Remove! no-grant me still this raging woe!
Sweet is the wretchedness that lovers know:
But pierce hereafter (should I chance to see
One destined mine) at once both her and me.
Such were the trophies, that, in earlier days,
By vanity seduced, I toiled to raise,
Studious, yet indolent, and urged by youth,
That worst of teachers! from the ways of truth;
Till learning taught me, in his shady bower,
To quit Love's servile yoke, and spurn his power.
Then, on a sudden, the fierce flame supprest,
A frost continual settled on my breast,
Whence Cupid fears his flames extinct to see,
And Venus dreads a Diomede in me.
PRAISE in old times the sage Prometheus won,
Who stole æthereal radiance from the sun;
But greater he, whose bold invention strove
To emulate the fiery bolts of Jove.
The Poems on the subject of the Gunpowder Treason I have not translated, both because the matter of them is unpleasant, and because they are written with an asperity, which, however it might be warranted in Milton's day, would be extremely unseasonable now.-C.
TO LEONORA SINGING AT ROME.
[I have translated only two of the three poetical compliments addressed to Leonora, as they appear to me far superior to what I have omitted.-C.]
ANOTHER Leonora once inspired
Tasso, with fatal love to frenzy fired;
But how much happier, lived he now, were he,
Pierced with whatever pangs for love of thee!
Since could he hear that heavenly voice of thine,
With Adriana's lute of sound divine,
Fiercer than Pentheus' though his eye might roll,
Or idiot apathy benumb his soul,
You still with medicinal sounds might cheer
His senses wandering in a blind career;
And, sweetly breathing through his wounded breast,
Charm, with soul-soothing song, his thoughts to rest.
NAPLES, too credulous, ah! boast no more
The sweet-voiced Siren buried on thy shore,
That, when Parthenope deceased, she gave
Her sacred dust to a Chalcidic grave,
For still she lives, but has exchanged the hoarse
Pausilipo for Tiber's placid course,
Where, idol of all Rome, she now in chains
Of magic song both gods and men detains.
THE COTTAGER AND HIS LANDLORD.
A PEASANT to his lord paid yearly court,
Presenting pippins of so rich a sort
That he, displeased to have a part alone,
Removed the tree, that all might be his own.
The tree, too old to travel, though before
So fruitful, withered, and would yield no more.
The 'squire, perceiving all his labour void,
Cursed his own pains, so foolishly employed,
And "Oh," he cried, "that I had lived content
"With tribute, small indeed, but kindly meant !
My avarice has expensive proved to me,
"Has cost me both my pippins and my tree."
TO CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN.
WRITTEN IN CROMWELL'S NAME, AND SENT WITH THE PROTECTOR'S PICTURE.
CHRISTINA, maiden of heroic mien !
Star of the North! of northern stars the queen!
Behold what wrinkles I have earned, and how
The iron casque still chafes my veteran brow,
While, following Fate's dark footsteps, I fulfil
The dictates of a hardy people's will.
But softened, in thy sight, my looks appear,
Not to all queens or kings alike severe.
ON THE DEATH OF THE VICE-CHANCELLOR,
LEARN, ye nations of the earth,
The condition of your birth;
Now be taught your feeble state;
Know, that all must yield to Fate!
If the mournful rover, Death,
Say but once- Resign your breath!"
Vainly of escape you dream,
You must pass the Stygian stream.
Could the stoutest overcome
Death's assault, and baffle doom,
Hercules had both withstood,
Undiseased by Nessus' blood.
Ne'er had Hector pressed the plain
By a trick of Pallas slain,
Nor the chief to Jove allied
By Achilles' phantom died.
Could enchantments life prolong,
Circe, saved by magic song,
Still had lived, and equal skill
Had preserved Medea still.
Dwelt in herbs and drugs a power
To avert man's destined hour,
Learn'd Machaon should have known
Doubtless to avert his own:
Chiron had survived the smart
Of the hydra-tainted dart,
And Jove's bolt had been, with ease,
Foiled by Asclepiades.
Thou too, sage! of whom forlorn
Helicon and Cirrha mourn,
Still hadst filled thy princely place,
Regent of the gowned race;
Hadst advanced to higher fame
Still thy much-ennobled name,
Nor in Charon's skiff explored
The Tartarean gulf abhorred.
But resentful Proserpine,
Jealous of thy skill divine,
Snapping short thy vital thread,
Thee too numbered with the dead.
Wise and good! untroubled be
The green turf that covers thee !
Thence, in gay profusion, grow
All the sweetest flowers that blow !
Pluto's consort bid thee rest!
Eacus pronounce thee blest,
To her home thy shade consign,
Make Elysium ever thine!
ON THE DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF ELY.
WRITTEN IN THE AUTHOR'S SEVENTEENTH YEAR.
My lids with grief were tumid yet,
And still my sullied cheek was wet
With briny tears, profusely shed
For venerable Winton dead;
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 consigned—
Ely, the honour of his kind!
At once a storm of passion heaved My boiling bosom; much I grieved, But more I raged, at every breath
"Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou
thus ?)
"The son of Night and Erebus ;
"Nor was of fell Erinnys born
"On gulfs where Chaos rules forlorn :
"But, sent from God, His presence
leaves,
"To gather home His ripened sheaves,
"To call encumbered 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 the Eternal Father's face.
"But not the wicked :-them, severe
"Yet just, from all their pleasures here
NATURE UNIMPAIRED BY TIME.
AH, how the human mind wearies herself
With her own wanderings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human; laws inscribed on adamant
By laws of man's device, and counsels fixt
For ever by the hours that pass and die.
How?-shall the face of Nature then be ploughed
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great parent fix a sterile curse?
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 ingulf
The very heavens, 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 the occasion ?—so, then, all is lost—
And in some future evil hour yon arch
Shall crumble and come thundering down, the poles
Jar in collision, the Olympian king
Fall with his throne, and Pallas, holding forth
The terrors of the Gorgon shield in vain,
Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurled
Down into Lemnos, through the gate of heaven.
Thou also, with precipitated wheels,
Phoebus, thy own son's fall shalt imitate,
With hideous ruin shalt impress the deep
Suddenly, and the flood shall reek, and hiss,
At the extinction of the lamp of day.
Then too shall Hamus, cloven to his base,
Be shattered, and the huge Ceraunian hills,
Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immersed
In Erebus, shall fill himself with fear.
No. The Almighty Father surer laid
His deep foundations, and, providing well
For the event of all, the scales of fate
Suspended in just equipoise, and bade
His universal works, from age to age,
One tenor hold, perpetual, undisturbed.
Hence the prime mover wheels itself about
Continual, day by day, and with it bears
In social measure swift the heavens around.
Not tardier now is Saturn than of old,
Nor radiant less the burning casque of Mars.
Phoebus, his vigour unimpaired, still shows
The effulgence of his youth, nor needs the god
A downward course, that he may warm the vales;
But, ever rich in influence, runs his road,
Sign after sign, through all the heavenly zone.
Beautiful, as at first, ascends the star
From odoriferous Ind, whose office is
To gather home betimes the ethereal flock,
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.
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 shuddering Scythian, still he breathes
The winter, and still rolls the storms along.
The king of ocean, with his wonted force,
Beats on Pelorus; o'er the deep is heard
The hoarse alarm of Triton's sounding shell;
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