Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace Part 15

Since neither birth, nor self-won glory, claim One hour's exemption from the sable shrine.

E'en now thy lot shakes in the Urn, whence Fate Throws her pale edicts in reverseless doom!

Each issues in its turn, or soon, or late, And lo! the great Man's prize!--a SILENT TOMB!

1: The Author had the pleasure of pa.s.sing a fortnight with Mr. and Mrs. Erskine at Buxton in August 1796.

TO BARINE.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE EIGHTH.

BARINE, to thy always broken vows Were slightest punishment ordain'd; Hadst thou less charming been By one grey hair upon thy polish'd brows; If but a single tooth were stain'd, A nail discolour'd seen, Then might I nurse the hope that, faithful grown, The FUTURE might, at length, the guilty PAST atone.

But ah! no sooner on that perjur'd head, With pomp, the votive wreaths are bound, In mockery of truth, Than lovelier grace thy faithless beauties shed; Thou com'st, with new-born conquest crown'd, The care of all our Youth, Their _public_ care;--and murmur'd praises rise Where'er the beams are shot of those resistless eyes.

Thy Mother's buried dust;--the midnight train, Of silent stars,--the rolling spheres, Each G.o.d, that list'ning bows, With thee it prospers, false-One! to profane.

The Nymphs attend;--gay Venus hears, And all deride thy vows; And Cupid whets afresh his burning darts On the stone, moist with blood, that dropt from wounded hearts.

For thee our rising Youth to Manhood grow, Ordain'd thy powerful chains to wear; Nor do thy former Slaves From the gay roof of their false Mistress go, Tho' sworn no more to linger there; Triumphant BEAUTY braves The wise resolve;--and, ere they reach the door, Fixes the faltering step to thy magnetic floor.

_Thee_ the sage Matron fears, intent to warn Her Striplings;--_thee_ the Miser dreads, And, of thy power aware, Brides from the Fane with anxious sighs return, Lest the bright nets thy beauty spreads, Their plighted Lords ensnare, Ere fades the marriage torch; nay even now, While undispers'd the breath, that form'd the nuptial vow!

[1]TO t.i.tUS VALGIUS.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE NINTH.

Not ceaseless falls the heavy shower That drenches deep the furrow'd lea; Nor do continual tempests pour On the vex'd [2]Caspian's billowy sea; Nor yet the ice, in silent horror, stands Thro' _all_ the pa.s.sing months on pale [3]Armenia's Lands.

Fierce storms do not for _ever_ bend The Mountain's vast and labouring oak, Nor from the ash its foliage rend, With ruthless whirl, and widowing stroke; But, Valgius, thou, with grief's eternal lays Mournest thy vanish'd joys in MYSTES' shorten'd days.

When [4]Vesper trembles in the west, Or flies before the orient sun, Rise the lone sorrows of thy breast.-- Not thus did aged Nestor shun Consoling strains, nor always sought the tomb, Where sunk his [5]filial Hopes, in life and glory's bloom.

Not thus, the lovely Troilus slain, His Parents wept the Princely Boy; Nor thus his Sisters mourn'd, in vain, The blasted Flower of sinking Troy; Cease, then, thy fond complaints!--Augustus' fame, The new Cesarian wreaths, let thy lov'd voice proclaim!

So shall the listening World be told [6]Medus, and cold Niphates guide, With all their mighty Realms controul'd, Their late proud waves in narrower tide; That in scant s.p.a.ce their steeds the [7]Scythians rein, Nor dare transgress the bounds our Victor Arms ordain.

1: This Ode is addressed to his Friend, an ill.u.s.trious Roman, who had lost a beloved Son. The poetic literature of t.i.tus Valgius is ascertained by the honourable mention made of him by Horace, in his Tenth Satire, Book the First. Valgius, like Sir Brooke Boothby, in these days, had poured forth a train of elegiac Sorrows over the blight of his filial hopes. Horace does not severely reprove these woes, he only wishes they may not be eternal, and that he will, at least, suspend them and share the public joy; for this Ode was composed while the splendid victories, which Augustus had obtained in the East, were recent.

2: The _Caspian_ is a stormy and harbourless Sea--Yet the Poet observes that not even the _Caspian_ is _always_ tempestuous--insinuating, that inevitable as his grief must be for such a loss, it yet ought not to be incessant.

3: The coldness of _Armenia_ is well known, surrounded as it is by the high mountains of _Niphates_, _Taurus_, _Pariades_, _Antiaurus_, and _Ararat_, which are always covered with snow.

4: VESPER--alike the Evening and Morning Star--appearing _first_ and remaining last in the Horizon, it ushers in both the Evening and the Dawn. In the first instance it is called Vesper, or Hesperus, in the last Lucifer, or Phospher.

5: _Filial Hopes._ Antilochus, the Son of Nestor, observing his Father likely to fall in Battle, by the sword of his Adversary, threw himself between the Combatants, and thus sacrificed his own life to preserve that of his Parent.

6: By the Rivers _Medus_, and _Niphates_, are meant the _Parthians_, or _Scythians_, for they are the same people, and the _Armenians_.

The River Tigris, rising in the cold Mountain, Niphates, Horace gives its name to the Stream, as he does that of Medus to the Euphrates, which Plato a.s.serts to have been formerly so called. Uniting those Rivers in his verse, the Poet means to denote the Roman Conquest over two Enemies widely distant from each other.

7: The Scythians, or Parthians, were a warlike People, famous for their Equestrian prowess, for the speed of their horses, and for the unerring aim of their arrows, shot when flying on full speed.

Augustus obliged their King, Phraates, not only to restore the Roman Standards and Prisoners, taken many years before, but to withdraw his Troops from Armenia.

TO LICINIUS MURENA[1].

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TENTH.

Not always, dear Licinius, is it wise On the main Sea to ply the daring Oar; Nor is it safe, from dread of angry Skies, Closely to press on the insidious Sh.o.r.e.

To no excess discerning Spirits lean, They feel the blessings of the golden mean; They will not grovel in the squalid cell, Nor seek in princely domes, with envied pomp, to dwell.

The pine, that lifts so high her stately boughs, Writhes in the storms, and bends beneath their might, Innoxious while the loudest tempest blows O'er trees, that boast a less-aspiring height.

As the wild fury of the whirlwind pours, With direst ruin fall the loftiest towers; And 't is the mountain's _summit_ that, oblique, From the dense, lurid clouds, the baleful lightnings strike.

A mind well disciplin'd, when Sorrow lours, Not sullenly excludes Hope's smiling rays; Nor, when soft Pleasure boasts of lasting powers, With boundless trust the Promiser surveys.

It is the same dread Jove, who thro' the sky Hurls the loud storms, that darken as they fly; And whose benignant hand withdraws the gloom, And spreads rekindling light, in all its living bloom.

To-day the Soul perceives a weight of woe;-- A brighter Morrow shall gay thoughts inspire.

Does [2]Phbus always bend the vengeful bow?

Wakes he not often the harmonious lyre?

Be thou, when Danger scowls in every wave, Watchful, collected, spirited, and brave; But in the sunny sky, the flattering gales, Contract, with steady hand, thy too expanded sails.

1: Licinius Murena was a Patrician of high rank, one of the Brothers of Proculeius, whose fraternal generosity is celebrated in the Ode to Sall.u.s.t, the ninth of these Paraphrases. The property of Licinius had been confiscated for having borne arms against the second Triumvirate. Upon this confiscation Proculeius divided two thirds of that large fortune, with which the Emperor had rewarded his valor and fidelity in the royal cause, between Licinius, and his adopted Brother, Terentius, whose fortunes had suffered equal wreck on account of the Party he had taken. Horace wrote this Ode soon after the affectionate bounty of Proculeius had restored his Friend to affluence. It breathes a warning spirit towards that turbulent, and ambitious temper, which Horace perceived in this young n.o.bleman. The Poet, however, has used great address and delicacy, making the reflections not particular but general; and he guards against exciting the soreness People feel from reprehension for their prevailing fault, by censuring with equal freedom the opposite extreme. That kind caution insinuated in this Ode, proved eventually vain, as did also the generosity of the Emperor, who soon after permitted Licinius to be chosen Augur;--probably at the intercession of his Favorite Maecenas, who had married Terentia, a Daughter of that House, and whom Horace calls Licinia in the Ode which is next paraphrased. Upon the election of Licinius to this post of honor, trust, and dignity, we perceive the spirits of Horace greatly elevated; probably as much from the pleasure he knew Maecenas would take in the promotion of his Brother-in-law, as from the attachment himself bore to Licinius. A peculiar air of hilarity s.h.i.+nes out in the Ode addressed to Telephus, written the evening on which this Licinius, then newly chosen Augur, gave his first supper to his Friends. The Reader will find it somewhat lavishly paraphrased in the course of this Selection. By the _above_ Ode the Poet seems to have feared the seditious disposition of Licinius:--but when he afterwards strung his lyre to notes of triumph for the honors of his Friend, he little imagined _that_ Friend would finally suffer death for ungratefully conspiring against the Monarch, who had so liberally overlooked his former enmity.

2: Epidemic Diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the effect of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks in the first Book of the Iliad, produce the Pestilence, which follows the rape of his Priest's Daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the dependence of the human const.i.tution upon the temperate, or intemperate influence of the Sun, the avenging bow of Phbus appears an obvious allegory;--and since it is in the hours of health that the fine Arts are sought and cultivated, the Sun, under the name of Phbus, Apollo, &c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their Patron, as well as the Avenger of crimes by the infliction of diseases.

[1]TO MaeCENAS.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE TWELFTH.

Maecenas, I conjure thee cease To wake my harp's enamour'd strings To tones, that fright rec.u.mbent Peace, That Pleasure flies on rapid wings!

Slow conquest on Numantia's plain, Or Hannibal, that dauntless stood, Tho' thrice he saw Ausonia's main Redden with Carthaginian blood;

The Lapithae's remorseless pride, Hylaeus' wild inebriate hours; The Giants, who the G.o.ds defied, And shook old Saturn's splendid towers;