And when your grief's first transports shall subside,
I call upon your strength of soul and pride
To pay my memory, if 'tis worth the debt,
Love's glorying tribute-not forlorn regret:
I charge my name with power to conjure up
Reflections balmy, not its bitter cup.
My pardoning angel, at the gates of Heaven,
Shall look not more regard than you have given
To me; and our life's union has been clad
In smiles of bliss as sweet as life e'er had.
Shall gloom be from such bright remembrance cast?
Shall bitterness outflow from sweetness past?
No! imaged in the sanctuary of your breast,
There let me smile, amidst high thoughts at rest;
And let contentment on your spirit shine,
As if its peace were still a part of mine:
For if you war not proudly with your pain,
For you I shall have worse than lived in vain.
But I conjure your manliness to bear
My loss with noble spirit- not despair:
I ask you by our love to promise this,
And kiss these words, where I have left a kiss, -
The latest from my living lips for yours.'
"Words that will solace him while life endures:
For though his spirit from affliction's surge
Could ne'er to life, as life had been, emerge,
Yet still that mind whose harmony elate
Rang sweetness, even beneath the crush of fate, -
That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that softened them, or lights that graced,
That soul's example could not but dispense
A portion of its own blessed influence;
Invoking him to peace, and that self-sway
Which Fortune can not give, nor take away:
And though he mourned her long, 'twas with such wo As if her spirit watched him still below."
FROM THE GREEK OF ALCMAN.
THE mountain summits sleep: glens, cliffs, and caves
Are silent all the black earth's reptile broodThe bees- the wild beasts of the mountain wood: In depths beneath the dark red ocean's waves
Its monsters rest, whilst wrapt in bower and spray Each bird is hushed that stretched its pinions to the day.
SONG OF HYBRIAS, THE CRETAN.
My wealth's a burly spear and brand,
And a right good shield of hides untanned,
Which on my arm I buckle:
With these I plough, I reap, I sow,
With these I make the sweet vintage flow,
And all around me truckle.
But your wights that take no pride to wield
A massy spear and well-made shield,
Nor joy to draw the sword:
Oh, I bring those heartless, hapless drones,
Down in a trice on their marrow-bones,
To call me King and Lord.
FROM THE GREEK OF TYRTÆUS.
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand,
In front of battle for their native land!
But oh what ills await the wretch that yields,
A recreant outcast from his country's fields !
The mother whom he loves shall quit her home,
An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face,
They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed! dishonoring manhood's form!
All ills shall cleave to him- affliction's storm
Shall bind him wandering in the vale of years,
Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name,
And children, like himself, innured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life-blood where we stand,
To save our children: - fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might
Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age, (a sight unblessed,)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears,
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
SPECIMENS OF TRANSLATION FROM MEDEA
Σκαιους δε λεγων, κουδέν τι σοφους
Τους προσθε βροτούς ουκ αν αμάρτοις.
Medea, v. 194, p. 33, Glasg. edit.
TELL me, ye bards, whose skill sublime
First charmed the ear of youthful Time,
With numbers wrapt in heavenly fire,
Who bade delighted Echo swell
The trembling transports of the lyre,
The murmur of the shell-
Why to the burst of Joy alone
Accords sweet Music's soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?
While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep,
Bends not despairing Grief to hear
Your golden lute, with ravished ear?
Has all your art no power to bind
The fiercer pangs that shake the mind,
And lull the wrath at whose command
Murder bares her gory hand?
When flushed with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm
The breast with other raptures warm!
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
In slumbers steep the heart of pain!
TO DISSUADE MEDEA FROM HER PURPOSE OF PUTTING HER CHILDREN TO DEATH, AND FLYING FOR PROTECTION TO ATHENS.
O HAGGARD queen! to Athens dost thou guide
Thy glowing chariot, steeped in kindred gore:
Or seek to hide thy foul infanticide
Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?
The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime,
Wooes the deep silence of sequestered bowers,
And warriors, matchless since the first of time,
Rear their bright banners o'er unconquered towers!
Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain,
Twines in the dance with nymphs forever fair,
While Spring eternal on the lilied plain,
Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!
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