The Oxford Book of Latin Verse Part 69

Then dumb with fear, not tongue-tied with delight, She drooped to earth. What profited it her plight She was her father's first-born? Not the less They took her. Death, not Love, ordained the rite.

His were the bridesmen, and the altar his To which with quaking limbs in fearfulness Uplifted then, sans song, sans ritual due, She was brought home--but not to wedded bliss,

A maid, but marred not married, in the spring Of life and love's sweet prime, to yield the king A victim, and the fleet fair voyaging: Such wrongs Religion in her train doth bring.

D.A. SLATER.

_67_

SWEET, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm-winds, Standing ash.o.r.e to descry one afar-off mightily struggling: Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment: But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from.

Sweet too 'tis to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war hosts Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger:-- Yet still happier this: to possess, impregnably guarded, Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom: Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way Wander amidst Life's path, poor stragglers seeking a highway: Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon: Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlight, Up as they toil on the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire.

O race born unto trouble! O minds all lacking of eye-sight!

'Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers Move ye thro' this thing Life, this fragment! Fools that ye hear not Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only: that, all pain Parted and pa.s.sed from the body, the mind too bask in a blissful Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over!

Now as regards man's body, a few things only are needful, (Few, tho' we sum up all), to remove all misery from him, Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness greater.

Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him, (Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp l.u.s.trously burning, Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnished always), Silver may not s.h.i.+ne softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion, Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-corniced echo:-- Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward, Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over, Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure: Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles, and the young year Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild-flowers:-- Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers, Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment.

Therefore, since to the body avail not riches, avails not Heraldry's utmost boast, nor the pomp and pride of an empire; Next shall you own that the mind needs likewise nothing of these things; Unless--when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awaken, Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon ocean-- Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superst.i.tion abandon Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming, Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in you.

But if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction, If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset them Heed not the javelin's fury, regard not clas.h.i.+ng of broad-swords, But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold, Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple-apparelled: These things shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of reason: Think too that all man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward.

For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery, Darkness, Sees all terrible things: so do we too, ev'n in the daylight, Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er them.

So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us, Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the daylight: Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them.

C.S. CALVERLEY

_69_

OUT of the night, out of the blinding night Thy beacon flashes;--hail, beloved light Of Greece and Grecian; hail, for in the mirk Thou dost reveal each valley and each height.

Thou art my leader and the footprints thine, Wherein I plant my own. Thro' storm and s.h.i.+ne Thy love upholds me. Ne'er was rivalry 'Twixt owl and thrush, 'twixt steeds and shambling kine.

The world was thine to read, and having read, Before thy children's eyes thou didst outspread The fruitful page of knowledge, all the wealth Of wisdom, all her plenty for their bread.

As honey-bees thro' flowery glades in June Rifle the blossoms, so at our high-noon Of life we gather in melodious glades The golden honey of thy deathless rune.

And whoso roams benighted, on his ear, Out of the darkness strikes an echo clear Of thy triumphant challenge:--'Ye who quail, Come unto me, for I have cast out fear.'

Thereat the walls o' the world fade far away And thou, great Nature's seer, dost display The miracle of her workings in the void:-- The night is past and reason dawns with day.

Heaven lies about us and we see the hall, Where never storm-fiend raves nor snow-flakes fall In webs of winter whiteness to ensnare The golden summer. Peace is over all;

A canopy of cloudless sky, a glow Of laughing suns.h.i.+ne; all the flowers that blow Are there, and there from Nature's teeming breast Rivers of strength and sweetness ever flow.

The veil of Acheron is rent in twain; His phantom precincts vanish. Ne'er again Can Earth conceal the secret:--it is ours; And all that once was hidden is made plain.

Hail, mighty Master, hail! The world was thine, For thou hadst read her riddle line by line, Scroll upon scroll; and now ... oh, ecstasy Of awe and rapture,... thou hast made her mine.

D.A. SLATER.

_70_

I give a part of this piece in the version of Dryden, beginning from _Cerberus et furiae_. 'I am not dissatisfied', says Dryden, 'upon the review of anything I have done in this author.'

AS for the Dog, the Furies and their Snakes, The gloomy Caverns and the burning Lakes, And all the vain infernal trumpery, They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.

But here on earth the guilty have in view The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due, Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian Rock, Stripes, hangmen, pitch and suffocating smoke, And, last and most, if these were cast behind, The avenging horror of a conscious mind, Whose deadly fear antic.i.p.ates the blow, And sees no end of punishment and woe, But looks for more at the last gasp of breath.

This makes a h.e.l.l on earth, and life a death.

Meantime, when thoughts of death disturb thy head, Consider: Ancus great and good is dead; Ancus, thy better far, was born to die, And thou, dost _thou_ bewail mortality?

So many monarchs, with their mighty state Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by Fate.

That haughty King who lorded o'er the main, And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves restrain-- In vain they foamed, in vain they threatened wrack, While his proud legions marched upon their back,-- Him Death, a greater monarch, overcame, Nor spared his guards the more for their Immortal name.

The Roman chief, the Carthaginian's dread, Scipio, the Thunder Bolt of War, is dead, And like a common slave by Fate in triumph led.

The founders of invented arts are lost, And wits who made eternity their boast.

Where now is Homer, who possessed the throne?

The immortal work remains, the mortal author's gone.

DRYDEN.

_74_

DIANA guardeth our estate, Girls and boys immaculate; Boys and maidens pure of stain, Be Diana our refrain.

O Latonia, pledge of love Glorious to most glorious Jove, Near the Delian olive-tree Latona gave thy life to thee,

That thou should'st be for ever queen Of mountains and of forests green; Of every deep glen's mystery; Of all streams and their melody.

Women in travail ask their peace From thee, our Lady of Release: Thou art the Watcher of the Ways: Thou art the Moon with borrowed rays:

And, as thy full or waning tide Marks how the monthly seasons glide, Thou, G.o.ddess, sendest wealth of store To bless the farmer's thrifty floor.

Whatever name delights thine ear, By that name be thou hallowed here; And, as of old, be good to us, The lineage of Romulus.

R.C. JEBB.

_82_

GEM of all isthmuses and isles that lie, Fresh or salt water's children, in clear lake Or ampler ocean: with what joy do I Approach thee, Sirmio! Oh! am I awake, Or dream that once again my eye beholds Thee, and has looked its last on Thynian wolds?

Sweetest of sweets to me that pastime seems, When the mind drops her burden: when--the pain Of travel past--our own cot we regain, And nestle on the pillow of our dreams!

'Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam.

Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here!

Joy too, ye waters of the Garda Mere!

And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home.

C.S. CALVERLEY.

_83_