Thee other shores expect, and other tides,
Rivers, on whose grassy sides
Her deathless laurel leaf, with which to bind
Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides;
Why then this burthen, better far declined?
Speak, muse! for me-the fair one said, who
guides
My willing heart, and all my fancy's flights,
"This is the language in which Love delights."
SONNET, TO CHARLES DEODATI.
CHARLES and I say it wondering-thou must
That I, who once assumed a scornful air [know
And scoff'd at Love, am fallen in his snare,
(Full many an upright man has fallen so :)
Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow
Of golden locks, or damask cheek; more rare
The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair;
A mien majestic, with dark brows that show
The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind;
Words exquisite, of idioms more than one,
And song, whose fascinating power might bind,
And from her sphere draw down the labouring moon;
With such fire-darting eyes that, should I fill
My ears with wax, she would enchant me still.
LADY! It cannot be but that thine eyes
Must be my sun, such radiance they display,
And strike me e'en as Phœbus him whose way
Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise
Of what kind are they,
I cannot say,
But deem them, in the lover's language-sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend
To soften thine, thy coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,
Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drown'd,
Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound.
ENAMOUR'D, artless, young, on foreign ground, Uncertain whither from myself to fly;
To thee, dear Lady, with an humble sigh Let me devote my heart, which I have found By certain proofs, not few, intrepid, sound, Good, and addicted to conceptions high: When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky, It rests in adamant self-wrapt around,
As safe from envy, and from outrage rude,
TRANSLATIONS FROM MILTON.
From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse,
As fond of genius, and fix'd fortitude,
Of the resounding lyre, and every muse.
Weak you will find it in one only part,
Now pierced by love's immedicable dart.
'So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds Ascending,' &c.
Quales aërii montis de vertice nubes
Cum surgunt, et jam Boreæ tumida ora quiêrunt,
Cælum hilares abdit, spissâ caligine, vultus:
Tum si jucundo tandem sol prodeat ore,
Et croceo montes et pascua lumine tingat,
Gaudent omnia, aves mulcent concentibus agros,
Balatuque ovium colles vallesque resultant.
TRANSLATION OF DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON
MILTON.
TRES tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates
Ostentant tribus è gentibus eximios.
Græcia sublimem, cum majestate disertum
Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem.
Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est,
Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.
TRANSLATIONS FROM VINCENT
THRACIAN parents, at his birth,
Mourn their babe with many a tear,
But with undissembled mirth
Place him breathless on his bier.
Greece and Rome with equal scorn,
"O the savages !" exclaim,
"Whether they rejoice or mourn, Well entitled to the name!"
But the cause of this concern,
And this pleasure, would they trace, Even they might somewhat learn
From the savages of Thrace.
RECIPROCAL KINDNESS THE PRIMARY LAW
OF NATURE.
ANDROCLES, from his injured lord, in dread
Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled.
Tired with his toilsome flight, and parch'd with heat,
He spied at length a cavern's cool retreat ;
But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,
When, hugest of his kind, a lion came :
He roar'd approaching: but the savage din
To plaintive murmurs changed-arrived within,
And with expressive looks, his lifted paw
Presenting, aid implored from whom he saw.
The fugitive, through terror at a stand,
Dared not awhile afford his trembling hand;
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wiped the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day
Regales his inmate with the parted prey.
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepared,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shared.
But thus to live-still lost-sequester'd still-
Scarce seem'd his lord's revenge a heavier ill.
Home! native home! O might he but repair!
He must he will, though death attends him there.
He
goes, and doom'd to perish on the sands
Of the full theatre unpitied stands:
When lo! the selfsame lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famish'd into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And, soften'd by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.
Mute with astonishment, the assembly gaze :
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is natural: nature bade him rend
An enemy; she bids him spare a friend.
|