Verses and Translations Part 7

Introductory

Art thou beautiful, O my daughter, as the budding rose of April?

Are all thy motions music, and is poetry throned in thine eye?

Then hearken unto me; and I will make the bud a fair flower, I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance, and water it with the water of Cologne; And in the season it shall "come out," yea bloom, the pride of the parterre; Ladies shall marvel at its beauty, and a Lord shall pluck it at the last.

Of Propriety.

Study first Propriety: for she is indeed the Polestar Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity Fair; Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society; The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed her Eros.

Verily Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed being naked; Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of artifice: And when she is drest, behold! she knoweth not herself again. - I walked in the Forest; and above me stood the Yew, Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade; Then I pa.s.s'd into the citizen's garden, and marked a tree clipt into shape, (The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilahshears of Decorum;) And I said, "Surely nature is goodly; but how much goodlier is Art!"

I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky, And my foolish heart went after him, and lo! I blessed him as he rose; Foolish! for far better is the trained boudoir bulfinch, Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draweth up water: And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be clothed with thunder, Must yield to him that danceth and 'moveth in the circles' at Astley's.

For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade, And G.o.d made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thyself another: A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upwards, And it needeth that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety: He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure, Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth of the cork.

OF FRIENDSHIP.

Choose judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable, Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop thy 'H's'.

Dost thou know a wise woman? yea, wiser than the children of light?

Hath she a position? and a t.i.tle? and are her parties in the Morning Post?

If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and mind; Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding: So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy manners shall be "formed,"

And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great shall fly open: Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation, His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth remove: Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in next morning's papers, Side by side with rumours of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and sieges, Shall appear thy name, and the minutiae of thy head-dress and petticoat, For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal m.u.f.fin.

Of Reading.

Read not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life; Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet intelligible: Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth not: Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream, but do.

Read incessantly thy Burke; that Burke who, n.o.bler than he of old, Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sublime and Beautiful: Likewise study the "creations" of "the Prince of modern Romance;"

Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on Pelham the puppy: Learn how "love is the dram-drinking of existence;"

And how we "invoke, in the Gadara of our still closets, The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple wand of the pen."

Listen how Maltravers and the orphan "forgot all but love,"

And how Devereux's family chaplain "made and unmade kings:"

How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and a murderer, Yet, being intellectual, was amongst the n.o.blest of mankind.

So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and master-spirits; And if thou canst not realise the Ideal, thou shalt at least idealise the Real.

LYCIDAS.

Yet once more, O ye laurels! and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer: Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, sisters, of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, So may some gentle muse With lucky words favour my destined urn, And, as he pa.s.ses, turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud: For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.

Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove afield, and both together heard What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose, at evening, bright, Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damaetas loved to hear our song.

But oh, the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn.

The willows, and the hazel copses green, Shall now no more be seen, Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows; Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear Where were ye, nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie; Nor on the s.h.a.ggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye been there, for what could that have done?

What could the muse herself that Orpheus bore, The muse herself for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian sh.o.r.e?

Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse?

Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of n.o.ble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days, But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"

Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears; "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he p.r.o.nounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed."

O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds, That strain I heard was of a higher mood: But now my oat proceeds, And listens to the herald of the sea That came in Neptune's plea; He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds, What hard mishap had doomed this gentle swain?

And questioned every gust of rugged wings, That blows from off each beaked promontory: They knew not of his story, And sage Hippotades their answer brings, That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed, The air was calm, and on the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge, Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge?"

Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake, Two ma.s.sy keys he bore, of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: "How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!

Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs!

What reeks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said.

But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strow the laureate hea.r.s.e where Lycid lies.

For so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

Ay me! whilst thee the sh.o.r.es and sounding seas Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold; Look homeward, angel now, and melt with ruth: And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of him that walked the waves, Where other groves and other streams along, With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, And hears the unexpressive nuptial song, In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.

There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops, and sweet societies, That sing, and singing in their glory move, And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; Henceforth thou art the genius of the sh.o.r.e, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray, He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropped into the western bay; At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue, Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

LYCIDAS.

En! iterum laurus, iterum salvete myricae Pallentes, nullique hederae quae ceditis aevo.

Has venio baccas, quanquam sapor asper acerbis, Decerptum, qua.s.sumque manu folia ipsa proterva, Maturescentem praevortens improbus annum.

Causa gravis, pia cansa, subest, et amara deum lex; Nec jam sponte mea vobis rata tempora turbo.

Nam periit Lycidas, periit superante juventa Imberbis Lycidas, quo non praestantior alter.

Quis cantare super Lycida neget? Ipse quoque artem Norat Apollineam, versumque imponere versu Non nullo vitreum fas innatet ille feretrum Flente, voluteturque arentes corpus ad auras, Indotatum adeo et lacrymae vocalis egenum.

Quare agite, o sacri fontis queis cura, sorores, Cui sub inaccessi sella Jovis exit origo: Incipite, et sonitu graviore impellite chordas.

Lingua procul male prompta loqui, suasorque morarum Sit pudor: alloquiis ut mollior una secundis Pieridum faveat, cui mox ego destiner, urnae: Et gressus praetergrediens convertat, et "Esto"

Dicat "amoena quies atra tibi veste latenti:"

Uno namque jugo duo nutribamur: eosdem Pavit uterque greges ad fontem et rivulum et umbram.

Tempore nos illo, nemorum convexa priusquam, Aurora reserante oculos, caepere videri, Urgebamus equos ad pascua: novimus horam Aridus audiri solitus qua clangor asili; Rore recentes greges pa.s.si pinguescere noctis Saepius, albuerat donec quod vespere sidus Hesperios axes p.r.o.no inclina.s.set Olympo.

At pastorales non cessavere camoenae, Fistula disparibus quas temperat apta cicutis: Saltabant Satyri informes, nec murmure laeto Capripedes potuere diu se avertere Fauni; Damaetasque modos nostros longaevus amabat.

Jamque, relicta tibi, quantum mutata videntur Rura--relicta tibi, cui non spes ulla regressus!

Te sylvae, teque antra, puer, deserta ferarum, Incultis obducta thymis ac vite sequaci, Decessisse gemunt; gemitusque reverberat Echo.

Non salices, non glauca ergo coryleta videbo Molles ad numeros laetum motare cac.u.men:- Quale rosis scabies; quam formidabile vermis Depulso jam lacte gregi, dum tondet agellos; Sive quod, indutis verna jam veste, pruinae Floribus, albet ubi primum paliurus in agris: Tale fuit nostris, Lycidam periisse, bubulcis.

Qua, Nymphae, latuistis, ubi crudele profundum Delicias Lycidam vestras sub vortice torsit?

Nam neque vos scopulis tum ludebatis in illis Quos veteres, Druidae, Vates, ill.u.s.tria servant Nomina; nec celsae setoso in culmine Monae, Nec, quos Deva locos magicis amplect.i.tur undis.

Vae mihi! delusos exercent somnia sensus: Venissetis enim; numquid venisse juvaret?