by the storm-winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling:
Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment:
But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves
are exempt from.
Sweet too 'tis to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war hosts
Arm them for some great battle, one's self
unscathed by the danger:--
Yet still happier this: to possess, impregnably guarded,
Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom:
Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way
Wander amidst Life's path, poor stragglers seeking a highway:
Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon:
Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'neath the sun
and the starlight,
Up as they toil on the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire.
O race born unto trouble! O minds all lacking of eye-sight!
'Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers
Move ye thro' this thing Life, this fragment! Fools that ye hear not
Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only: that, all pain
Parted and passed from the body, the mind too bask in a blissful
Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over!
Now as regards man's body, a few things only are needful,
(Few, tho' we sum up all), to remove all misery from him,
Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures
That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness greater.
Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him,
(Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning,
Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnishëd always),
Silver may not shine softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion,
Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-cornicëd echo:--
Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward,
Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over,
Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure:
Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles,
and the young year
Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow
the wild-flowers:--
Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers,
Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered
Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment.
Therefore, since to the body avail not riches, avails not
Heraldry's utmost boast, nor the pomp and pride of an empire;
Next shall you own that the mind needs likewise
nothing of these things;
Unless--when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign
Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awaken,
Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon ocean--
Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superstition abandon
Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming,
Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in you.
But if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction,
If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset them
Heed not the javelin's fury, regard not clashing of broad-swords,
But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires
Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare
of the red gold,
Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple-apparelled:
These things shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of reason:
Think too that all man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward.
For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery, Darkness,
Sees all terrible things: so do we too, ev'n in the daylight,
Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming
Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er them.
So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us,
Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the daylight:
Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them.
C.S. CALVERLEY
_69_
OUT of the night, out of the blinding night
Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light
Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk
Thou dost reveal each valley and each height.
Thou art my leader and the footprints thine,
Wherein I plant my own. Thro' storm and shine
Thy love upholds me. Ne'er was rivalry
'Twixt owl and thrush, 'twixt steeds and shambling kine.
The world was thine to read, and having read,
Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread
The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth
Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread.
As honey-bees thro' flowery glades in June
Rifle the blossoms, so at our high-noon
Of life we gather in melodious glades
The golden honey of thy deathless rune.
And whoso roams benighted, on his ear,
Out of the darkness strikes an echo clear
Of thy triumphant challenge:--'Ye who quail,
Come unto me, for I have cast out fear.'
Thereat the walls o' the world fade far away
And thou, great Nature's seër, dost display
The miracle of her workings in the void:--
The night is past and reason dawns with day.
Heaven lies about us and we see the hall,
Where never storm-fiend raves nor snow-flakes fall
In webs of winter whiteness to ensnare
The golden summer. Peace is over all;
A canopy of cloudless sky, a glow
Of laughing sunshine; all the flowers that blow
Are there, and there from Nature's teeming breast
Rivers of strength and sweetness ever flow.
The veil of Acheron is rent in twain;
His phantom precincts vanish. Ne'er again
Can Earth conceal the secret:--it is ours;
And all that once was hidden is made plain.
Hail, mighty Master, hail! The world was thine,
For thou hadst read her riddle line by line,
Scroll upon scroll; and now ... oh, ecstasy
Of awe and rapture,... thou hast made her mine.
D.A. SLATER.
_70_
I give a part of this piece in the version of Dryden, beginning from
_Cerberus et furiae_. 'I am not dissatisfied', says Dryden, 'upon the
review of anything I have done in this author.'
AS for the Dog, the Furies and their Snakes,
The gloomy Caverns and the burning Lakes,
And all the vain infernal trumpery,
They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.
But here on earth the guilty have in view
The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due,
Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian Rock,
Stripes, hangmen, pitch and suffocating smoke,
And, last and most, if these were cast behind,
The avenging horror of a conscious mind,
Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow,
And sees no end of punishment and woe,
But looks for more at the last gasp of breath.
This makes a hell on earth, and life a death.
Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head,
Consider: Ancus great and good is dead;
Ancus, thy better far, was born to die,
And thou, dost _thou_ bewail mortality?
So many monarchs, with their mighty state
Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by Fate.
That haughty King who lorded o'er the main,
And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain--
In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wrack,
While his proud legions marched upon their back,--
Him Death, a greater monarch, overcame,
Nor spared his guards the more for their Immortal name.
The Roman chief, the Carthaginian's dread,
Scipio, the Thunder Bolt of War, is dead,
And like a common slave by Fate in triumph led.
The founders of invented arts are lost,
And wits who made eternity their boast.
Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne?
The immortal work remains, the mortal author's gone.
DRYDEN.
_74_
DIANA guardeth our estate,
Girls and boys immaculate;
Boys and maidens pure of stain,
Be Diana our refrain.
O Latonia, pledge of love
Glorious to most glorious Jove,
Near the Delian olive-tree
Latona gave thy life to thee,
That thou should'st be for ever queen
Of mountains and of forests green;
Of every deep glen's mystery;
Of all streams and their melody.
Women in travail ask their peace
From thee, our Lady of Release:
Thou art the Watcher of the Ways:
Thou art the Moon with borrowed rays:
And, as thy full or waning tide
Marks how the monthly seasons glide,
Thou, Goddess, sendest wealth of store
To bless the farmer's thrifty floor.
Whatever name delights thine ear,
By that name be thou hallowed here;
And, as of old, be good to us,
The lineage of Romulus.
R.C. JEBB.
_82_
GEM of all isthmuses and isles that lie,
Fresh or salt water's children, in clear lake
Or ampler ocean: with what joy do I
Approach thee, Sirmio! Oh! am I awake,
Or dream that once again my eye beholds
Thee, and has looked its last on Thynian wolds?
Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems,
When the mind drops her burden: when--the pain
Of travel past--our own cot we regain,
And nestle on the pillow of our dreams!
'Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam.
Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here!
Joy too, ye waters of the Garda Mere!
And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home.
C.S. CALVERLEY.
_83_
This beautiful and delicate piece remains the despair of the translator.
I quote a few lines of Cowley's sometimes rather clumsy version
(beginning from _Sic, inquit, mea uita_):
'MY little life, my all,' said she,
'So may we ever servants be
To this best god, and ne'er retain
Our hated liberty again:
So may thy passion last for me
As I a passion have for thee
Greater and fiercer much than can
Be conceived by thee a man.
Into my marrow is it gone,
Fixt and settled in the bone,
It reigns not only in my heart
But runs like fire through every part.'
She spoke: the god of Love aloud
Sneezed again, and all the crowd
Of little Loves that waited by
Bowed and blest the augury.
COWLEY.
_85 b_
So many critics have compared Catullus to Burns that some of them may be
glad to see this North-Italian rendered into the English of the North.
WEEP, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o' decent feelin':
My lassie's lost her wee, wee bird,
And that's a loss, ye'll ken, past healin'.
The lassie lo'ed him like her een:
The darling wee thing lo'ed the ither,
And knew and nestled to her breast,
As ony bairnie to her mither.
Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt--
So dear, he cared na lang to leave it;
He'd nae but gang his ain sma' jaunt,
And flutter piping back bereavit.
The wee thing's gane the shadowy road
That's never travelled back by ony:
Out on ye, Shades! ye're greedy aye
To grab at aught that's brave and bonny.
Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird,
Ye little ken what wark ye're leavin':
Ye've gar'd my lassie's een grow red,
Those bonnie een grow red wi' grievin'.
G.S. DAVIES.
I append the version of Prof. R. Ellis, which preserves the metre of the
original:
WEEP each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids,
Weep all men that have any grace about ye.
Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted,
The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.
Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him,
Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail'd her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother;
Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither,
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.
Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway,
Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.
Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,
Shades all beauteous happy things devouring,
Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him.
Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,
Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's
Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.
R. ELLIS.
_86 a_
Langhorne is best known by his translation of Plutarch's _Lives_. But he
was a copious poet; and Catullus has never perhaps been more gracefully
rendered than in the following piece:
LESBIA, live to love and pleasure,
Careless what the grave may say:
When each moment is a treasure
Why should lovers lose a day?
Setting suns shall rise in glory,
But when little life is o'er,
There's an end of all the story--
We shall sleep, and wake no more.
Give me, then, a thousand kisses,
Twice ten thousand more bestow,
Till the sum of boundless blisses
Neither we nor envy know.
J. LANGHORNE.
I append the beginning of Blacklock's version:
THOUGH sour-loquacious Age reprove,
Let _us_, my Lesbia, live for love.
For when the short-lived suns decline
They but retire more bright to shine:
But we, when fleeting life is o'er
And light and love can bless no more,
Are ravished from each dear delight
To sleep one long eternal night.
T. BLACKLOCK.
_86 b_
KISS me, sweet: the wary lover
Can your favours keep, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again! no creature comes;
Kiss, and score up wealthy sums
On my lips, thus hardly sundered,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the tother
Add a thousand and so more,
Till you equal with the store
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streams
In the silent summer nights
When Youth plies its stolen delights:
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.
BEN JONSON.
_92_
CATULLUS, let the wanton go:
No longer play the fool, but deem
For ever lost what thou must know
Is fled for ever like a dream!
O life was once a heaven to thee!
To haunt her steps was rapture then--
That woman loved as loved shall be
No woman ever on earth again.
Then didst thou freely taste the bliss,
On which empassioned lovers feed:
When she repaid thee kiss for kiss,
O, life was then a heaven indeed!
'Tis past: forget as she forgets:
Lament no more, but let her go:
Tear from thy heart its mad regrets,
And into very marble grow!
Girl, fare thee well. Catullus ne'er
Will sue where love is met with scorn:
But, false one, thou with none to care
For thee, shalt pine through days forlorn.
Think, think, how drear thy life will be!
Who'll woo thee now? who praise thy charms?
Who now will be all in all to thee
And live but in thy loving arms?
Ay, who will give thee kiss for kiss,
Whose lip wilt thou in rapture bite?
But thou, Catullus, think of this
And spurn her in thine own despite.
THEODORE MARTIN.
_97_
Of this, one of the most famous and effective of Catullus's poems, I
offer two versions. The first (an adaptation) is by 'knowing Walsh', the
friend of Pope, pronounced by Dryden to be 'the first critic in the
nation': the second is by Prof. Slater of Cardiff:
IS there a pious pleasure that proceeds
From contemplation of our virtuous deeds?
That all mean sordid action we despise,
And scorn to gain a throne by cheats and lies?
Thyrsis, thou hast sure blessings laid in store
From thy just dealing in this curst amour.
What honour can in words or deeds be shown
Which to the fair thou hast not said and done?
On her false heart they all are thrown away:
She only swears more easily to betray.
Ye powers that know the many vows she broke,
Free my just soul from this unequal yoke.
My love boils up, and like a raging flood
Runs through my veins and taints my vital blood.
I do not vainly beg she may grow chaste,
Or with an equal passion burn at last--
The one she cannot practise, though she would,
And I contemn the other, though she should--:
Nor ask I vengeance on the perjured jilt;
'Tis punishment enough to have her guilt.
I beg but balsam for my bleeding breast,
Cure for my wounds and from my labours rest.
W. WALSH.
IF any joy awaits the man
Of generous hand and conscience clean,
Who ne'er has leagued with powers unseen
To wrong the partner of his plan;
Rich store of memories thou hast won
From this thy seeming-fruitless love,
Who all that man may do to prove
His faith by word or deed hast done,
And all in vain. Her thankless heart
Is hardened. Harden then thine own.
Writhe not but part, as stone from stone,
And willy-nilly heal the smart.
'Tis hard, ay, hard to fling aside
A love long cherished. Yet you must.
Be strong, prevail, and from the dust
A conqueror rise, whate'er betide.
Ye gods, who of your mercy give
Force to the fainting, let my life
Of honour win me rest from strife,
And from my blood the canker drive;
Ere yet from limb to limb it steal,
And in black darkness plunge my soul,
Oh, drive it hence and make me whole;
A caitiff wounds, a god may heal.
No more for answering love I sue,
No more that her untruth be true:
Purge but my heart, my strength renew
And doom me not my faith to rue.
D.A. SLATER.
_100_
OVER the mighty world's highway,
City by city, sea by sea,
Brother, thy brother comes to pay
Pitiful offerings unto thee.
I only ask to grace thy bier
With gifts that only give farewell,
To tell to ears that cannot hear
The things that it is vain to tell,
And, idly communing with dust,
To know thy presence still denied,
And ever mourn forever lost
A soul that never should have died.
Yet think not wholly vain to-day
This fashion that our fathers gave
That hither brings me, here to lay
Some gift of sorrow on thy grave.
Take, brother, gifts a brother's tears
Bedewed with sorrow as they fell,
And 'Greeting' to the end of years,
And to the end of years 'Farewell'.
H.W.G.
_101_
FRIEND, if the mute and shrouded dead
Are touched at all by tears,
By love long fled and friendship sped
And the unreturning years,
O then, to her that early died,
O doubt not, bridegroom, to thy bride
Thy love is sweet and sweeteneth
The very bitterness of death.
H.W.G.
_103_
SICK, Cornificius, is thy friend,
Sick to the heart: and sees no end
Of wretched thoughts that gathering fast
Threaten to wear him out at last.
And yet you never come and bring,
Though 'twere the least and easiest thing,
A comfort in that talk of thine.
You vex me. This to love of mine?
Prithee a little talk, for ease,
Full as the tears of sad Simonides!
LEIGH HUNT.
_110_
AVAUNT, ye vain bombastic crew,
Crickets that swill no Attic dew:
Good-bye, grammarians crass and narrow,
Selius, Tarquitius, and Varro:
A pedant tribe of fat-brained fools,
The tinkling cymbals of the schools!
Sextus, my friend of friends, good-bye,
With all our pretty company!
I'm sailing for the blissful shore,
Great Siro's high recondite lore,
That haven where my life shall be
From every tyrant passion free.
You too, sweet Muses mine, farewell,
Sweet muses mine, for truth to tell
Sweet were ye once, but now begone;
And yet, and yet, return anon,
And when I write, at whiles be seen
In visits shy and far between.
T.H. WARREN.
I append Clough's _Lines Written in a Lecture Room_. The theme is that
of Vergil inverted. But the mood in either poet is the same--that mood
of passionate revolt against academicism which never comes to some
people and never departs from others:
AWAY, haunt thou not me,
Thou dull Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,
Save to perplex the head
And leave the spirit dead.
Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,
While from the secret treasure-depths below,
Fed by the skiey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high,
Wisdom at once and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?
Why labour at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore?
A.H. CLOUGH.
_116_
Dryden's version of this piece shows him at his best as a translator of
Vergil. 'Methinks I come,' he writes, 'like a malefactor, to make a
speech upon the gallows, and to warn all other poets, by my sad example,
from the sacrilege of translating Vergil.' But in the _Georgics_, at any
rate, which he reckons 'more perfect in their kind than even the divine
Aeneids,' he can challenge comparison with most of his rivals.