AN ODE ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN ROUSE LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ON A LOST VOLUME OF MY POEMS, WHICH HE DESIRED ME TO REPLACE, This Ode is rendered without rhyme, that it might more adequately represent the original, which, as Milton himself informs us, is of no certain measure. It may possibly for this reason disappoint the reader, though it cost the writer more labour than the translation of any other piece in the whole collection.-C. STROPHE My twofold book! single in show, But double in contents, A poet gave, no lofty one in truth, ANTISTROPHE Say, little book, what furtive hand Of my most learned friend, I sent thee forth, an honoured traveller, Where rise the fountains, and the raptures ring Durable as yonder spheres, And through the endless lapse of years STROPHE II Now what god, or demigod, (If our afflicted land 20 Have expiated at length the guilty sloth Shall terminate our impious feuds, Driven from their ancient seats In Albion, and well-nigh from Albion's shore, Piercing the unseemly birds, Shall drive the harpy race from Helicon afar? ANTISTROPHE But thou, my book, though thou hast strayed, Or indolent neglect, thy bearer's fault, To some dark cell, or cave forlorn, The chafing of some hard untutored hand, For lo! again the splendid hope appears The gulfs of Lethe, and on oary wings STROPHE III Since Rouse desires thee, and complains Thou yet appearest not in thy place Given to his care, But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete Of that unperishing wealth, Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge, Where he intends a richer treasure far Than Ion kept (Ion, Erechtheus' son ANTISTROPHE Haste, then to the pleasant groves, Resume thy station in Apollo's dome, 30 40 50 60 Dearer to him Than Delos, or the forked Parnassian hill! Since now a splendid lot is also thine, And thou art sought by my propitious friend; With authors of exalted note, The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome. 70 EPODE Ye then, my works, no longer vain Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend; And whence the coarse unlettered multitude Perhaps some future distant age, To judge more equally. Then, Malice silenced in the tomb, I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim. 80 90 THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE KING A Philosopher, included in the same sentence of condemnation with several guilty persons among whom he had been apprehended, sent the following lines, composed suddenly in the moment when he was going to death, to a certain King who had ignorantly condemned him. KNOW this, O King, that if thou shalt destroy Me, no man's enemy, and who have lived Thy city's loss of one her chief support. ON THE ENGRAVER OF HIS PORTRAIT Look on myself, and thou shalt own at once My friends, who gaze and guess not whom ye see, He intended me ! TRANSLATIONS OF THE ITALIAN POEMS SONNET FAIR Lady; whose harmonious name the Rhine, Through all his grassy vale, delights to hear, Base were indeed the wretch who could forbear To love a spirit elegant as thine, That manifests a sweetness all divine, Nor knows a thousand winning acts to spare, And which Love's bow and arrows are, graces, Tempering thy virtues to a softer shine. When gracefully thou speakest, or singest gay, Such strains as might the senseless forest move, Ah then-turn each his eyes and ears away, Who feels himself unworthy of thy love! Grace can alone preserve him, ere the dart Of fond desire yet reach his inmost heart. SONNET As on a hill-top rude, when closing day Thy praise in verse to British ears unknown, And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain ; Oh that this hard and sterile breast might be CANZONE THEY mock my toil-the nymphs and amorous swains— And "whence this fond attempt to write," they cry, "Love-songs in language that thou little knowest? "How darest thou risk to sing these foreign strains? "Say truly,-findest not oft thy purpose crossed, "And that thy fairest flowers here fade and die?” Then, with pretence of admiration high"Thee other shores expect, and other tides; "Rivers, on whose grassy sides "Her deathless laurel leaf, with which to bind "Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides; 66 Why then this burthen, better far declined?" Speak, Muse! for me.-The fair one said, who guides My willing heart, and all my fancy's flights, "This is the language in which Love delights." SONNET TO CHARLES DIODATI CHARLES-and I say it wondering-thou must know Words exquisite, of idioms more than one, |