THE winter night now well nigh worn away,
The wakeful cock proclaimed approaching day,
When Simulus, poor tenant of a farm
Of narrowest limits, heard the shrill alarm,
Yawned, stretched his limbs, and anxious to provide
Against the pangs of hunger unsupplied,
By slow degrees his tattered bed forsook,
And poking in the dark, explored the nook
Where embers slept with ashes heaped around,
And with burnt fingers-ends the treasure found.
It chanced that from a brand beneath his nose,
Sure proof of latent fire, some smoke arose;
When trimming with a pin the incrusted tow,
And stooping it towards the coals below,
He toils, with cheeks distended, to excite
The lingering flame, and gains at length a light.
With prudent heed he spreads his hands before
The quivering lamp, and opes his granary door.
Small was his stock, but taking for the day
A measured stint of twice eight pounds away,
With these his mill he seeks. A shelf at hand,
Fixed in the wall, affords his lamp a stand:
Then baring both his arms—a sleeveless coat
He girds, the rough exuviæ of a goat:
And with a rubber, for that use designed,
Cleansing his mill within-begins to grind;
Each hand has its employ; labouring amain,
This turns the winch, while that supplies the grain.
The stone revolving rapidly, now glows,
And the bruised corn a mealy current flows;
While he to make his heavy labour light
Takes off his left hand to relieve his right;
And chants with rudest accent, to beguile
His ceaseless toil, as rude a strain the while.
And now,
Dame Cybale, come forth!" he cries;
But Cybale, still slumbering, nought replies.
From Afric she, the swain's sole serving-maid,
Whose face and form alike her birth betrayed.
With woolly locks, lips tumid, sable skin,
Wide bosom, udders flaccid, belly thin,
"This singular poem, which the learned and judicious Heyne seems inclined to think a translation of Virgil's from the Greek of Parthenius, was translated into English by Cowper, during his depressive malady, June 1799."--Hayley, 1803.
Legs slender, broad and most misshapen feet,
Chapped into chinks, and parched with solar heat.
Such, summoned oft, she came; at his command
Fresh fuel heaped, the sleeping embers fanned,
And made in haste her simmering skillet steam,
Replenished newly from the neighbouring stream.
The labours of the mill performed, a sieve
The mingled flour and bran must next receive,
Which shaken oft shoots Ceres through refined,
And better dressed, her husks all left behind.
This done at once, his future plain repast
Unleavened on a shaven board he cast,
With tepid lymph first largely soaked it all,
Then gathered it with both hands to a ball,
And spreading it again with both hands wide,
With sprinkled salt the stiffened mass supplied;
At length the stubborn substance, duly wrought,
Takes from his palms impressed the shape it ought,
Becomes an orb-and quartered into shares,
The faithful mark of just division bears.
Last, on his hearth it finds convenient space,
For Cybale before had swept the place,
And there, with tiles and embers overspread,
She leaves it-reeking in its sultry bed.
Nor Simulus, while Vulcan thus alone
His part performed, proves heedless of his own,
But sedulous, not merely to subdue
His hunger, but to please his palate too,
Prepares more savoury food. His chimney side
Could boast no gammon, salted well and dried,
And hooked behind him; but sufficient store
Of bundled anise, and a cheese it bore;
A broad round cheese, which, through its centre strung
With a tough broom twig, in the corner hung;
The prudent hero, therefore, with address
And quick dispatch, now seeks another mess.
Close to his cottage lay a garden ground,
With reeds and osiers sparely girt around:
Small was the spot, but liberal to produce;
Nor wanted aught that serves a peasant's use,
And sometimes even the rich would borrow thence,
Although its tillage was his sole expense.
For oft as from his toils abroad he ceased,
Home-bound by weather, or some stated feast,
His debt of culture here he duly paid,
And only left the plough to wield the spade.
He knew to give each plant the soil it needs,
To drill the ground and cover close the seeds;
And could with ease compel the wanton rill
To turn and wind obedient to his will.
There flourished star-wort, and the branching beet,
The sorrel acid, and the mallow sweet,
The skirret, and the leek's aspiring kind,
The noxious poppy-quencher of the mind!
Salubrious sequel of a sumptuous board,
The lettuce, and the long huge-bellied gourd;
But these (for none his appetite controlled
With stricter sway) the thrifty rustic sold:
With broom twigs neatly bound, each kind apart,
He bore them ever to the public mart:
Whence laden still, but with a lighter load,
Of cash well earned, he took his homeward road,
Expending seldom, ere he quitted Rome,
His gains in flesh-meat for a feast at home.
There, at no cost, on onions, rank and red,
Or the curled endive's bitter leaf he fed :
On scallions sliced, or with a sensual gust,
On rockets-foul provocatives of lust!
Nor even shunned with smarting gums to press
Nasturtium-pungent face-distorting mess!
Some such regale now also in his thought,
With hasty steps his garden ground he sought;
There delving with his hands, he first displaced
Four plants of garlick, large, and rooted fast;
The tender tops of parsley next he culls,
Then the old rue bush shudders as he pulls ;
And coriander last to these succeeds,
That hangs on slightest threads her trembling seeds.
Placed near his sprightly fire, he now demands
The mortar at his sable servant's hands;
When stripping all his garlick first, he tore
The exterior coats, and cast them on the floor,
Then cast away with like contempt the skin,
Flimsier concealment of the cloves within.
These searched, and perfect found, he one by one
Rinsed, and disposed within the hollow stone.
Salt added, and a lump of salted cheese,
With his injected herbs he covered these,
And tucking with his left his tunic tight,
And seizing fast the pestle with his right,
The garlick bruising first he soon expressed,
And mixed the various juices of the rest.
He grinds, and by degrees his herbs below,
Lost in each other, their own powers forego,
And with the cheese in compound, to the sight
Nor wholly green appear, nor wholly white.
His nostrils oft the forceful fume resent,
He cursed full oft his dinner for its scent;
Or with wry faces, wiping as he spoke
The trickling tears, cried "Vengeance on the smoke !"
The work proceeds: not roughly turns he now
The pestle, but in circles smooth and slow;
With cautious hand, that grudges what it spills,
Some drops of olive oil he next instils.
Then vinegar with caution scarcely less,
And gathering to a ball the medley mess,
Last, with two fingers frugally applied,
Sweeps the small remnant from the mortar's side.
And thus complete in figure and in kind,
Obtains at length the salad he designed.
And now black Cybale before him stands,
The cake drawn newly glowing in her hands,
He glad receives it, chasing far away
All fears of famine for the passing day;
His legs enclosed in buskins, and his head
In its tough casque of leather, forth he led
And yoked his steers, a dull obedient pair,
Then drove afield, and plunged the pointed share.
TRIST. LIB. V. ELEG. XII.
You bid me write to amuse the tedious hours,
And save from withering my poetic powers;
Hard is the task, my friend, for verse should flow
From the free mind, not fettered down by woe;
Restless amidst unceasing tempests tossed,
Whoe'er has cause for sorrow, I have most.
Would you bid Priam laugh, his sons all slain,
Or childless Niobe from tears refrain,
Join the gay dance, and lead the festive train?
Does grief or study most befit the mind
To this remote, this barbarous nook* confined ?
Could you impart to my unshaken breast
The fortitude by Socrates possessed,
* Tomi on the Euxine Sea. He had been banished thither, it is believed, by Augustus for his love for the Emperor's sister, Julia.
Soon would it sink beneath such woes as mine,
For what is human strength to wrath divine?
Wise as he was, and heaven pronounced him so,
My sufferings would have laid that wisdom low.
Could I forget my country, thee and all,
And even the offence to which I owe my fall,
Yet fear alone would freeze the poet's vein,
While hostile troops swarm o'er the dreary plain.
Add that the fatal rust of long disuse
Unfits me for the service of the Muse.
Thistles and weeds are all we can expect
From the best soil impoverished by neglect;
Unexercised, and to his stall confined,
The fleetest racer would be left behind;
The best built bark that cleaves the watery way,
Laid useless by, would moulder and decay-
No hope remains that time shall me restore,
Mean as I was, to what I was before.
Think how a series of desponding cares
Benumbs the genius, and its force impairs.
How oft, as now, on this devoted sheet,
My verse constrained to move with measured feet
Reluctant and laborious limps along,
And proves itself a wretched exile's song.
What is it tunes the most melodious lays ?
"Tis emulation and the thirst of praise;
A noble thirst, and not unknown to me,
While smoothly wafted on a calmer sea.
No, rather let the world forget my name.
Is it because the world approved my strain,
You prompt me to the same pursuit again?
But can a wretch like Ovid pant for fame?
No, let the Nine the ungrateful truth excuse,
I charge my hopeless ruin on the Muse,
And, like Perillus,* meet my just desert,
The victim of my own pernicious art.
Fool that I was to be so warned in vain,
And shipwrecked once, to tempt the deep again.
Ill fares the bard in this unlettered land,
None to consult, and none to understand.
The purest verse has no admirers here,
Their own rude language only suits their ear.
Rude as it is, at length familiar grown,
I learn it, and almost unlearn my own.
* The inventor of the Brazen Bull, in which Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, burnt his victims alive. Perillus was burnt in it the first himself.
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