Mere phantoms of thine own creation:
For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance,
Thou'lt there descry that elegance
Which from our sex demands such praises,
But envy in the other raises:
Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty;
Ah! fly not from the candid youth;
It is not flattery-'tis truth.
ADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS
WHEN DYING.*
АH! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH ON VIRGIL AND TIBULLUS.
BY DOMITIUS MARSUS.
HE who sublime in epic numbers roll'd, And he who struck the softer lyre of love, By Death's unequal hand alike controll'd, Fit comrades in Elysian regions move!
IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. "Sulpicia ad Cerinthum."-Lib. iv. CRUEL Cerinthus! does the fell disease [please? Which racks my breast your fickle bosom Alas! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain, That I might live for love and you again: SOUL But now I scarcely shall bewail my fate; By death alone I can avoid your hate.
To what unknown region borne, Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? No more with wonted humor gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.
TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS.
AD LESBIAM.
EQUAL to Jove that youth must be—
Greater than Jove he seems to me-
Who, free from Jealousy's alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms.
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him alike are always known,
Reserved for him, and him alone.
Ah, Lesbia! though 'tis death to me,
I cannot choose but look on thee;
But at the sight my senses fly;
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die:
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch'd to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support,
Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread,
With deadly languor droops my head,
My ears with tingling echoes ring,
And life itself is on the wing;
My eyes refuse the cheering light,
Their orbs are veil'd in starless night:
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath,
And feels a temporary death.
*"Animula! vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in loca-
Pallidula, rigida, nudula
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos ?"
TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS.
[Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque, &c.]
YE Cupids, droop each little head,
Nor let your wings with joy be spread,
My Lesbia's favorite bird is dead,
Whom dearer than her eyes she loved:
For he was gentle, and so true,
Obedient to her call he flew,
No fear, no wild alarm he knew,
But lightly o'er her bosom moved!
And, softly fluttering here and there,
He never sought to cleave the air,
But chirrup'd oft, and, free from care,
Tuned to her ear his grateful strain.
Now, having pass'd the gloomy bourne
From whence he never can return,
His death and Lesbia's grief I mourn,
Who sighs, alas! but sighs in vain.
Oh! curst be thou, devouring grave!
Whose jaws eternal victims crave,
From whom no earthly power can save,
For thou hast ta'en the bird away: From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow; Thou art the cause of all her woe, Receptacle of life's decay.
IMITATED FROM CATULLUS.
TO ELLEN.
OH! might I kiss those eyes of fire,
A million scarce would quench desire
Still would I steep my lips in bliss,
And dwell an age on every kiss:
Nor then my soul should sated be;
Still would I kiss and cling to thee:
Nought should my kiss from thine dissever;
Still would we kiss, and kiss forever;
E'en though the numbers did exceed
The yellow harvest's countless seed.
To part would be a vain endeavor:
Could I desist?-ah! never-never!
TRANSLATION FROM HORACE.
[Justum et tenacem propositi virum, &c.]
THE man of firm and noble soul
No factious clamors can control;
No threat'ning 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 fix'd, determined mind in vain.
Ay, and the red right arm of Jove,
Hurtling his lightnings from above,
With all his terrors there unfurl'd,
He would unmoved, unawed behold.
The flames of an expiring world,
Again in crashing chaos roll'd, In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd, Might light his glorious funeral pile; [smile. Still dauntless 'midst the wreck of earth he'd
FROM ANACREON.
[Θέλω λεγεῖν Ατρείδας, κ. τ. λ.]
I WISH to tune my quivering lyre
To deeds of fame and notes of fire;
To echo, from its rising swell,
How heroes fought and nations fell,
When Atreus' sons advanced to war,
Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar;
But still, to martial strains unknown,
My lyre recurs to love alone:
Fired with the hope of future fame,
I seek some nobler hero's name:
The dying chords are strung anew,
To war, to war, my harp is due;
With glowing strings, the epic strain
To Jove's great son I raise again;
Alcides and his glorious deeds,
Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds.
All, all in vain; my wayward lyre
Wakes silver notes of soft desire.
Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms!
Adieu the clang of war's alarms!
To other deeds my soul is strung,
And sweeter notes shall now be sung;
My harp shall all its powers reveal,
To tell the tale my heart must feel:
Love, Love alone my lyre shall claim,
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.
[Μεσονυκτίαις ποθ' ώραις, κ. τ. λ.]
'TWAS now the hour when Night had driven Her car half round yon sable heaven; Boötes, only, seem'd to roll
His arctic charge around the pole:
While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,
Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep:
At this lone hour, the Paphian boy,
Descending from the realms of joy,
Quick to my gate directs his course,
And knocks with all his little force.
My visions fled, alarm'd I rose-
"What stranger breaks my blest repose?"
"Alas!" replies the wily child,
In faltering accents sweetly mild,
"A hapless infant here I roam,
Far from my dear maternal home.
Oh! shield me from the wintry blast!
The nightly storm is pouring fast.
No prowling robber lingers here.
A wandering baby who can fear?"
I heard his seeming artless tale,
I heard his sighs upon the gale:
My breast was never pity's foe,
But felt for all the baby's woe.
I drew the bar, and by the light,
Young Love, the infant, met my sight;
His bow across his shoulders flung,
And thence his fatal quiver hung
(Ah! little did I think the dart
Would rankle soon within my heart).
With care I tend my weary guest,
His little fingers chill my breast:
His glossy curls, his azure wing,
Which droop with nightly showers, I wring;
His shivering limbs the embers warm;
And now, reviving from the storm,
Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,
Than swift he seized his slender bow;
"I fain would know, my gentle host,"
He cried, "if this its strength has lost;
I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,
The strings their former aid refuse."
With poison tipt, his arrow flies,
Deep in my tortured heart it lies;
Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd:
"My bow can still impel the shaft:
'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;
Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?"
FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF ÆSCHYLUS.
[Μηδαμ ὁ πάντα νέμων, κ. τ. λ.] GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy powers disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall;
My voice shall raise no impious strain,
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main.
How different now thy joyless fate,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in god-like state,
The blushing beauty by thy side,
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled.
The Nymphs and Tritons danced around.
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless
frown'd.
SINCE now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious lover;
Since now our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.
Alas! that pang will be severe,
Which bids us part to meet no more;
Which tears me far from one so dear,
Departing for a distant shore.
Well! we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;
Where, from this Gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dell;
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell,
O'er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play;
O'er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay;
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hovering flies,
Yet envied every fly the kiss
It dared to give your slumbering eyes:
See still the little painted bark,
In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park,
The elm I clamber'd for your sake. These times are past-our joys are gone, You leave me, leave this happy vale; These scenes I must retrace alone:
Without thee, what will they avail?
Who can conceive, who has not proved,
The anguish of a last embrace,
When, torn from all you fondly loved,
You bid a long adieu to peace?
This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears our cheeks bedew; This is of love the final close,
O God! the fondest, last adieu!
WHENEVER I view those lips of thine,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss;
Yet I forego that bliss divine,
Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss.
Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows!
Yet is the daring wish represt;
For that would banish its repose. A glance from thy soul-searching eye Can raise with hope, depress with fear; Yet I conceal my love-and why?
I would not force a painful tear.
I ne'er have told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well; And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell? No! for thou never canst be mine, United by the priest's decree: By any ties but those divine, Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be. Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know: With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.
I will not ease my tortured heart
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,
Each thought presumptuous I resign.
Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save-
I bid thee now a last farewell.
Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair,
And hope no more thy soft embrace;
Which to obtain, my soul would dare
All, all reproach-but thy disgrace. At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove; Though cureless pangs may prey on me, No martyr shalt thou be to love.
TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Suffused in tears, implore to stay,
And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?
Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine, The tears that from my eyelids flow'd
Were lost in those which fell from thine.
Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame;
And as thy tongue essay'd to speak,
In sighs alone it breathed my name.
And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore; Remembrance only can remain
But that will make us weep the more.
Again, thou best beloved, adieu!
Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret: Nor let thy mind past joys review— Our only hope is to forget!
But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall
o'ertake us,
[sympathy glow,
And our breasts, which alive with such
Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall
awake us,
[laid low,-
When calling the dead, in earth's bosom
Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts
of pleasure,
[ingly flow:
Which from passion like ours may unceas-
Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in
full measure,
And quaff the contents as our nectar below.
OH! when shall the grave hide forever my sorrow?
Oh! when shall my soul wing her fligh. from this clay ?
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow But brings with new torture, the curse of today.
From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow
I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me
from bliss;
For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this.
WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury
deceive.
Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring,
That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere; On
That age will come on, when remembrance,
deploring,
[a tear;
Contemplates the scenes of her youth with
That the time must arrive, when, no longer re-
taining
[the breeze,
Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to
When a few silver hairs of those tresses re-
maining,
Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.
'Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom
o'er my features,
[decree,
Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the
Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of His
[of me.
In the death which one day will deprive you
Mistake not, sweet skeptic, the cause of emo-
tion,
Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage,
our foes should my glance launch in
vengeance its lightning,
[its rage.
With transport my tongue give a loose to
But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
Would add to the souls of our tyrants de-
Could they view us our sad separation bewailing
light:
Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the
sight.
Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resig-
nation,
[cheer,
Life beams not for us with one ray that can Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation;
In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me, [are fled? Since in life, love and friendship forever No doubt can the mind of your lover in- If again in the mansion of death I embrace He worships each look with such faithful de
A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade.!
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the
WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS.
THIS Votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou❜lt prize;
It sings of Love's enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.
Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and disappointed maid;
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom'd to fade?
Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne'er be one of those;
To thee in vain I shall not plead
In pity for the poet's woes.
He was, in sooth, a genuine bard:
His was no vain, fictitious flame:
Like his, may love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.
THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.
'Α Βαρβιτος δε χορδαῖς
Ερωτα μουνον ἠχει.—ANACREON.
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
From Adam till now, has with wretched-
Some portion of paradise still is on earth,
And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.
When age chills the blood, when our pleas-
ures are past-
[dove-
For years fleet away with the wings of the
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A
GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL.
WHERE are those honors, Ida! once your own,
When Probus filled your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place,
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense and new-fangled rules,
Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools,
AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance;
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws,
[glance, He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause;
With him the same dire fate attending Rome,
Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom;
Like her o'erthrown, forever lost to fame,
No trace of science left you, but the name.
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets DORSET! whose early steps with mine have would flow, [love! Exploring every path of Ida's glade; [stray'd, Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of Whom still affection taught me to defend,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse,
And try the effect of the first kiss of love!
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art!
Though prudes may condemn me, and big-
ots reprove,
And made me less a tyrant than a friend,
Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
Bade thee obey, and gave me to command;*
Thee, on whose head a few short years will
The gift of riches, and the pride of power;
E'en now a name illustrious is thine own, Renown'd in rank, nor far beneath the throne. Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul I court the effusions that spring from the To shun fair science, or evade control, Which throbs with delight to the first kiss Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise of love. The titled child, whose future breath may raise, View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, And wink at faults they tremble to chastise.
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical
themes,
[move:
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams:
What are visions like these to the first kiss
of love?
*At every public school, the junior boys are completely subservient to the upper forms till they attain a seat in the higher classes. From this state of probation, very properly, no rank is exempt; but after a certain period, they command in turn those who succeed."
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