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O Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide, Though dimly yet surely I see

That these contrarieties only reside

In the soul that is chosen of Thee.

Ah send me not back to the race of mankind,
Perversely by folly beguiled:

For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find
The spirit and heart of a child?

Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free; A little one whom they despise,

Though lost to the world, if in union with Thee. Shall be holy and happy and wise.

TRANSLATIONS OF THE LATIN POEMS OF MILTON.

ELEGIES.

ELEGY I.

TO CHARLES DEODATI.

AT length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destined home;
They come, at length, from Deva's western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian tide.
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.

I well content, where Thames with influent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside,
Nor zeal nor duty now my steps impel
To reedy Cam, and my forbidden cell.
Nor aught of pleasure in those fields have I,
That, to the musing bard, all shade deny.
'Tis time that I a pedant's threats disdain,
And fly from wrongs my soul will ne'er sustain.
If peaceful days, in lettered leisure spent
Beneath my father's roof, be banishment,
Then call me banished, I will ne'er refuse
A name expressive of the lot I chuse.
I would that, exiled to the Pontic shore,
Rome's hapless bard had suffered nothing more ;
He then had equalled even Homer's lays,

And Virgil! thou hadst won but second praise.
For here I woo the Muse, with no control;

And here my books-my life-absorb me whole.
Here too I visit, or to smile, or weep,

The winding theatre's majestic sweep;

The grave or gay colloquial scene recruits
My spirits, spent in learning's long pursuits,
Whether some senior shrewd, or spendthrift heir,
Suitor, or soldier now unarmed, be there;
Or some coffed brooder o'er a ten years' cause
Thunder the Norman gibberish of the laws.
The lacquey there oft dupes the wary sire,
And artful speeds the enamoured son's desire.

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There, virgins oft, unconscious what they prove,
What love is know not, yet, unknowing, love.
Or if impassioned Tragedy wield high
The bloody sceptre, give her locks to fly
Wild as the winds, and roll her haggard eye,
I gaze, and grieve, still cherishing my grief,
At times even bitter tears yield sweet relief:
As when, from bliss untasted torn away,
Some youth dies, hapless, on his bridal day ;—
Or when the ghost, sent back from shades below,
Fills the assassin's heart with vengeful woe,
When Troy, or Argos, the dire scene affords,
Or Creon's hall laments its guilty lords.

Nor always city-pent, or pent at home,

I dwell; but when spring calls me forth to roam,
Expatiate in our proud suburban shades

Of branching elm, that never sun pervades.
Here many a virgin troop I may descry,
Like stars of mildest influence, gliding by.

Oh forms divine! Oh looks that might inspire

Even Jove himself, grown old, with young desire!
Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing eyes,
Outsparkling every star that gilds the skies,
Necks whiter than the ivory arm bestowed
By Jove on Pelops, or the Milky Road!

Bright locks, Love's golden snare! these falling low,
Those playing wanton o'er the graceful brow!
Cheeks too, more winning sweet than after shower
Adonis turned to Flora's favourite flower!

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Yield, heroines, yield, and ye who shared the embrace
Of Jupiter in ancient times, give place!

Give place, ye turbaned fair of Persia's coast!
And ye, not less renowned, Assyria's boast!

Submit, ye nymphs of Greece! ye, once the bloom
Of Ilion! and all ye of haughty Rome,

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Who swept, of old, her theatres with trains
Redundant, and still live in classic strains!
To British damsels beauty's palm is due ;
Aliens to follow them is fame for you.

O city, founded by Dardanian hands,

Whose towering front the circling realms commands,
Too blest abode! no loveliness we see

In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.

The virgin multitude that daily meets,
Radiant with gold and beauty, in thy streets,
Outnumbers all her train of starry fires,
With which Diana gilds thy lofty spires.
Fame says, that wafted hither by her doves,
With all her host of quiver-bearing loves,
Venus, preferring Paphian scenes no more,
Has fixed her empire on thy nobler shore.
But lest the sightless boy inforce my stay,

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I leave these happy walls, while yet I may.
Immortal Moly shall secure my heart
From all the sorcery of Circæan art,
And I will e'en repass Cam's reedy pools

To face once more the warfare of the schools.

Meantime accept this trifle ! rhymes though few,

Yet such as prove thy Friend's remembrance true!

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ELEGY II.

ON THE DEATH OF THE UNIVERSITY BEDEL AT CAMBRIDGE.

COMPOSED BY MILTON IN THE SEVENTEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

THEE, whose refulgent staff, and summons clear,

Minerva's flock long time was wont to obey,

Although thyself a herald, famous here,

The last of heralds, Death, has snatched away.

He calls on all alike, nor even deigns

To spare the office that himself sustains.

Thy locks were whiter than the plumes displayed
By Leda's paramour in ancient time,

But thou wast worthy ne'er to have decayed,
Or Æson-like to know a second prime,

Worthy, for whom some goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo's son.

Commissioned to convene, with hasty call,

The gowned tribes, how graceful wouldst thou stand!
So stood Cyllenius erst in Priam's hall,

Wing-footed messenger of Jove's command;

And so Eurybates, when he addressed

To Peleus' son Atrides' proud behest.

Dread queen of sepulchres! whose rigorous laws
And watchful eyes run through the realms below;

Oh, oft too adverse to Minerva's cause,

Too often to the Muse not less a foe,

Chuse meaner marks, and with more equal aim

Pierce useless drones, earth's burden and its shame!

Flow, therefore, tears for him, from every eye;
All ye disciples of the Muses, weep!

Assembling all in robes of sable dye,

Around his bier, lament his endless sleep!

And let complaining Elegy rehearse

In every school her sweetest, saddest verse.

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ELEGY III.

ON THE DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.

COMPOSED IN THE AUTHOR'S SEVENTEENTH YEAR.

SILENT I sat, dejected, and alone,

Making in thought the public woes my own,
When, first, arose the image in my breast

Of England's suffering by that scourge, the Pest!
How Death, his funeral torch and scythe in hand,
Entering the lordliest mansions of the land,
Has laid the gem-illumined palace low,
And levelled tribes of nobles at a blow.
I next deplored the famed fraternal pair,
Too soon to ashes turned, and empty air!
The heroes next, whom snatched into the skies
All Belgia saw, and followed with her sighs;
But thee far most I mourned, regretted most,
Winton's chief shepherd, and her worthiest boast!
Poured out in tears I thus complaining said:

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Death, next in power to him who rules the dead!
"Is't not enough that all the woodlands yield
"To thy fell force, and every verdant field;
"That lilies, at one noisome blast of thine,
"And even the Cyprian queen's own roses, pine;
"That oaks themselves, although the running rill
"Suckle their roots, must wither at thy will;
"That all the wingèd nations, even those
"Whose heaven-directed flight the future shows,
"And all the beasts, that in dark forests stray,
"And all the herds of Proteus are thy prey?
"Ah, envious! armed with powers so unconfined !
Why stain thy hands with blood of human kind?
Why take delight, with darts, that never roam,
To chase a heaven-born spirit from her home?"
While thus I mourned, the star of evening stood,
Now newly risen, above the western flood,
And Phoebus from his morning goal again
Had reached the gulfs of the Iberian main.
I wished repose, and on my couch reclined
Took early rest, to night and sleep resigned:
When-Oh for words to paint what I beheld !-
I seemed to wander in a spacious held,

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Where all the champaign glowed with purple light
Like that o sunrise on the mountain height;
Flowers over all the field, of every hue

That ever Iris wore, luxuriant grew.

Nor Chloris, with whom amorous zephyrs play,
E'er dressed Alcinous' garden half so gay.

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