Poemata : Latin, Greek and Italian Poems Part 6

Finierat, rigidi cupide paruere gemelli.

Interea longo flectens curvamine caelos Despicit aetherea dominus qui fulgurat arce, Vanaque perversae ridet conamina turbae, Atque sui causam populi volet ipse tueri.

Esse ferunt spatium, qua distat ab Aside terra 170 Fertilis Europe, & spectat Mareotidas undas; Hic turris posita est t.i.tanidos ardua Famae Aerea, lata, sonans, rutilis vicinior astris Quam superimpositum vel Athos vel Pelion Ossae Mille fores aditusque patent, totidemque fenestrae, Amplaque per tenues translucent atria muros; Excitat hic varios plebs agglomerata susurros; Qualiter instrepitant circ.u.m mulctralia bombis Agmina muscarum, aut texto per ovilia junco, Dum Canis aestivum coeli pet.i.t ardua culmen 180 Ipsa quidem summa sedet ultrix matris in arce, Auribus innumeris cinctum caput eminet olli, Queis sonitum exiguum trahit, atque levissima captat Murmura, ab extremis patuli confinibus...o...b..s.

Nec tot Aristoride servator inique juvencae Isidos, immiti volvebas lumina vultu, Lumina non unquam tacito nutantia somno, Lumina subjectas late spectantia terras.

Istis illa solet loca luce carentia saepe Perl.u.s.trare, etiam radianti impervia soli. 190 Millenisque loquax auditaque visaque linguis Cuilibet effundit temeraria, veraque mendax Nunc minuit, modo confictis sermonibus auget.

Sed tamen a nostro meruisti carmine laudes Fama, bonum quo non aliud veracius ullum, n.o.bis digna cani, nec te memora.s.se pigebit Carmine tam longo, servati scilicet Angli Officiis vaga diva tuis, tibi reddimus aequa.

Te Deus aeternos motu qui temperat ignes, Fulmine praemisso alloquitur, terraque tremente: 200 Fama siles? an te latet impia Papistarum Conjurata cohors in meque meosque Britannos, Et nova sceptrigero caedes meditata Jacobo: Nec plura, illa statim sensit mandata Tonantis, Et satis ante fugax stridentes induit alas, Induit & variis exilia corpora plumis; Dextra tubam gestat Temesaeo ex aere sonoram.

Nec mora jam pennis cedentes remigat auras, Atque parum est cursu celeres praevertere nubes, Jam ventos, jam solis equos post terga reliquit: 210 Et primo Angliacas solito de more per urbes Ambiguas voces, incertaque murmura spargit, Mox arguta dolos, & detestabile vulgat Proditionis opus, nec non facta horrida dictu, Auth.o.r.esque addit sceleris, nec garrula caecis Insidiis loca structa silet; stupuere relatis, Et pariter juvenes, pariter tremuere puellae, Effaetique senes pariter, tanteaeque ruinae Sensus ad aetatem subito penetraverat omnem Attamen interea populi miserescit ab alto 220 Aethereus pater, & crudelibus obst.i.tit ausis Papicolum; capti poenas raptantur ad acres; At pia thura Deo, & grati solvuntur honores; Compita laeta focis genialibus omnia fumant; Turba choros juvenilis agit: Quintoque Novembris Null Dies toto occurrit celebratior anno.

On the Death of the Bishop of Ely.1 Anno Aetates 17.

My lids with grief were tumid yet, And still my sullied cheek was wet With briny dews profusely shed For venerable Winton dead,2 When Fame, whose tales of saddest sound Alas! are ever truest found, The news through all our cities spread Of yet another mitred head By ruthless Fate to Death consign'd, Ely, the honour of his kind. 10 At once, a storm of pa.s.sion heav'd My boiling bosom, much I grieved But more I raged, at ev'ry breath Devoting Death himself to death.

With less revenge did Naso3 teem When hated Ibis was his theme; With less, Archilochus,4 denied The lovely Greek, his promis'd bride.

But lo! while thus I execrate, Incens'd, the Minister of Fate, 20 Wondrous accents, soft, yet clear, Wafted on the gale I hear.

Ah, much deluded! lay aside Thy threats and anger misapplied.

Art not afraid with sounds like these T'offend whom thou canst not appease?

Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus?) The son of Night and Erebus, Nor was of fel1 Erynnis born5 In gulphs, where Chaos rules forlorn, 30 But sent from G.o.d, his presence leaves, To gather home his ripen'd sheaves, To call enc.u.mber'd souls away From fleshly bonds to boundless day, (As when the winged Hours excite, And summon forth the Morning-light) And each to convoy to her place Before th'Eternal Father's face.

But not the wicked-Them, severe Yet just, from all their pleasures here 40 He hurries to the realms below, Terrific realms of penal woe!

Myself no sooner heard his call Than, scaping through my prison-wall, I bade adieu to bolts and bars, And soar'd with angels to the stars, Like Him of old, to whom 'twas giv'n To mount, on fiery wheels, to heav'n.

Bootes' wagon,6 slow with cold Appall'd me not, nor to behold 50 The sword that vast Orion draws, Or ev'n the Scorpion's horrid claws.7 Beyond the Sun's bright orb I fly, And far beneath my feet descry Night's dread G.o.ddess, seen with awe, Whom her winged dragons draw.

Thus, ever wond'ring at my speed Augmented still as I proceed, I pa.s.s the Planetary sphere, The Milky Way--and now appear 60 Heav'ns crystal battlements, her door Of ma.s.sy pearl, and em'rald floor.

But here I cease. For never can The tongue of once a mortal man In suitable description trace The pleasures of that happy place, Suffice it that those joys divine Are all, and all for ever, mine.

1 Nicholas Felton.

2 Dr. Felton died a few days after Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester.

See Milton's Third Elegy.

3 Ovid.

4 A Greek poet. He was refused by Lycambes as a suitor to his daughters, and in revenge lampooned the entire family. Lycambes's daughters hanged themselves.

5 Erebus and Erynnis are Furies.

6 See Milton's Fifth Elegy, line 6, and the note thereto.

7 The constellation Scorpio.

That Nature is Not Subject to Decay.

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom Impenetrable, speculates amiss!

Measuring, in her folly, things divine By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd For ever, by the hours, that pa.s.s, and die.

How?--shall the face of Nature then be plow'd Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last On the great Parent fix a sterile curse? 10 Shall even she confess old age, and halt And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?

Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought And famine vex the radiant worlds above?

Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?

And was the Sire of all able to fence His works, and to uphold the circling worlds, But through improvident and heedless haste Let slip th'occasion?--So then--All is lost-- 20 And in some future evil hour, yon arch Shall crumble and come thund'ring down, the poles Jar in collision, the Olympian King Fall with his throne, and Pallas, holding forth The terrors of her Gorgon shield in vain,1 Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurl'd Down into Lemnos through the gate of heav'n.

Thou also, with precipitated wheels Phoebus! thy own son's fall shalt imitate, With hideous ruin shalt impress the Deep 30 Suddenly, and the flood shall reek and hiss At the extinction of the Lamp of Day.

Then too, shall Haemus cloven to his base Be shattered, and the huge Ceraunian hills,2 Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immersed In Erebus, shall fill Himself with fear.

No. The Almighty Father surer lay'd His deep foundations, and providing well For the event of all, the scales of Fate Suspended, in just equipoise, and bade 40 His universal works from age to age One tenour hold, perpetual, undisturb'd.

Hence the Prime Mover wheels itself about Continual, day by day, and with it bears In social measure swift the heav'ns around.

Not tardier now is Saturn than of old, Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars.

Phoebus, his vigour unimpair'd, still shows Th'effulgence of his youth, nor needs the G.o.d A downward course that he may warm the vales; 50 But, ever rich in influence, runs his road, Sign after sign, through all the heav'nly zone.

Beautiful as at first ascends the star3 From odorif'rous Ind, whose office is To gather home betimes th'ethereal flock, To pour them o'er the skies again at Eve, And to discriminate the Night and Day.

Still Cynthia's changeful horn waxes and wanes Alternate, and with arms extended still She welcomes to her breast her brother's beams. 60 Nor have the elements deserted yet Their functions, thunder with as loud a stroke As erst, smites through the rocks and scatters them, The East still howls, still the relentless North Invades the shudd'ring Scythian, still he breathes The Winter, and still rolls the storms along.

The King of Ocean with his wonted force Beats on Pelorus,4 o'er the Deep is heard The hoa.r.s.e alarm of Triton's sounding sh.e.l.l, Nor swim the monsters of th'Aegean sea 70 In shallows, or beneath diminish'd waves.

Thou too, thy antient vegetative pow'r Enjoy'st, O Earth! Narcissus still is sweet, And, Phoebus! still thy Favourite, and still Thy Fav'rite, Cytherea!5 both retain Their beauty, nor the mountains, ore-enrich'd For punishment of Man, with purer gold Teem'd ever, or with brighter gems the Deep.

Thus, in unbroken series all proceeds And shall, till, wide involving either pole, 80 And the immensity of yonder heav'n, The final flames of destiny absorb The world, consum'd in one enormous pyre!

1 Pallas Athena (Minerva) had the head of the Gorgon Medusa in her shield; it turned all who looked upon it into stone.

2 Phaeton, who fled from the chariot of the Sun while driving it.

3 Venus.

4 The North-east promontory of Sicily.

5 The Hyacinth, favorite of Apollo. The Anemone, favorite of Venus.

On the Platonic 'Ideal' as it was Understood by Aristotle.

Ye sister Pow'rs who o'er the sacred groves Preside, and, Thou, fair mother of them all Mnemosyne,1 and thou, who in thy grot Immense reclined at leisure, hast in charge The Archives and the ord'nances of Jove, And dost record the festivals of heav'n, Eternity!--Inform us who is He, That great Original by Nature chos'n To be the Archetype of Human-kind, Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles 10 Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere, An image of the G.o.d, who gave him Being?

Twin-brother of the G.o.ddess born from Jove,2 He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though Of common nature with ourselves, exists Apart, and occupies a local home.

Whether, companion of the stars, he spend Eternal ages, roaming at his will From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell On the moon's side that nearest neighbours Earth, Or torpid on the banks of Lethe3 sit 20 Among the mult.i.tude of souls ordair'd 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 Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high O'ertow'ring Atlas, on whose shoulders rest The stars, terrific even to the G.o.ds.

Never the Theban Seer,4 whose blindness proved His best illumination, Him beheld 30 In secret vision; never him the son Of Pleione,5 amid the noiseless night Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd; Him never knew th'a.s.syrian priest,6 who yet The ancestry of Ninus7 chronicles, And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd; Nor even Thrice-great Hermes,7 although skill'd So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.

And thou,8 who hast immortalized the shades 40 Of Academus, if the school received This monster of the Fancy first from Thee, Either recall at once the banish'd bards To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.

1 G.o.ddess of Memory and mother of the Muses.

2 Pallas Athena.

3 Waters of oblivion and forgetfulness.

4 Tiresins. See Milton's Sixth Elegy, line 68.

5 Hermes (Mercury).

6 Perhaps the legendary Phoenician sage, Sanchuniathon.

7 A legendary a.s.syrian king. Belus is the a.s.syrian G.o.d Bel.

7 Hermes Trismegistus, author of Neo-Platonic works must esteemed.

8 Plato.

To My Father.