vinous dews, where meek Evander dwelt,
If aught salubrious in your confines grow,

Strive which shall soonest heal your poet's woe,
That, rendered to the Muse he loves, again
He may enchant the meadows with his strain.
Numa, reclined in everlasting ease

Amid the shade of dark embowering trees,
Viewing with eyes of unabated fire

His loved Ægeria, shall that strain admire :

ΤΟ

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