The Oxford Book of Latin Verse Part 74

Your magic power of wit can spread The halo round a dullard's head, Can make the sage forget his care, His bosom's inmost thoughts unbare, And drown his solemn-faced pretence Beneath your blithesome influence.

Bright hope you bring and vigour back To minds outworn upon the rack, And put such courage in the brain As makes the poor be men again, Whom neither tyrants' wrath affrights Nor all their bristling satellites.

Bacchus, and Venus, so that she Bring only frank festivity, With sister Graces in her train, Twining close in lovely chain, And gladsome taper's living light, Shall spread your treasures o'er the night, Till Phoebus the red East unbars, And puts to rout the trembling stars.

THEODORE MARTIN.

_139_

I give the first stanza of this poem in the effective paraphrase of Herrick, and the first two stanzas in the rather diffuse rendering of Byron. Byron's version is one of his earliest pieces but not altogether wanting in force.

NO wrath of Men, or rage of Seas, Can shake a just man's purposes: No threats of Tyrants, or the Grim Visage of them can alter him; But what he doth at first entend That he holds firmly to the end.

HERRICK.

THE man of firm and n.o.ble soul No factious clamours can control: No threatening tyrant's darkling brow Can swerve him from his just intent; Gales the warring waves which plough, By Auster on the billows spent, To curb the Adriatic main Would awe his fixed determined mind in vain.

Ay, and the red right arm of Jove, Hurtling his lightnings from above, With all his terrors there unfurled, He would unmoved, unawed behold.

The flames of an expiring world, Again in crus.h.i.+ng chaos rolled, In vast promiscuous ruin hurled, Might light his glorious funeral pile, Still dauntless 'mid the wreck of earth he'd smile.

BYRON.

_145_

BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky!

Thine is the flower-crowned bowl, for thee shall die When dawns yon sun, the kid Whose horns, half-seen, half-hid,

Challenge to dalliance or to strife--in vain.

Soon must the firstling of the wild herd be slain, And these cold springs of thine With blood incarnadine.

Fierce glows the Dog-star, but his fiery beam Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream To labour-wearied ox, Or wanderer from the flocks:

And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain: My harp shall tell how from thy cavernous mountain, Where the brown oak grows tallest, All babblingly thou fallest.

C.S. CALVERLEY.

_148_

The rendering that follows is printed in the author's _Ionica_ not as a translation, but as a poem, under the t.i.tle _Hypermnestra_. It represents our poem of Horace from the 25th line onwards.

LET me tell of Lyde of wedding-law slighted, Penance of maidens and bootless task, Wasting of water down leaky cask, Crime in the prison-pit slowly requited.

Miscreant brides! for their grooms they slew.

One out of many is not attainted, One alone blest and for ever sainted, False to her father, to wedlock true.

Praise her! she gave her young husband the warning.

Praise her for ever! She cried, 'Arise!

Flee from the slumber that deadens the eyes; Flee from the night that hath never a morning.

Baffle your host who contrived our espousing, Baffle my sisters, the forty and nine, Raging like lions that mangle the kine, Each on the blood of a quarry carousing.

I am more gentle, I strike not thee, I will not hold thee in dungeon tower.

Though the king chain me, I will not cower, Though my sire banish me over the sea.

Freely run, freely sail, good luck attend thee; Go with the favour of Venus and Night.

On thy tomb somewhere and some day bid write Record of her who hath dared to befriend thee.'

W. JOHNSON CORY.

_149_

UNSHAMED, unchecked, for one so dear We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir, Melpomene, to whom thy sire Gave harp and song-notes liquid-clear!

Sleeps he the sleep that knows no morn?

O Honour, O twin-born with Right, Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light, When shall again his like be born?

Many a kind heart for him makes moan; Thine, Vergil, first. But ah! in vain Thy love bids heaven restore again That which it took not as a loan.

Were sweeter lute than Orpheus' given To thee, did trees thy voice obey; The blood revisits not the clay Which he, with lifted wand, hath driven

Into his dark a.s.semblage, who Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer.

Hard lot. Yet light their griefs, who _bear_ The ills which they may not undo.

C.S. CALVERLEY.

_152, ii_

THE snow, dissolv'd, no more is seen, The fields and woods, behold, are green; The changing year renews the plain, The rivers know their banks again; The sprightly Nymph and naked Grace The mazy dance together trace; The changing year's successive plan Proclaims mortality to Man.

Rough winter's blasts to spring give way, Spring yields to summer's sovran ray; Then summer sinks in autumn's reign, And winter holds the world again.

Her losses soon the moon supplies, But wretched Man, when once he lies Where Priam and his sons are laid, Is naught but ashes and a shade.

Who knows if Jove, who counts our score, Will toss us in a morning more?

What with your friend you n.o.bly share At least you rescue from your heir.

Not you, Torquatus, boast of Rome, When Minos once has fixed your doom, Or eloquence or splendid birth Or virtue shall restore to earth.

Hippolytus, unjustly slain, Diana calls to life in vain, Nor can the might of Theseus rend The chains of h.e.l.l that hold his friend.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

_153_

NOW have I made my monument: and now Nor bra.s.s shall longer live, nor loftier raise The royallest pyramid its superb brow.

Nor ruin of rain or wind shall mar its praise, Nor tooth of Time, nor pitiless pageantry O' the flying years. In death I shall not die Wholly, nor Death's dark Angel all I am Make his; but ever flowerlike my fame Shall flourish in the foldings of the Mount Capitoline, where the Priests go up, and mute The maiden Priestesses.

From mean account Lifted to mighty, where the resolute Waters ot Aufidus reverberant ring O'er fields where Daunus once held rustic state, Of barren acres simple-minded king,-- There was I born, and first of men did mate To lyre of Latium Aeolic lay.

Clothe thee in glory, Muse, and grandly wear Thy hardly-gotten greatness, and my hair Circle, Melpomene, with Delphian bay.