UC-NRLF Tbfc, GIFT OF H SONNETS FROM THE TROPHIES OF JOSE -MARIA DE HEREDIA SONNETS FROM THE TROPHIES OF JOSE-MARIA DE HEREDIA RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BY EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR FIFTH EDITION PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR SAN FRANCISCO 1913 Copyright, 1897, by Edward Robeson Taylor Copyright, 1898, by Edward Robeson Taylor Copyright, 1902, by Edward Robeson Taylor Copyright, 1906, by Edward Robeson Taylor Copyright, 1913, by Edward Robeson Taylor Printed by Taylor, Nash & Taylor San Francisco TO THE MEMORY OF LEVI COOPER LANE THESE VERSIONS ARE REVERENTLY DEDICATED PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION JL HE Sonnets here presented are versions of all those contained in Heredia's "Les Tro- phees." Since the first publication of these ver- sions I have made many changes in them, in the interest of a truer rendering and a better art, while some of the sonnets have been almost entirely recast. That such art as Heredia's can best be exemplified in the French may be con- ceded; but at the same time it must likewise be conceded that in no language has the son- net reached greater variety or force, or beauty for the matter of that, than in the English. Indeed, of all the forms borrowed from the French and the Italian, the sonnet form, as has been well said, seems to be the only one that has become deeply rooted in our literary soil. That the task of representing Heredia's sonnets acceptably in the English is truly Herculean may also be conceded; but the very difficulty is a challenge to those who love the sonnet form and delight to work in it; and even partial suc- cess in such an endeavor is almost a victory. In the sonnets of "Les Trophees" the poet never employs more than two rhymes in the octave, his rhyme being, without exception, ar- ranged as follows: abba-abba. In the sestet he allows himself more liberty, about two-thirds of the sonnets having the rhyme arrangement IX PREFATORY NOTE as follows: aabcbc. The rhyme of the others is distributed in a variety of ways, the favorite arrangement being aabccb. It is worthy of note that the rhyme arrangement of the sestet abcabc, which is so frequently found in the English-written sonnet, is employed by him but once. In several instances he uses but two rhymes in the sestet, and occasionally he closes it with a couplet. In the versions here pre- sented the form of the originals, including the rhyme arrangement, has been strictly followed. In several of the versions but two rhymes in the sestet have been employed instead of the three of the original; but in these instances the arrangement of the rhyme is the same as that of the original that is, the lines rhyme in the same way, only fewer rhymes are employed. All of these versions are written in the pen- tameter in which the English sonnet is almost universally written. For a penetrating and masterly study of the sonnet work of Heredia the reader is referred to the article of J. C. Bailey in the September, 1898, number of "The Fortnightly Review," which is now to be found in his book entitled "The Claims of French Poetry," while Ed- mund Gosse, in his "Critical Kit-Kats," admir- ably reviews the work of the poet and the char- acteristics of his style. Since Heredia's death PREFATORY NOTE (October 3, 1905), many articles have been written about him in Europe and America, with no dissent, so far as I know, in the matter of the high and unique quality of his sonnets. Since the publication of the third edition, now out of print, I have again with great care gone over the work with the necessary result of making a number of changes and of adding some more notes. I dare not say, even now, that my work is final. My feeling in this regard is fairly well represented by the sonnets en- titled "The Passion for Perfection" and "The Music of Words," copies of which I have ven- tured to print in this volume, and which, as there placed, I trust will not be considered by the judicious as an impertinence. E. R. T. San Francisco September 23, 1906. XI PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION OINCE the passing out of print of the fourth edition of these versions the author has been constrained, moved thereto by the desire to make them as perfect as possible, to go over them once more. The result has been the mak- ing of some changes, which he trusts the com- petent will look upon as improvements. E. R. T. San Francisco September 24, 1913. Xll CONTENTS Page Prefatory Note to the Fourth Edition ix Prefatory Note to the Fifth Edition . . . xii The Passion for Perfection .... xix The Music of Words .... . xxi To Jose-Maria de Heredia 1 GREECE AND SICILY Oblivion .5 Hercules and the Centaurs . .'. 1 Nemea 9 Stymphalus 10 Nessus . 11 The Centauress ...... 12 Centaurs and Lapithae . . . . .13 Flight of the Centaurs . . . . . 14 The Birth of Aphrodite 15 Jason and Medea ...... 16 The Thermodon 17 Artemis and the Nymphs . . . 19 Artemis . . . . . . . . 21 The Chase 22 Nymphaea ..... 23 Pan 24 The Bath of the Nymphs 25 The Vase 27 Ariadne ......... 28 Bacchanal 29 The Awakening of a God 30 The Magician 31 The Sphinx .32 Marsyas ........ 33 Xlll CONTENTS Perseus and Andromeda 35 Andromeda Given to the Monster ... 37 Perseus and Andromeda . . . . .38 The Ravishment of Andromeda ... 39 Epigrams and Bucolics 41 The Goatherd 43 The Shepherds 44 Votive Epigram ...... 45 Funerary Epigram . . . . . .46 The Shipwrecked One 47 The Prayer of the Dead ... . . 48 The Slave 49 The Husbandman 50 To Hermes Criophorus . . . . . 51 The Youthful Dead 52 Regilla 53 The Runner . * . . . . .54 The Charioteer 55 On Othrys 56 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS For Virgil's Ship 59 A Little Villa 60 The Flute 61 To Sextius ........ 62 The God of the Gardens 63 I. Come not! Away! 65 II. Respect, O Traveler, . . . .66 III. Ho, you sly imps ! ..... 67 IV. Enter. Fresh coated have my pillars been, . 68 V. How cold ! 69 XIV CONTENTS Tepidarium .... .... 70 Tranquillus . . . . . . . .71 Lupercus ........ 72 The Trebia 73 After Cannae 74 To a Triumpher ....... 75 Antony and Cleopatra .... 77 The Cydnus . . . . . . .79 Evening of Battle 80 Antony and Cleopatra 81 Epigraphic Sonnets 83 The Vow 85 The Spring j 86 The Beech-Tree God 87 To the Divine Mountains .... 88 The Exiled . 89 THE MIDDLE AGE AND THE RENAISSANCE A Church Window 93 Epiphany ........ 94 The Wood-worker of Nazareth . . . . 95 A Medal 96 The Rapier 97 After Petrarch 98 On the Book of Loves of Pierre de Ronsard . . 99 The Beautiful Viole 100 An Epitaph . 101 Gilded Vellum 102 The Dogaressa 103 On the Old Bridge 104 The Old Goldsmith . 105 XV CONTENTS The Sword 106 To Claudius Popelin 107 Enamel 108 Dreams of Enamel ..... . 109 The Conquerors . . . . . .111 The Conquerors 113 Youth 114 The Tomb of the Conqueror . . . .115 In the Time of Charles the Fifth Emperor . .116 The Ancestor . . . . . . .117 To a Founder of a City 118 To the Same . . . . . . .119 To a Dead City . . . . . . 120 THE ORIENT AND THE TROPICS Vision of Khem I. Mid-day. The air burns; . 123 II. The moon on Nilus sheds resplendent light ; 124 III. And the crowd grows, . . . . 125 The Prisoner . . . . 127 The Samurai . . . . . .128 The Daimio 129 Flowers of Fire . . . . . . 130 The Century Flower 131 The Coral Reef 132 NATURE AND DREAM The Antique Medal 135 The Funeral 136 The Vintage 137 Siesta . 138 XVI CONTENTS The Sea of Brittany 139 A Painter 141 Brittany . 142 A Flowery Sea . 143 Sunset 144 Star of the Sea 145 The Bath 146 Celestial Blazon 147 Armor 148 A Rising Sea 149 A Sea Breeze 150 The Shell 151 The Bed 152 The Eagle's Death 153 More Beyond 154 The Life of the Dead 155 To the Tragedian E. Rossi . . . .156 Michelangelo 157 On a Broken Marble 158 Heredia Dead 161 Notes: Nemea 165 Centaurs and Lapithae . . . . .165 The Awakening of a God 165 The Magician . . . . . . .165 Marsyas ....... 166 Regilla 167 The Charioteer . . . . . 169 For Virgil's Ship 171 To Sextius 172 God of the Gardens V . 172 XV11 CONTENTS Tepidarium . . . . . . .174 Tranquillus 174 Lupercus . . . . . . .175 After Cannae 176 The Cydnus 176 Antony and Cleopatra . . . . .176 Epigraphic Sonnets , . . . . .177 A Medal 177 The Beautiful Viole 179 The Conquerors 182 The Ancestor . 183 To a Dead City 183 Vision of Khem II 184 The Samurai 187 The Daimio 187 The Century Flower 187 The Funeral 189 Brittany . 189 Flowery Sea 190 Armor 190 Rising Sea . . . . . .190 On a Broken Marble 191 HerediaDead 192 XV111 THE PASSION FOR PERFECTION VvHAT deep desires are ours, what searching pains, To find the word we so supremely need; To frame a diction worthy Art's great meed, That winged with music bears immortal strains! Our thought when bound in rhythm oft contains Such teasing imperfections, that we feed The hours in their cure, then inly bleed, For fear some vexing blemish yet remains. Dear nymph, Perfection, how thou dost elude Thy fond pursurer! seeming near, then far, Enticing ever with allurement sweet, Till after trial many a time renewed, He sees thee blaze a solitary star In some high, inaccessible retreat. XIX THE MUSIC OF WORDS (Tennyson said in one of his talks that "People do not understand the music of words.") JL O give to Beauty her immortal meed As gemmed she lies immaculately fair; To paint the hopes that end in fell despair, While tones mellifluous every passion feed; To follow Fancy's fairy troop that lead Though vales of Dream embathed in drowsed air, Or on Imagination's heights to dare, What nectar-hearted, golden words we need Such words as thine, thou muse-encrowned one, Who, like some inextinguishable sun, Shall light the heavens of man forevermore; Such words as Homer sent, long, long ago, With music winged, through Hellas' heart of woe, Or such as deathless make Heredia's lore. XXI "All ancient glory sleeps, and men forget, Unless there comes the poet with his art, The flower of arts; and pouring from his tongue A mingled stream of wisdom, verse and song, Records great deeds in strains that never die." (From Pindar's sixth Isthmian Ode as translated by Hugh Seymour Tremenheere.) "For the thing that one hath well said goeth forth with a voice unto everlasting; over fruitful earth and beyond the sea hath the light of fair deeds shined un- quenchable forever." (From Pindar's third Isthmian Ode as translated by Ernest Myers.) "Les dieux eux-memes meurent, Mais les vers soverains Demeurent Plus fort que les airains." (Theophile Gautier.) The Cities vanish ; one by one The glories fade that paled the sun ; At Time's continuous, fateful call The palaces and temples fall; While Heroes do their deeds and then Sink down to earth as other men. Yet, let the Poet's mind and heart But touch them with the wand of Art, And lo! they rise and shine once more In greater splendor than before. XX111 TO JOSE-MARIA DE HEREDIA 'Twas eagle-winged, imperial Pindar who Sent down the ages on the tide of song The thought that only to the years belong Those deeds that win immortal poet's due. Still rise his crowned athletes to the view, On his unwearied pinions borne along; Still shepherd's pipe and lay sound sweet and strong As when Theocritus attuned them true. And so through thee the feats of heroes great, The hues of life of other times than ours, With such refulgence in thy sonnets glow, That in the splendor of their new estate, They there, with deathless Art's supernal powers, Shall o'er the centuries enchantment throw. San Francisco, May 31, 1897. GREECE AND SICILY OBLIVION OBLIVION i HE Temple's ruins all the headland strew, Upon whose tawny height brass heroes wane, With marble goddesses, whose glory vain The lonely grass shrouds tenderly from view. Only at times a careless herdsman, who, Leading his drove to drink, pipes an old strain Which floods the heavens to the very main, Shows his dark form against the boundless blue. The Earth, sweet mother to the Gods of old, At springtime vainly, eloquently weaves Round the rent capital acanthus leaves; But man, no more by ancient dreams controlled, Hears without tremor, in the midnight deep, The grieving Sea for her lost sirens weep. HERCULES AND THE CENTAURS HERCULES AND THE NEMEA OINCE the lone Tamer in the forest drear Made bold to search for every frightful trace, Resounding roars have told the fierce embrace. Now sinks the sun, and silence lulls the ear. The herdsman toward Tirynthus flees in fear Through thicket, brier and brake with quickening pace, And sees, with eyes bulged from their orbits' space, The tawny monster at the wood's edge rear. He screams. He Nemea's awful terror saw, That 'gainst the blood-red sky its armed jaw, Disheveled mane and tusks malignant shows ; For then mysterious twilight creeping in, Great Hercules, round him the floating skin, Man blent with beast, a grewsome hero grows. See note p. 165. HSRCULES AND -THE CENTAURS STYMPHALUS 1 HE birds in swarming thousands far and near, As he descends the foul declivity, Sudden as squall on mighty pinion flee Above the dismal, agitated mere. Some, flying low, in network cross nor fear To brush the face oft kissed by Omphale; Whereat, his victor shaft adjusting, he, Archer superb, strides through the marsh-reeds drear. Thenceforth, by arrows riddled, the frighted cloud Pours down a horrid flood with screamings loud And streaked with fiery bolts of murderous levin. At last the Sun across the thick cloud sees, Through openings made by shafts of Hercules, The blood-drenched Hero smiling up to Heaven. 10 HERCULES AND THE CENTAURS NESSUS VvHEN I of life had but my brothers' share, The better things or deeper ills unknown, My roving rule Thessalian hills did own, Whose icy torrents laved my ruddy hair. Thus in the sun I grew, free, happy, fair; And day or night nought vexed me, save alone When to my nostrils' eager breath was blown The ardent scent of the Epirus mare. But since the mighty archer's spouse I've seen Smiling triumphantly his arms between, My hairs are bristled and desires torment; For that some God, in his accursed plan, Has in my loins' too feverous blood all blent The lust of stallion with the love of man. 11 HERCULES AND THE CENTAURS THE CENTAURESS vjF old, through torrents, valleys, woods, and rocks, The far-famed troop of myriad Centaurs strayed; Upon their sides the sun with shadows played ; Their dark hair mingled with our flaxen locks. Choked are the caves, and summer's grass but mocks, For lonely now we press its springing blade ; And times there are when in the night's warm shade The stallion's distant cry my bosom shocks. For the great sons to whom the Cloud gave birth, Diminishing day by day upon the earth, Forsake us and fair woman madly try. Such passion brings us to the brute's base fare, For it wrings from us only neighing cry, While they in us desire but the mare. 12 HERCULES AND THE CENTAURS CENTAURS AND LAPITHJE JN OW rushes to the feast the nuptial tide Centaurs and warriors drunken, bold and fair; And flesh heroic, in the torches' glare, Immingles with the Cloud's sons' tawny hide. Jests, tumult . . . Screams . . . 'Gainst black-haired breast theBride, Her purple rended, struggles in despair, To hoofs' hard blows the bronze rings through the air, While crashes down the table in its pride. Then one upsprings to whom the mightiest bow; A lion's muffle frowns upon his brow, Bristling with hairs of gold. 'Tis Hercules. Whereat, from end to end of that vast space, Cowed by the fury of his wrathful face, The monstrous, guilty troop, loud snorting, flees. See note p. 165. 13 HERCULES AND THE CENTAURS FLIGHT OF THE CENTAURS STRAIGHT for the Mount where they may safely rest, Glutted with slaughter and revolt, they fly; Fears lash them on, they feel 'tis now to die, And every air with lion is impressed. They trample newt and hydra, and they breast Ravines, woods, torrents, as they hurry by, Where now appears against the distant sky Olympus', Ossa's or dark Pelion's crest. At times, some bold one in his maddened flight Quick rearing turns about, then with dazed sight Rejoins his brethren with a single bound; For there the moon in brightest full has made Extend behind them nought could more confound The giant horror of Herculean shade. 14 THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE U NBOUNDED Chaos wrapped the worlds of old Where ranged all measureless both Time and Space, Till Gasa, bounteous to her Titan race, Gave them her fecund breasts of wealth untold. They fell. The Stygian waves above them rolled, And storm-swept never had the Spring's fair face Brightened to feel the blazing sun's embrace, Nor Summer seen her harvest's fruited gold. In savage state, no joys within their breast, The immortals held Olympus' snowy crest. But from the heavens the virile dew fell free ; The Ocean cleaved; and Aphrodite nude Rose radiant from the foaming, glowing sea With life's own blood of Uranus endued. 15 JASON AND MEDEA JASON AND MEDEA 3ENEATH the forest-domes, in spell-bound peace, Where fears were cradled in a time long fled, Round them a marvelous dawn its teardrops shed On blossomy strangeness rich without surcease. Where magic airs their perfumes' bane release Her charms by incantation's word she spread, Whereat the Hero, by her armed and led, Shook off the lightnings from the illustrious Fleece. 'Neath arching bloom, to fill the wood with light, Winged radiant birds like sparkling gems in flight, And silvery lakes of azure skies drank deep. Love smiled upon them; but the Spouse so dire Brought jealous fury, Asian spells, her sire, And even the Gods, within her awful sweep. 16 THE THERMODON THE THERMODON J. OWARD Themiscyra which in dire despair Has shaken all day with clash of horsemen dread, Dark, doleful, slow, Thermodon bears the dead, The arms, the chariots, no more to dare. Philippis, Phoebe, Marpe, Aella, where? Hippolyte and Asteria who led The royal host to slaughter's gory bed? Their pale, disheveled bodies now lie there. Such giant lily bloom is here laid low, High-heaped the warriors all the shores bestrow, Where madly neighs at times some struggling horse ; And the Euxine sees at dawn far up the flood Ensanguined, from its mouth unto its source, White stallions flying red with virgins' blood. 17 ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS ARTEMIS these wood-odors every place rise o'er, Thy nostrils wide dilate, thou huntress bright, And in thy virginal and virile might, Thy locks thrown back, thou settest out once more. And now with leopards' hoarse, incessant roar Thou mak'st Ortygia's isle resound till night, As through the orgies' reek thou leapest light, Where mangled hounds imbrue the grass with gore. But most thou joyest, Goddess, when the brier Bites thee, and tooth or claw tears with fell ire Thy glorious arms whose shaft revenge has ta'en; For thy heart would the cruel sweetness dare Of mingling an immortal purple there With black and hideous blood of monsters slain. 21 ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS THE CHASE A HE chariot to the horses' flying feet Heaven's summit mounts, their hot breath making glow The golden plains that undulate below; And Earth lies basking in the flaming heat. In vain the forest's leaves in masses meet: The Sun, where hazy peaks their glories show, In shade where silvery fountains laughing flow, Steals, darts and glints, in victory complete. 'Tis the hour flamboyant when, through brake and brier, Bounding superb with her Molossians dire Mid blood and death, with cries of clamor's brood, Her arrows flying from the tightened string, With streaming locks, the breathless, conquering, Distracted Artemis affrights the wood. 22 ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS NYMPJL2EA L N westward flight the car of heavenly mould Speeding toward the horizon's verge, in vain The powerless God pulls back with fourfold rein His horses plunging in the glowing gold. It sinks. The sea's hoarse voice in moaning told Fills the empurpling heavens with sad refrain, While silently mid evening's tranquil train The Crescent in her silvery garb is stoled. 'Tis now the time when Nymphs, where springs gush clear, Throw the slack bow the empty quiver near. Except a stag's far belling, all is still. The dance whirls on beneath the moon's warm ray, Where Pan, with slackening then with hurried play, Laughs as the reeds at his own breathing thrill. ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS PAN ACROSS the brake, by trails that lonely lie Till lost where verdurous ways wide spreading run, Divine Nymph-hunter, the Goat-footed one, Steals through the forest with an eager eye. 'Tis sweet to hear at noon the freshening sigh Of cooling springs deep hid in coverts dun, When that bright vanquisher of clouds, the Sun, His golden arrows at the dark lets fly. A Nymph lone wandering stays her step. She hears Fall drop by drop the morning's lovely tears Upon the moss. Her heart drinks ecstasies. But quick the God from out the coppice leaps, Enclasps her, then with mocking laughter flees . . . And once again the wood hushed silence keeps. 24 ARTEMIS AND THE NYMPHS THE BATH OF THE NYMPHS JT* ROM the Euxine sheltered is a vale where grows Above the spring a leaning laurel tree, Wherefrom a pendent Nymph in frolic glee Touches the gelid pool with timorous toes. Her sisters, challenged by the shells where flows The gushing wave they sport with joyously, Plunge deep, and from the foam a hip gleams free, And from bright locks, a bust or bosom's rose. The great, dark wood is filled with mirth divine. Sudden, two eyes within the shadow shine. The Satyr 'tis ! . . . His laugh benumbs their play; And forth they dart. So, at a crow's ill cry, Cayster's snowy swans in wild array Above the river all distracted fly. 25 THE VASE THE VASE jf\. HAND most cunning cut this ivory piece; Here Colchis' forests are, while here combine Brave Jason, with Medea of eye malign, And on a stela's top the glittering Fleece. The Nile, great source, flows here without surcease, Near where Bacchantes, nectar-mad, entwine The yoke of bulls with foliage-gloried vine, While some essay the heavy yokes' release. Beneath, are cavaliers that hack and slay, The dead upon their bucklers borne away, The mothers' tears, the old with doleful gaze ; For handles apt, Chimaeras who, with breast Robust and white against the edges pressed, Forever drink from the exhaustless vase. 27 ARIADNE ARIADNE JL O brazen cymbals' clear and clanging strain, The Queen in nudeness on the tiger's back Views, with the revels that illume his track, lacchus coming o'er the strand amain. The royal monster treads the sandy plain, To her sweet weight submitting, when, alack, Touched by her hand wherefrom the rein falls slack, He bites his bridle's flowers in passion's pain. Letting the amber clusters of her hair Roll to his flank amid the dusk grapes there, His rumbling roar by her is heeded not. In sooth, her mouth, steeped in ambrosial bliss, Its cries to faithless lover now forgot, Thirsts for the Asian Tamer's nearing kiss. 28 BACCHANAL BACCHANAL L-/OUD clamors fill the Ganges with affright: The tigers from their yokes have torn away, And, fiercely mewing, bound; while in dismay Bacchantes crush the vintage in their flight. The fruited vines, mangled by claw and bite, Spatter the striped ones with their reddening spray Near where the leopards, leaping to the fray, Roll in the purple mire their bellies white. The beasts all dazed, whose bodies writhe and tear As roar on roar with growl long-drawn is rolled, Snuff blood still richer through their tawny gold; But the mad God, shaking his thyrsus there, Cheers the strange sport, and adds unto the bale The howling female with the roaring male. 29 THE AWAKENING OF A GOD THE AWAKENING OF A GOD W ITH bruised throat, their tresses flowing free, Their grieving goaded by the tears that rise, The Byblus women with lugubrious cries Conduct the slow and mournful obsequy. For on the couch, heaped with anemone, Where death has closed his languishing, large eyes, Perfumed with spices and with incense lies The one by Syria's maids loved doatingly. The singers sound the dirge till morning breaks. But look ! Now at Astarte's call he wakes Mysterious Spouse by whom the myrrh's bedewed. He's risen, the youth of old! and all the heaven Blossoms in one great rose with blood bright-hued Of an Adonis to celestials given. See note p. 165. 30 THE MAGICIAN THE MAGICIAN EACH WHERE, even at the altars I embrace, She calls, her pleading arms my vision fill. sire revered, O mother, who did will To bear me, am not I of hateful race? The Eumolpid vengeful one in Samothrace Shakes not his red robes at my threshold, still 1 fly faint-hearted, leaden-footed, till I hear the sacred dogs howl on my trace. In every spot to wretched me are nigh The black enchantments, hateful, sinister, That all the wrathful Gods have bound me by; For they have irresistibly armed her Intoxicating mouth and deep dark eye, To slay me surely with her kiss and tear. See note p. 165. 31 THE SPHINX THE SPHINX .DENEATH Cithaeron's briery flank is made A rock-ribbed den, to blaze resplendent there, With golden eyes and breast divinely fair, The virgin eagle-winged whom none has swayed. The Man stops at the threshold dazed. What shade Makes gloomier still my cavern's gloomy air? Love. Art the God? The Hero, I. Then dare; But thou seek'st death; canst now be unafraid? I can; Bellerophon slew the monster dire. Come not. Thou know'st my mouth sets thine on fire. Come, then ! Between mine arms thy bones I'll maim, My talons tear thy flesh . . . What's agony, If I have raped thy kiss and conquered fame? Thy conquest's vain, thou diest. O ecstasy! . . . 32 MARSYAS MARSYAS 1 HY natal pines which raptured heard thy strains Burnt not thy flesh, O thou to woes decreed! Thy bones are shattered, and thy blood-drops feed The flood the Phrygian Mount pours toward the plains. The pride-blown Citharist, who jealous reigns, Has with his plectrum riven thy every reed, That taught the birds and tamed the lion's breed; And of Celaena's singer nought remains Nought but a bloody shred on yonder yew Where the poor wretch his nameless horror knew. O cruel God! O cries of that sweet voice! Beneath a hand too wise no more you'll find Maeander's stream the sighing flute rejoice, For Marsyas' skin is plaything of the wind. See note p. 166. 33 PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA ANDROMEDA GIVEN TO THE MONSTER t/EPHEUS' chaste one, alas! disheveled, lone, Chained to the island rock of sunless gloom, Writhing and sobbing, mourns in hopeless doom Her regal form that terror makes its own. The monstrous ocean, by the tempest blown, Spatters her icy feet with biting spume, While everywhere before her closed eyes loom The gaping jaws in myriad horror shown. Like peal of thunder from a cloud-free sky A sudden neighing rolls and echoes nigh. Her eyes fly open. Fear and joy are one ; For she beholds, in whirling flight and free, The winged horse, upbearing Zeus's son, Stretch his grand shade of azure on the sea. 37 PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA jTTL T last alighting mid the foam, the bold Medusa's and the monster's conqueror Knight, Streaming with bloody spume of horrid sight, Bears off the virgin with the locks of gold. On Chrysaor's brother, steed of heavenly mould, That neighs, and paws the sea in mad despite, He seats the dear one, shamed, of desperate plight, Who laughs and sobs within his arms' strong fold. He clasps her close. Round them the surges beat. She raises feebly to the croup her feet A wandering billow kisses as they fly; But Pegasus, inflamed by ocean's stings, With one bound rising at the Hero's cry, Sweeps the dazed heavens with his fiery wings. 38 PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA THE RAVISHMENT OF ANDROMEDA J. HE splendid winged horse, in noiseless flight, From out his nostrils blowing clouds of fume, Bears them, with quivering of his every plume, Across the starry ether and blue night. Now Af ric plunges from their soaring height, Then Asia . . . desert . . . Libanus in tomb Of mist and fog . . . and here, all white with spume, The mystic sea that closed sweet Helle's sight. Like two enormous cloaks the wind swells wide The pinions which, as through the stars they glide, Keep the clasped lovers nested from the cold; While, as their throbbing shadows they descry, From Aries to Aquarius they behold Their Constellations dawning in the sky. 39 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE GOATHERD JT URSUE, O shepherd, in this gorge no more That bounding, stupid goat; for on the side Of Maenalus, where summer bids us bide, Night rises quickly, so thy hope give o'er. Rest here; of figs and wine I've ample store. All day this wild retreat have we espied. Speak low, Mnasylus, Gods roam far and wide And Hecate's eyes this very spot explore. A Satyr's cave is yon dark gap below Familiar demon whom these summits know. Be still and he may come from out his nook. Dost hear the pipe that sings upon his lip? 'Tis he ! His horns now catch the rays ; and look, He makes my charmed goats in the moonlight trip. 43 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS . THE SHEPHERDS Vx YLLENE'S deep defiles this path leads to. Then come. Behold his cave and spring. 'Tis there He lies on thymy bed, and fills the air With strains beneath yon pine that towers in view. To this trunk moss-grown tie thy pregnant ewe ; Dost know, ere long with lambkin, she will bear Some cheese and milk for him? And nymphs will wear, Spun from her wool by them, a mantle new. Mayst be propitious, Pan ! Goat-footed one, Who guard'st the flocks that on Arcadia run, Thee I invoke . . . Rehears! The tree gives sign! The sun sinks down the radiant West. Depart. The poor's gift, friend, is as the marble shrine, If offered to the Gods with guileless heart. 44 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS VOTIVE EPIGRAM J. O Ares stern! To Eris strife-possessed! Help me, I'm old, to give this pillar these: My shield, my sword well hacked with braveries, My broken helmet with its bloody crest. Join there this bow. But, say, is't meet I rest The hemp around the wood, hard medlar tree's No arm but mine has ever bent with ease, Or stretch the cord again with eager zest? The quiver also take. Thine eye cons o'er The sheath of leather for the archer's store The arrows which the wind of battle floats. 'Tis empty; and thou think'st my shafts are gone? Then hie thee to the field of Marathon, Where thou wilt find them in the Persians' throats. 45 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS FUNERARY EPIGRAM OTRANGER, here lies the blithesome grasshopper Young Helle guarded long from direful fate, And whose wing, vibrant under foot serrate, In bilberry, pine and cytisus did whir. Alas! she's dead the natural dulcimer, Of furrow, field and corn the muse elate; Lest thou disturb her slumber's peaceful state, Pass quickly by nor heavily press on her. "Pis yonder. Mid a tuft of thyme we see Her grave's white stone with beauty freshly fair; How few the men who win such destiny! Her tomb oft feels a child's fond, tearful care, And every morn Aurora piously With copious dewdrops makes libation there. 46 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE SHIPWRECKED ONE W ITH breeze astern, and sky serenely clear, He parts from Egypt at Arcturus' rise, And as the Pharos fades before his eyes His brass-lined, speedy ship fills him with cheer. But Alexandria's mole no more he'll near: In waste of sand not e'en the young kid tries The tempest's hand has scooped his grave, where sighs A wind-entwisted shrub all lone and drear. In fold the deepest of the shifting dune, In dawnless night where shines nor star nor moon, As last the navigator quiet owns. O Earth, O Sea, pity his anxious Shade! And on the Hellenic shore where rest his bones Thy tread be light, thy voice be silent made. 47 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE PRAYER OF THE DEAD OTOP .'Traveller, list to me. If thy step run To Cypselus and to the Hebrus' shore, Old Hyllus find and pray him to deplore Without surcease his unreturning son. My murdered flesh the ravenous wolves have won; The rest in this dark thicket lies ; and o'er The Erebus-gloomed banks great shadows pour Indignant tears. My death's avenged by none. Depart then; and shouldst thou, when dies the day, See at the grave's or hillock's foot delay A black-veiled woman reft of every bloom, Approach; nor night nor charms need give thee fears; For 'tis my mother, who, on shadowy tomb, Clasps a void urn and fills it with her tears. 48 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE SLAVE NAKED and wretched, with the vilest cheer, Such slave am I my body bears the signs Born free upon the gulf whose beauty shines Where Hybla's honeyed slopes their summits rear. Alas ! I left the happy isle . . . Ah! shouldstthou steer Thy course to Syracuse's bees and vines, Following the swans as winter's cold declines, Good host, acquaint thee with my loved dear. Shall I ne'er see her pure, deep-violet eye Reflecting, brimmed with smiles, her natal sky Beneath her dark-hued brow's victorious bow? Have pity! Find my Clearista, pray; Tell her I live once more her face to know; Thou canst not miss her, for she's sad alway. 49 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE HUSBANDMAN i HE plow, the shining shares, the goad he bore, The yoke, the pitchfork which the sheaves bestows, The harrow, seed-bag, and the scythe that mows Each day the ears which fill the barn's wide floor ; These long-used tools that he can wield no more Old Parmis to great Rhea now foregoes, Through whom the seed in sacred joyance grows. He's fourscore years; for him all tasks are o'er. For near a century in the burning sun The coulter he has pushed, yet nought has won. Though sad his life, remorse now knows him not; But he is worn with labor, and he dreams That with the dead toil still may be his lot, Where Erebus laves the fields with darksome streams. 50 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS TO HERMES CRIOPHORUS J. HAT the companion of the Naiads may Be pleased the ewe anear the ram to lead, So that might endless multiply the seed Of browsing flocks that on Galaesus stray, He should be gladdened by the feast's array Beneath the herdsman's canopy of reed, For sweet to Pan his sacrificial meed On marble table or on block of clay. Then honor Hermes, for the God so wise Prefers pure hands whereby the victim dies To splendor's wealth of altar or of fane. Friend, raise on border of thy mead a mound, And with the blood of hairy goat there stain The turf with purple and imbrue the ground. 51 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE YOUTHFUL DEAD V-/H, do thou quickly through the grasses move Beneath which lie my ashes in despair, Nor the flowers trample of my grave from where I list to ant and ivy creep above. Thou stop'st? Thou heard'st the coo of mourning dove. Oh, on my tomb her sacrifice forbear; If thou lov'st me, give her the ambient air ; Life is so sweet, still let her taste thereof. Thou know'st? With myrtle wreathed for me a bride, At nuptial shrine, virgin and spouse, I died From all I loved so far, and yet so near. My eyes respond not to the happy light, And now forevermore I'm wrapped in drear, Remorseless Erebus and gloomy Night. 52 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS REGILLA A.NNIA Regilla, Aphrodite's own And Ganymede's, in death reposes here Eneas' daughter to Herodes dear. So beauteous, happy, young, for her make moan. The Shade, whose lovely body here lies lone, In the Blest Isles with him who rules austere Counts all the days, the months, and long, long year, Since banished far from all that she had known. Her memory haunts her spouse, and unconsoled, On purple bed of ivory and gold He sleepless tosses and lamenting cries. He yet delays. He comes not. And the dear's Lorn spirit, filled with anxious hope, still flies Round the black sceptre Rhadamanthus rears. See note p. 167. 53 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE RUNNER ON A STATUE BY MYRON . S when at Delphi, Thymus close behind, He flew through stadium to applause's roar, So on this plinth now Ladas runs once more, On bronze foot, slim, and swifter than the wind. With arm outstretched, eyes fixed, trunk front inclined, The beaded drops of sweat his face glide o'er; Sure, sculptor scarce had cast his form before It leaped all living from the mould designed. He throbs, he trembles, hopes, yet fears to lose; His side heaves, the cleaved air his lips refuse, And with the strain his muscles jutting rise. His spirit's ardor nought can now control, And far beyond his pedestal he flies In the arena toward the palm and goal. 54 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS THE CHARIOTEER OTRANGER, that one who treads the golden pole, His steeds of black, in one hand fourfold rein, The other holding whip of ashen grain, Better than Castor can his car control. His father's not so high on glory's roll . . . But see, he starts, the limit red to gain, And strews his rivals o'er the arena's plain This Libyan bold dear to the Emperor's soul. Round the dazed circus toward the goal and palm Seven times the victor, dizzy yet still calm, Has whirled. All Hail, son of Calchas the Blue! And thou mayst see (if that a mortal eye The heaven-crowned car with wings of fire may view) Once more to Porphyry glorious Victory fly. See note p. 169. 55 EPIGRAMS AND BUCOLICS ON OTHRYS TO PUVIS DE CHAVANNES HE air blows fresh. The sun sinks gorgeously. The kine fear not ox-fly's nor beetle's pest. On Othrys' slopes the shadows lengthen; rest. Dear guest, sent by the Gods, rest here with me. While drinking foamy milk thine eye shall see, From threshold of my rural cot, the crest Olympian,Tymphrestus' snowy breast, The soaring mountains, fruitful Thessaly, Euboea and the Sea; through twilight's red Callidromus and (Eta's sacred head, Where Hercules his altar raised and pyre; And there below, Parnassus' glowing height, Where Pegasus now folds his wings of fire, To mount at dawning in immortal flight. 56 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS ROME AND THE BARBARIANS FOR VIRGIL'S SHIP IVlAY your kind stars guard well all dangers through, Bright Dioscuri, Helen's kin divine, The Latin poet who would fain see shine The golden Cyclades amid the blue. May he have softest airs man ever knew; May perfume-breathed lapyx now incline With swelling sail to speed him o'er the brine, Until the stranger shore shall glad his view. Through all the islands where the dolphins glide The Mantuan singer fortunately guide ; Lend him, O Cygnus' sons, fraternal ray. One-half my soul the fragile boat contains, Which o'er the sea that heard Arion's lay Bears glorious Virgil to the Gods' domains. See note p. 171. 59 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS A LITTLE VILLA JL ES, that's the heritage of Callus hoar Thou dost on yon cisalpine hill descry; A pine his humble house is sheltered by, Whose lowly roof the thatch scarce covers o'er. And yet for guest he has sufficing store : His oven is large, his vines make glad the eye, And in his garden lupines multiply. "Pis little? Gallus ne'er has longed fdr more. His grove yields fagots through the winter hours, And shade in summer under leafy bowers, While autumn brings some passing thrush for prize. 'Tis there, contented with his narrow round, He ends his days upon his natal ground. Go, now thou knowest why Gallus is so wise. 60 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE FLUTE A-rf O, evening's here. Some pigeons skyward fly. O goatherd, nought so soothes love's feverous wound As pipe well blown, when its appeasing sound Blends with the sedgy stream's melodial sigh. In this great plane-tree's shade, where stretched we lie, The grass is soft. That goat, now rambling round, Should climb yon rock where tenderest buds abound, And freely browse beyond her weanling's cry. With seven unequal stems of hemlock made, Well joined with wax, my flute, or sharply played Or grave, weeps, sings, or wails, as I incline. Come. Learn Silenus' art that knows no death, And thy love-plaints will, by this pipe divine, Be driven to flight mid its harmonious breath. 61 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS TO SEXTIUS V-/LEAR skies; the sands the boat has glided o'er; The orchards bloom; the frost with silvery sheet No longer glints from mead the morn to greet, And ox and neatherd leave their stabled store. All things revive; yet Death and his sad lore Still press us; and the day thou'lt surely meet, When by the dice the revel's royal seat Will be allotted to thyself no more. Life's short, O Sextius! Upon it seize; Already age makes havoc of our knees. In the bleak land of Shades no springtime is. Then come. The woods are green, and season right To immolate to Faun, in haunts of his, A black-haired goat or lamb with fleece of white. See note p. 172. 62 THE GOD OF THE GARDENS To Paul Arene ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE GOD OF THE GARDENS Olim truncus eram ficu r* V/OMEnot! Away! Let not one step be stayed! Insidious pillager, I fancy you Would steal the grapes, mad-apples, olives, too, Which the sun ripens in the orchard's shade. I watch. A shepherd once with hedge-bill blade Carved me from fig-tree trunk gina knew; Laugh, but consider how Priapus grew, And know none can his fierce revenge evade. Of old, to seamen dear, on galley's beak With ruddy glow I stood, and joyed to speak To laughter-sparkling or foam-crested waves ; And now the fruits and herbs I keep watch o'er, To shield this garden from marauding knaves . . The smiling Cyclades I'll ne'er see more. 65 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE GOD OF THE GARDENS ** Hujus nain domini colunt me Deumque salutant CATULLUS 1XESPECT, O Traveler, if my wrath you fear, That humble roof of rush and flag above A grandsire's and his children's mutual love ; He owns the close and spring that bubbles clear. 'Twas he who placed, amid the area here, My emblem in the lime-tree's heart, to prove His only God am I sole guardian of His orchard decked with flowers I hold most dear. Rustic and poor, and yet devoted they; For on my gaine they piously display Poppy, green barley-ears and violet; And twice a year, by knife of planter slain, The rural altar with the blood is wet Of youthful, bearded goat of potent strain. 66 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE GOD OF THE GARDENS III Ecce villicus Venit . . . ~- ._. CATULLUS Jrl O, you sly imps ! Of dog, of traps, beware ! As guardian here, I would not, for my sake, Have one pretending garlic bulb to take Plunder my fruit groves nor my grapevines spare. Below, the planter mows his field, from where He spies you; if he comes here, by my stake! With hard wood wielded by his arm he'll make Your loins well smoke, whate'er a God may care. Quick, take the left-hand path, and with it wind Till at the hedge's end a beech you find; Then heed the word one slips into your ear : A negligent Priapus lives near by; His arbor pillars you can see from here, Where blushing grapes in shade-wrapped greenery lie. 67 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE GOD OF THE GARDENS IV Mihi Corolla pieta vere ponitur E CATULLUS NTER. Fresh coated have my pillars been, And in my arbor, from the sunshine's glare, The shade is softest. Balm perfumes the air, And April decks the ground with blossomy sheen. By turns the seasons crown me: olives green, Ripe grapes, great golden ears, and flower-cups fair; While goats their creamy milk still kindly spare, Which curded in the vat each morn is seen. The master honors me for service done; Nor thrush nor thief despoils his vines, and none Is better guarded in the Roman land. Sons fair, wife virtuous, the man at home Each eve from market jingles in his hand The shining deniers he has brought from Rome. 68 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE GOD OF THE GARDENS V Rigetque dura barba juncta crystallo Diversorum poetarum lusus AJ.OW cold! The vines with frost are glittering; The sun I watch for, knowing the time exact When dawn red tints Soracte's snows. Distract Is rural God man's so perverse a thing. For twenty winters, lonely, shivering, In this old close I've lived. My beard's compact, My paint scales off, my shrunken wood is cracked, And now the worms may come to gnaw and sting. Why of Penates am I not, or Lar Domestic even, retouched, from care afar, With fruits and honey gorged, or wreathed, as they? In the fore-court the wax ancestors grace I should grow old, and on their virile day The children round my neck their bullae place. See note p. 172. 69 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS TEPIDARIUM \J'ER their soft limbs has myrrh its fragrance shed ; And bathed in warmth beneath December's skies They dream, while the bronze lamp with flaming eyes Throws light and shadow on each beauteous head. On byssus cushions of empurpled bed Some amber, rosy figure nerveless tries To stretch, or bend, or from the couch to rise, Where linen's folds voluptuously spread. Breathing the air with ardent fumes replete, An Asian woman, nude, amid the heat Twists her smooth arms with languorous control; And the pale daughters of Ausonia see With gloating eye the rich, wild harmony, As o'er her bronzed bust her jet locks roll. See note p. 174. 70 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS TRANQUILLUS C. Plinii Secundi Bpist. Lib. I, Ep. XXIV OUETONIUS' pleasing country this; and he Near Tibur raised his humble villa where Some vine-clad wall the years still kindly spare, And arcade's ruin wreathed in greenery. Here, far from Rome, he came each fall to see The sky's last azure, and from elm-trees' care To take the plenteous grapes empurpling there. His life flowed on in calm tranquility. In this sweet pastoral peace would Claudius bide, Caligula and Nero ; here, with pride, Vile Messalina in her purple strolled; And here with pointed stylus he has told, Scratched in the unpitying wax, of him who tried In Capri all that's foul when he was old. See note p. 174. 71 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS LUPERCUS M. Val Martialis. Lib. I, Epigr. CXVII1 LuPERCUS from afar cries: Poet dear, Thy latest Epigram is wondrous fine; Wilt thou not lend me all thy works divine? My slave will call for them when morning's here. Ah, no. He limps, he pants, he's old and sere; My stairs are steep, my house remote from thine ; Dost thou not live close by the Palatine? Atrectus in the Argiletum's near At Forum's corner, where he'll sell to us The dead and living: Virgil, Silius, Terence and Pliny, Phaedrus and the rest; There, on a shelf, and one not very high, Pounced, robed in purple, and in cedar nest, Martial's for sale at five denarii. See note p. 175. 72 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE TREBIA AWN tints the heights on this ill day of need. The camp has roused. The waters roaring go Where the Numidian light-horse drink below, And everywhere the pealing trumpets plead. For spite of Scipio, of the augurs' rede, Of wind and rain, the Trebia's swollen flow, Sempronius Consul, proud new fame to know, Has bade his lictors with the axe proceed. The Insubres their burning homes behold, The horizon reddening with the flames uprolled, While far resounds the elephant's loud cry. Beneath the bridge, leaning against an arch, Deep-musing Hannibal, with triumph high, Lists to the tramping legions as they march. 73 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS AFTER v NE consul killed; one to Venusia fled, Or to Liternum; the Aufidus runs o'er From dead and arms; lightning has struck full sore The Capitol; the bronze sweats, and the heavens look dread Vainly the God's feast has the Pontiff spread, And twice the Sibyl's Oracle did implore, The grandsire, widow, orphan, weep yet more, Till Rome in consternation bows her head. Each evening to the aqueducts they swarm: Plebs, slaves, the women, children, the deform All that the prison or the slum can spew To see, on Sabine Mount of blood-hued dyes, Seated on elephant Gaetulian, rise The one-eyed Chieftain to their anxious view. See note p. 176. 74 ROME AND THE BARBARIANS TO A TRIUMPHER ILLUSTRIOUS Imperator, thine arch crown With old chiefs yoked, barbarian warriors' throng, Bits that to armor and to boats belong, With beak and stern of ships thine arms struck down. Whoe'er thou art, from Ancus sprung or clown, Thy honors, names and lineage, short or long, In bas-reliefs and frieze engrave them strong, That future years dim not thy just renown. Even now Time lifts his fatal arm. Dost hope To give thy fame's report eternal scope? Why, let an ivy climb, thy trophy dies ; And on thy blazoned blocks, dispersed and rent, As choked with grass their glory's ruin lies, Some Samnite mower will his scythe indent. 75 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA THE CYDNUS JD ENEATH triumphal blue, in flaming ray, The silver trireme tints the dark flood white, And censers breathe rich perfumes that unite With rustling silks and flutes' mellifluous play. Where, at the prow, the spread-hawk holds his way, Cleopatra forward leans for better sight, And seems, as stands she in the evening light, Like some great golden bird in watch for prey. Now Tarsus sees the warrior captive there: The dusky Lagian opes, in that charmed air, Her amber arms with roseate purple dyed; Nor has she seen anear, as fateful sign, Shredding the roses on the sombrous tide, Those twins, Desire and Death, of life divine. See note p. 176. 79 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA EVENING OF BATTLE SEVERE the battle's shock: Centurions And tribunes, rallying their men, once more Breathe from the air that trembles with their roar The scents and ardors of red slaughter's sons. With gloomy eyes, computing their lost ones, The soldiers see Phraortes' archer corps Whirl like dead leaves afar, and streaming o'er Their tawny cheeks the perspiration runs. And then appeared, with arrows bristling round, Red from vermilion stream of many a wound, 'Neath floating purple and the brass's glare, To sound of trumpet's flourish, grand of mien, Quelling his plunging horse, and bathed in sheen Of fiery sky, the Imperator there. 80 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA \J N Egypt sleeping in the sultry air The twain gazed wistful from their terrace high, Where far they could the Delta's flood descry Toward Sais or Bubastis onward fare. Beneath his thick cuirass he, born to dare, A captive now to croon a lullaby, Felt on his conquering heart surrendered lie Her form voluptuous pressed still closelier there. Turning her pale face mid its locks of brown To him whose reason perfumes had struck down, She raised her mouth and luring, lustrous eye ; And bent o'er her the chief could but behold In her great orbs, starry with dots of gold, Only unbounded seas where galleys fly. See note p. 176. 81 EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS Bagnres-de-Luchon, Sept. 188 . EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS ILIXONI ISCITTO DEO DEO THF VOW HVNNV ^^ V U W KAB.FESTA V. S. L. M. V. S. L. M. JL HE light-haired Gaul, he of Iberian strain, The brown Garumnus in his paint, of old, Upon the marble cut by them have told This water's virtue and its power o'er bane. The Roman pool and thermae to ordain The Emperors at Venasque then made bold, When Fabia Festa, like the rest controlled, Gave to the Gods the mallow and vervain. As when Ilixon and Iscitt were young The Springs to-day their song to me have sung, Where the pure air the sulphur fumes still know. Hence in this vow-made verse 'tis mine to raise, Like Ulohox's son in bygone days, A rough-hewn altar to the nymphs below. See note p. 177. 85 EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS THE SPRING NYMPHIS AVG. SACRVM AN brier and grass the altar buried sleeps, Where falling drop by drop the nameless spring Fills the lone vale with plaintive murmuring: It is the Nymph that o'er Oblivion weeps. This useless mirror which no wavelet sweeps, The dove now seldom kisses with her wing, And but the moon, through dark skies wandering, Her pallid face alone upon it keeps. At times a passing herdsman here delays; He drinks; then pours the drops, his thirst all flown, From out his hand upon the road's old stone. In this the ancestral gesture he betrays, The Roman cippus to his eye unknown With patera near the libatory vase. See note p. 177. 86 EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS THE BEECH-TREE GOD FAGO DEO J. HE house of the Garumnus glads the ground Beneath a gnarled, mighty beech where wells A God's pure sap by which the white bark swells. The mother forest makes his utmost bound; For by the seasons blest he there has found Nuts, wood and shade, and creatures that he fells With bow and spear, or with sly lures compels, For flesh to eat or fleece to wrap him round. The years have crowned his toil and made him free; And on his home-return at eve the Tree With kindly arms seems proffering welcome's good; And when death comes to lower his lofty brow, His grandsons will cut out his coffin's wood From the sound heart of its supremest bough. See note p. 177. 87 EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS TO THE DIVINE MOUNTAINS GEMINVS SERWS ET PRO SVIS CONSERVIS A3 LUE glaciers, peaks of marble, granite, slate, Moraines whose winds send blighting ruin through The wheat and rye from Begle to Nethou; Lakes, woods of shade and nest, steep crags serrate ; Lone caves, dark vales, where exiles desolate, Sooner than crouch before the tyrant crew, Wolf, chamois, eagle, bear, as comrades knew; Abysses, torrents, cliffs, blest be your state! From cruel town and prison when he flew, Geminus, the slave, this cippus gave unto The Mountains, sacred guards of liberty; And on these silence-pulsing summits clear, In this pure, boundless air's immensity, A freeman's cry still falls upon mine ear. See note p. 177. 88 EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS MONTIBVS. THE EXILED GARRI DE0 . i N this wild vale where Caesar bids thee sigh, With bended, silvered head too early snowed, Slowly each eve along the Ardiege road Thou comest on the moss-grown rock to lie. Thy youth, thy villa, greet again thine eye, And Flamen red, as when with train he strode; And so to ease thy longing's heavy load, Sad Sabinula, thou regard'st the sky. Toward seven-pointed Gar with splendors bright, The tardy eagles hastening to their height Bear on their wings the dreams that fill thy mind; And so, without desire or hope, and lost to home, Thou raisest altars to the Mountains kind, Whose neighboring Gods now solace thee for Rome. See note p. 177. 89 THE MIDDLE AGE AND THE RENAISSANCE MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE A CHURCH WINDOW A HIS window has seen dames and lords of might, Sparkling with gold, with azure, flame and nacre, Bow down before the altar of their Maker The pride of crest and hood to sacred right, Whene'er to horn's or clarion's sound, with tight Held sword in hand, gerfalcon or the saker, Toward plain or wood, Byzantium or Acre, They started for crusade or herons' flight. To-day, the seigniors near their chatelaines, With hound low crouching at their long poulaines, Upon the marble floor extended lie; All voiceless, deaf and motionless are they, Whose eyes of stone look on the window nigh, Yet cannot see its rose that blooms alway. 93 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE EPIPHANY A HEN, Balthazar, Melchior, Gaspar Magian Kings, With gorgeous vases where enamels glow, And silver, and by camels followed, go As in the bodied, old imaginings. From the far East they bear their offerings To that divine One born to suage the woe Of man and beast who suffer here below. Their robes beflowered a page upbearing brings. Where Joseph waits them at the stable's door, With Chieftain's crown they bend the Child before, Who laughs and eyes them with admiring mien. So, when Augustus ruled in time of old, The royal Magians from afar were seen Presenting precious incense, myrrh, and gold. 94 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE WOOD-WORKER OF NAZARETH J. O make a dresser the good master here Has ceaseless toiled since dawn with weary strain, Handling by turns the chisel and the plane, The grating rasp and smoothing polisher. With pleasure hence he sees, toward eve, draw near The lengthening shadow of the great platane, Where blessed Mary and her mother Saint Anne, With Jesus nigh them, go for restful cheer. The parching air stirs not the leaves at all; And Joseph, sore fatigued, his gouge lets fall, As with his apron he would dry his face; While the pure Prentice, in a glory's fold, Makes alway, in the shop's obscurest place, Fly from the cutting edge his chips of gold. 95 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE A MEDAL RlMINI'S Lord, Vicar and Podestate: His hawked profile, clearly or vaguely seen In tawny glimmer as of day's last sheen, Lives in this medal de' Fastis did create. Of all the tyrants whom a people hate, Count, Duke or Marquis, Prince or Princeling e'en,- Galeas, Hercules, Can or Ezzelin, None can the haughty Malatesta mate. This one, the best, this Sigismond Pandolf , Laid waste Romagna, Marches and the Gulf, A temple built, made love, and sang the while ; And e'en their loveliest lack refinement's crown, For on the bronze that sees Isotta smile The Elephant triumphal tramps the primrose down. See note p. 177. 96 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE RAPIER txALIXTUS Pope we on the pommel read. The keys, tiara, boat and fish-net bear Their rich reliefs upon the sword's guard where Emblazoned glows the ox of Borgian breed; Within the fusil laughs, mid coral seed By ivy twined, Faun or Priapus fair, Till raised to splendor by the enamel there, The rapier's more for wonder than for need. Antonio Perez de Las Cellas planned This pastoral staff for the first Borgia's hand, As though his famous brood he had foretold; And better far than Ariosto's phrase, Or Sannazar's, this steel, with hilt of gold, Pope Alexander and the Prince portrays. 97 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE AFTER PETRARCH JTS you came out of church, with piety Your noble hands bestowed alms freely where Within the porch's shade you shone so fair, The poor all heaven's great riches seemed to see. I then saluted you most graciously Humbly, as suits one in discretion's care ; When, drawing close your robe, with angry air Your face you shaded as you turned from me. But Love that will the most rebellious rule, Would not consent, less kind than beautiful, That mercy should let pity pass me by; And in your veiling you were then so slow, The umbrageous lashes of your beaming eye Throbbed like dark leafage in the starlight's glow. 98 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE ON THE BOOK OF LOVES OF PIERRE DE RONSARD J.N Bourgueil Gardens more than one of yore Engraved upon the bark names fondly sweet, And many a heart 'neath Louvre's gold ceilings beat, At flash of smile, with pride which thrilled to soar. What matters it? their joy or grief is o'er; They lie in stillness where four oak boards meet Beneath the sighing grass, with none to greet Their voiceless dust that feeds oblivion's shore. All die. Mary, Helen, Cassandra bold, Your lovely forms would be but ashes cold, Nor rose nor lily sees the morrow's land Had Ronsard by the Seine or Loire not wove For brows of yours, with an immortal hand, Fame's laurel leaf with myrtle leaf of Love. 99 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE BEAUTIFUL VIOLE TO HENRY CROS A vous trouppe legere Qui d aile passagere BY JOACHIM DU BELLAY Par le monde volez . . , U PON the balcony, where her longing eyes The road to far-off Italy can trace, 'Neath a pale olive branch she bows her face. The violet blooms to-day, to-morrow dies. Her viol then with fragile hand she tries, That soothes her solitude and saddened case, And dreams of him whose heedless footsteps pace The dust wherein Rome's fallen grandeur lies. The soul of her he called his Angevine sweet Bids each vibrating string divinely beat, Whene'er her troubled heart feels love's sharp pain; And on the winds her notes far distant run, Caressing, it may be, the faithless one In song he sang for winnower of grain. See note p. 179. 100 MIDDLE AGE AND AN EPITAPH After the Verses of Henry III t) PASSER, Hyacinthe lies hallowed here, Who, Lord of Maugiron was, now cold as stone God rest the soul, and all the sins condone, Of him who fell unshaken with a fear. None, not e'en Quelus decked with pearl-gemmed gear, In plaited ruff or plumed cap princelier shone, And so thou seest this mournful marble own A branch of jacinth cut by Myron's peer. King Henry kissed and clipped him and his shroud Put on ; then willed that to Saint-Germain proud Be borne his pale, cold form of matchless grace; And that such grief as his might never die, He raised this emblem in this sacred place Sad, sweet memorial of Apollo's sigh. 101 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE GILDED VELLUM i HE gold, old Master Binder, thou didst chase On the book's back and in the edge's grain, Despite the irons pushed with free-hand main, In vivid, brilliant hue no more we trace. The figures which so deftly interlace Grow daily on the fine, white skin less plain; And scarce we see the ivy thou didst train To wind in beauty o'er the cover's space. But this translucent, supple ivory, Marguerite, Marie Diane, it e'en may be, With loving fingers have of old caressed; And this paled vellum Clovis Eve gilt seems To evoke, I know not by what charm possessed, Their perfume's spirit and shadow of their dreams. 102 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE DOGARESSA U PON the marble porticos all these Great lords converse who live through Titian's lore, And whose rich collars, weighing marc or more, Enhance their red dalmatic draperies. With eyes where shine patrician dignities, The old lagoons they look serenely o'er, Beneath clear skies of Venice, to the shore And sparkling azure of the Adrian seas. And while in brilliant throng full many a Knight Trails gold and purple by the stairs of white, Bathed in cerulean sheen all joys constrain; Indolent, superb, a Dame, retired in shade, Turning half round in billows of brocade, Smiles at the negro boy who bears her train. 103 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE ON THE OLD BRIDGE Antonio di Sandro orefice JL HE Master Goldsmith has, since matins, where Beneath his pencils the enamel flowed, On clasp or on nielloed pax bestowed Latin devices in resplendence rare. Upon the Bridge, where bells made glad the air, Camail and frock were by the cape elbowed; And when the heaven like some church window glowed, The lovely Florentines were haloed there. And quick beguiled by dream that passion knows, The pensive prentices forgot to close On ring's chaton the lovers' hands in plight; While with hard point as any stylet keen, The young Cellini chased, all else unseen, On pommel of a dirk the Titans' fight. 104 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE OLD GOLDSMITH 1 HAN any Master the maitrise can blaze, E'en Ruyz, Arphe, Ximeniz, Becerrill, All gems I've deftlier set, and with more skill Have wrought the frieze and handle of the vase. In silver, on the enamel's irised glaze, I've carved and painted, to my soul's worst ill, Shame, not the Rood, and saint upon the grill, But Bacchus drunk or Danae's amaze. The rapier's iron I've damaskeened full well, And, for vain boastings of these works of hell, Adventured the eternal part of me ; And now, as fast my years toward evening fly, O would, as did Fray Juan de Segovie, While chasing gold of monstrance I might die. 105 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE THE SWORD JL RUST me, my pious child, take the old road: This sword, with straight cross-guards in twist aright, Used by an ardent gentleman of might, Is lighter than a Romish ritual's load. Take it. The Hercules thy touch has glowed, Its gold by thy grandsires' use kept bright, Now swells beneath its surface splendor-dight The beauteous, iron muscles of a God. Try it. The supple steel a bouquet shows Of sparks. The solid blade is one of those To send a prideful shiver through the breast; Bearing, in hollow of its brilliant gorge, Like noble Dame a gem, the stamp impressed Of Julian del Rey, prince of the forge. 106 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE TO CLAUDIUS POPELIN UN fragile glass, within the lead's embrace, Old Masters painted lords of high degree Turning their chaperons full piously, And bowed in prayer, as though of bourgeois race. The breviary's page some loved to grace With saints and ornaments a joy to see, Or made to glow, by pliant touch and free, With arabesques the ewer's bellied space. To-day, Claudius, their rival and their son, Reviving in himself their works sublime, On lasting metal has his triumphs won ; And hence, beneath the enamel of my rhyme, I would keep green upon his brow alway, For future ages, the heroic Bay. 107 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE ENAMEL JN OW take thy lamp; the oven for plaque doth glow; Model paillon where irised colors run, And fix with fire in the pigment dun The sparkling powder which thy pencils know. Wilt thou the bay or myrtle wreath bestow On thinker, hero, prince, or love's dear one? By what God wilt, on sky unlit by sun, The glaucous sea-horse or scaled hydra show? No. Rather let a sapphire orb reveal From Ophir's warrior race some proud profile Thalestris, Bradamant, Penthesilea. And that her beauty may be still more fell, Casque her blonde locks with winged beast, and be a Gold gorgon on her bosom's lovely swell. 108 MIDDLE AGE AND RENAISSANCE DREAMS OF ENAMEL J. N the dark chamber roars the athanor, Whose brick-cased fire, in ardent, glowing state, Breathes on the copper till it there will mate With gold's own splendor from enamel's store. Beneath my brushes are born, live, run and soar Mythology's rare race: Bacchus' wild fete, Chimaera, Centaurs, Sphinx, and Pan the great, With Gorgon, Pegasus and Chrysaor. Shall I now paint Achilles weeping near Penthesilea? Orpheus' banished dear For whom the infernal gate will ne'er relent? Hercules confounding the Avernian hound, Or Virgin at the cavern's outer bound With writhing body which the Dragons scent? 109 THE CONQUERORS THE CONQUERORS THE CONQUERORS .A.S falcons from their native eyrie soar, So, tired of woes long borne with haughty air, Bold-hearted men from Palos and Moguer Went forth with daring dreams mad to the core. They longed to seize the fabled metal store Cipango's mines in rich perfection bear, And favoring breezes bade their brave prows dare The dim, mysterious occidental shore. At eve, as Hope unveiled each epic view, The tropic sea's bright phosphorescent blue Bewitched their slumbers with mirage of gold; Or from the f oredeck of their caravels On alien skies they wondered to behold Strange stars new risen from ocean's glowing wells. See note p. 182. 113 THE CONQUERORS YOUTH JUAN Ponce de Leon, by the Devil led, With years weighed down, and crammed with antique lo Seeing age blanch his scanty hair still more, The far seas scoured to find Health's Fountainhead. By vain dream haunted his Armada sped Three years the glaucous wildness to explore, Till through the fog of the Bermudan shore Loomed Florida whose skies enchantment shed. Then the Conquistador his madness blessed, And with enfeebled hand his pennon pressed In that bright earth which opened for his tomb. Old man, most happy thou: thy fortune sooth Is deathlike, but thy dream bears beauty's bloom, For Fame has given thee immortal Youth. 114 THE CONQUERORS THE TOMB OF THE CONQUEROR VvHERE the catalpa's arches cast their shade, Where the black tulip tree white-petaled blows, He finds not in the fatal earth repose; Through vanquished Florida he passed unstayed. For such as he no paltry tomb be made; For shroud, the Western India's conqueror shows The Mississippi which above him flows. Nor Redskins nor gray bears his rest invade. He sleeps where virgin waters carved his couch; What matters monument, the taper's vouch, The psalm, the chapel and the offering? Since northen winds, amid the cypress' sighs, Eternal supplications weep and sing O'er the Great River where de Soto lies. 115 THE CONQUERORS IN THE TIME OF CHARLES THE FIFTH EMPEROR W E place him with the famed ones passed away, For his adventurous keel the first was seen To thread the island Gardens of the Queen, Where breezes made of perfumes ever play. Far more than years, the surge and biting spray, Infuriate storms, and long, long calms between, Love of the mermaid and the fright, I ween, Blanched his brown hair and turned his beard to gray. Through him Castile led Triumph o'er the seas, For his fleet crowned her that unrivaled one Whose boundless empire saw no setting sun. Prince of all pilots, Bartolome Ruiz, Who, on the royal arms, still lustrous told, Bears anchor sable with its chain of gold. 116 THE CONQUERORS THE ANCESTOR TO CLAUDIUS POPELIN vJTLORY has cut its noble furrows o'er This Cavalier's stern face, whose dauntless air Proclaims he yielded not when the fierce glare Of war and torrid sun beat on him sore. In every place the sacred Cross he bore Sierras, Terra Firma, Islands fair ; The Andes scaled ; then led his pennon where The Gulf's waves whiten the Floridian shore. Thy pencils, Claudius, bid his kin behold, In his bronze mail splendid with foliage scrolled, In life again their moody, proud grandsire; His glowering eye still searching as of old, In the enamel's heaven of lustrous fire, For dazzling glories of Castile of Gold. See note p. 183. 117 THE CONQUERORS TO A FOUNDER OF A CITY VvEARY with seeking Ophir's shadowy strand Thou f oundedst, on this gulf's enchanting shore Which thou the royal standard raisedst o'er A modern Carthage for the fabled land. Thou wouldst not have thy name by men unscanned, And thoughtst to bind it fast f orevermore To this thy City's mortar mixed with gore; But thy hope, Soldier, rested on the sand. For Cartagena sees, all choked her breath, From her dark palaces, thy wall meet death In ocean's feverous, unrelenting stream; And for thy crest alone, O Conqueror bold, As proof heraldic of thy splendid dream, A silver city glows 'neath palm of gold. 118 THE CONQUERORS TO THE SAME A HEIR Inca, Aztec, Yaquis, let them flaunt; Their Andes, forest, river or their plain ' These men of whom no marks or proofs remain Save titled show of Marquis or of Count. But thou didst found boast that my race can vaunt- A modern Carthage in the Carib main, And Magdalena even to Darien Where flows Atrato, saw the Cross high mount. Upon thine isle, where waves their breakers hurl, Despite the centuries' storms and man's mad raids, Her forts and convents still their stoutness hold; Hence thy last sons, with trefoil, ache or pearl, Crest not their scutcheon, but with palm that shades A silver city with its plume of gold. 119 THE CONQUERORS p TO A DEAD CITY Cartagena de Indias 1532-1585-1697 deject, the Queen whom seas obeyed! Unhindered now the shark pursues its prey, And where the giant galleons proudly lay Nought but some wandering cloud now casts a shade. Since Drake's fell heretics' rapacious raid Thy lonely walls have mouldered in decay, And, like some collar gloomed by pearls of gray, Show gaping holes by Pointis' cannon made. Between the burning sky and foamy sea, Amid the sun's noontide monotony, Thou dream'st, O Warrior, of thy conquering men; And in the languorous evenings warm and calm, Cradling thy glory lost, O City, then Thou sleep'st to long-drawn rustling of the palm. See note p. 183. 120 THE ORIENT AND THE TROPICS ORIENT AND TROPICS VISION OF KHEM i IVllD-DAY. The air burns; beneath the blazing sky The languid river rolls in leaden flight; The blinding zenith darts its arrowy light, And on all Egypt glares Phra's pitiless eye. The sphinxes with undrooping eyelids lie Lapped in the scorching sand, with tranquil sight, Mysterious, changeless, fixed upon the white Needles of stone upreared so proudly high. Nought stains or specks the heaven serene and clear Save the far vultures in unending sweep ; The boundless flame lulls man and beast to sleep ; The parched soil crackles, and Anubis here, Amid these joys of heat immobile one, With brazen throat in silence bays the sun. 123 ORIENT AND TROPICS VISION OF KHEM ii i HE moon on Nilus sheds resplendent light; And see, the old death-city stirs amain, Where kings their hieratic pose maintain In bandelette and funeral coating dight. Unnumbered as in days of Ramses' might The hosts, all noiseless forming mystic train, (A multitude granitic dreams enchain) With stately, ordered ranks, march in the night. They leave the hieroglyphic walls' array Behind the Bari, which the priests convey, Of Ammon-Ra, the sun's almighty head; And sphinxes, and the rams with disk of red, Uprise at once in wild amaze as they Break with a start from their eternal bed. See note p. 184. 124 ORIENT AND TROPICS VISION OF KHEM in AND the crowd grows, increasing more and more: The dead come forth from hypogeum's night, And from cartouche the sacred hawks in flight Mid the great host in freedom proudly soar. Beasts, peoples, kings, they go. Fierce foreheads o'er, The gold uraeus curls with sparkling light, But thick bitumen seals their thin lips tight. At head, the Gods: Hor, Knoum, Ptah, Neith, Hathor; Next, those whom Ibis-headed Thoth controls, In shenti robed and crowned with pshent all decked With lotus blue. The pomp triumphant rolls Amid the dreadful gloom of temples wrecked, While the cold pavements wrapped in moonlit air Show giant shadows strangely lengthened there. 125 ORIENT AND TROPICS THE PRISONER TO CHROME MUEZZINS' calls have ceased. The greenish sky Is fringed with gold and purple in the West; The crocodile now seeks the mud for rest, And hushed to stillness is the Flood's last cry. On crossed legs, smoker-wise, with dreamy eye, The Chief sits mute, by haschisch fumes oppressed, While on the gangia's rowing bench with zest Their bending oars two naked negroes ply. Jocund and jeering, in the stern-sheets where He scrapes harsh guzla to a savage air, An Arnaut lolls with brutal look and vile; For fettered to the boat and bleeding thence, An old sheik views with grave and stupid sense The minarets that tremble in the Nile. 127 ORIENT AND TROPICS THE SAMURAI This was a man with two swords OHE wakes the biwa's softest melodies, As through the latticed bamboo she espies The conquering one for whom her love-dream sighs Advance amid the seashore's fulgencies. 'Tis he, with swords' and fan's rich braveries. His tasseled girdle steeped in scarlet dyes Cuts his dark mail, and on his shoulders rise Hizen's or Togukawa's blazonries. This handsome warrior in his dress of plate, Of brilliant lacquers, bronze and silk, would mate Some black crustacean, gigantesque, vermeil. He sees her; and he smiles behind his mask, While his more rapid pace makes brighter still The two gold horns that tremble on his casque. See note p. 187. 128 ORIENT AND TROPICS THE DAIMIO Morning of battle &TUNG by the war-whip, that four pompons has, The martial, neighing stallion prances high, And with the clank of sabre rattlings fly From metal-plated skirt and bronze cuirass. The Chief, in lacquer dressed, crepon and brass, Frees his smooth face from bearded mask, to eye Nippon's dawn smiling in the roseate sky Upon the far volcano's snow-crowned mass. But in the gold-hued east the star's bright ray, Lighting in glory this disastrous day, He sees above the sea resplendent glow; To shield his eyes that would no terror shun, His iron fan he opens with a blow, Where burns its satin with a crimson sun. See note p. 187. 129 ORIENT AND TROPICS FLOWERS OF FIRE JlN ages past, since Chaos* mighty throes, This crater's pit its flaming brood unchained, Till grandly lone its fiery plume attained A loftier height than Chimborazo knows. Yet Silence here with muffled footstep goes, The bird now slakes his thirst where cinders rained, While earth's congealed blood, lava, has constrained The soil to deep, inviolate repose. Yet, act supreme of fire in time of old, Within the crater's mouth forever cold, Making the comminuted rocks to glow, Like peal of thunder in the silence rolled, Standing in pollen dust of powdered gold, The flame-born cactus opes its gorgeous blow. 130 ORIENT AND TROPICS THE CENTURY FLOWER vjN topmost point of calcined rocky steeps, Where the volcanic flux dried up of yore, The seed which winds from Huallatiri bore Sprout, and the holding plant in frailness creeps. It grows. Its roots dip down to darkness' deeps, And light gives nourishment from out its store, Till a century's suns have ripened more and more The huge bud whose bent stalk it proudly keeps. At last, in air that burns it as of old, With giant pistil raised, it bursts, when lo ! The stamen darts afar the pollen's gold; And the grand aloe, with its scarlet blow, That vainly dreamed of Hymen's love-lit way One hundred years, now blooms but for a day. See note p. 187. 131 ORIENT AND TROPICS THE CORAL REEF A HE sun beneath the wave, like strange dawn shown, Illumes the unbounded coral forest trees, Where mix in tepid basins of the seas The living plants with creatures flower-like blown. And those that salt's or iodine's tints have known Moss, algae, urchins and anemones Cover, with purple, sumptuous traceries, The madrepore's vermkulated stone. A monstrous fish, whose iridescence dims Enamel's sheen, across the branches swims. In lucid shade he indolently preys; And, sudden, from his fin of flaming hue A shiver, through the immobile, crystal-blue, Of emerald, gold and nacre swiftly plays. 132 NATURE AND DREAM NATURE AND DREAM THE ANTIQUE MEDAL still ripes the colors of the vine, That warmed with its antique Erigone Theocritus' glad heart; but now not he, Of those his verse embalmed, could find one sign. Losing the pure from her profile divine, Arethusa, who by turns was bond and free, Mixed in her Grecian blood whatever could be Of Saracen rage with pride of Anjou's line. Time flies. All die. Even marble feels death's dews. Agrigentum's but a shade, while Syracuse Sleeps under shroud of her indulgent sky; And but hard metal fashioning love displayed In silver medals keeps in bloom the high, Immortal beauty of Sicilian maid. 135 NATURE AND DREAM THE FUNERAL W HEN ancient warriors Hades made its own, Their sacred image Greece was wont to bear To Phocis' lustrous fanes as Pytho there, Rock-bound and lightning-girdled, ruled alone. Whereat their Shades, when night in glory shone On desert gulfs and isles all brightly fair, Heard, from the headlands' height in radiant air, Famed Salamis above their tombs intone. But I, when old, in lengthening grief shall die, And then nailed down in narrow coffin lie, The earth's and tapers' cost, with priest's fee, paid; And yet, in many a dream my soul aspires To sink into the sun, even as the sires, Still ygung and wept by hero and by maid. See note p. 189. 136 NATURE AND DREAM THE VINTAGE X HE wearied vintagers their tasks resign With voices ringing in eve's tremulous air, And as the women toward the wine-press fare, They sing mid raillery and gesturing sign. All white with flying swans the skies now shine, As Naxos saw, with fume like censers bear, When at the orgies sat the Cretan where The Tamer reveled in the gladdening wine. But Dionysus, with his thyrsus bright, Who beasts and Gods made subject to his might, Girds the wreathed yoke on panther nevermore; Yet Autumn, daughter of the Sun, still twines In dark and golden tresses, as of yore, The sanguine leaves and branches of the vines. 137 NATURE AND DREAM SIESTA JN O sound of insect or marauding bee; All sleep in woods that droop beneath the sun, Whose light, through foliage strained, its way has won To emerald moss with bosom velvety. Piercing the dusky dome bright Noon roams free, And o'er my lashes half with sleep foredone Bids myriad glints and gleamings furtive run, That lace the shade with vermeil tracery. Toward fiery gauze the rays inweave now hies The fragile swarm of gorgeous butterflies, Mad with sap's perfume and the luminous beams; And tremulous fingers on each thread I set, As in gold meshes of this tenuous net, Hunter of harmonies, I prison my dreams. 138 THE SEA OF BRITTANY To Emmanuel Lansyer NATURE AND DREAM A PAINTER A! E knows the ancient, pensive race of dry And flinty Breton soil unvaried plain Of rose and gray, where yew and ivy reign O'er crumbling manors which beneath them lie. From wind-swept slopes of writhing beech his eye Has joyed to see mid autumn's boisterous train The red sun sink beneath the foamy main, His lips all salt with spray from reefs dashed high. He paints the ocean, splendorous, vast and sad, With cloud in amethystine beauty clad, In frothy emerald and calm sapphire ; He fixes fast the things which else would fly, And on his narrow canvas makes respire, In the sand's mirror, the occidental sky. 141 NATURE AND DREAM BRITTANY JL HAT joyous blood thy fretful mood may quell, Thy lungs should deeply drink the Atlantic air Perfumed with wrack the sea delights to bear. Arvor has capes the surge besprinkles well, And furze and heather all their glories tell. The demons', dwarfs' and clans' own land so fair, Friend, on the mountain's granite guard with care- Immobile man near thing immutable. Come. Everywhere on moors about Arez Mounts toward heaven cypress no hand can slay- The menhir's column raised above the Brave ; And Ocean, that beds with algae's golden store Voluptuous Is and mighty Occismor, Will soothe thy sadness with his cradling wave. See note p. 189. 142 NATURE AND DREAM A FLOWERY SEA vJ'ER pied plateau the wave-swept harvest flows, Rolls, undulates and breaks, with wind rocked high, While yon dark harrow, profiled on the sky, Seems like some vessel in the tempest's throes. With blue, cerulean, violet or rose, Or fleecy white from sheep the ebb makes fly, The sea, far as the West's empurpling dye, Like boundless meadow verdurously glows. The gulls, that watch the tide with eager care, On whirling wing with screams of joy fly where The ripened grain in golden billow lies; While from the land a breeze of sweets possessed Disperses o'er the ocean's flowery breast In winged rapture swarms of butterflies. See note p. 190. 143 NATURE AND DREAM SUNSET A HE blossomed furze gem of the granite's crest Gilds all the height the sun's last glories fill, And far below, with foam refulgent still, Unbounded spreads great ocean's heaving breast. Silence and Night are at my feet. The nest Is hushed; the smoking thatch folds man from ill; And but the Angelus, with melodious thrill, Lifts its calm voice amid the sea's unrest. Then, as from bottom of abyss, there rise From trails, ravines and moors the distant cries Of tardy herdsmen who their kine reclaim. In deepening shade the whole horizon lies, And the dying sun upon the rich, sad skies Shuts the gold branches of his fan of flame. 144 NATURE AND DREAM STAR OF THE SEA W ITH linen coifs, arms crossed on breast, and dight In thin percale, or in wool's coarse array, The kneeling women on the quay survey The Isle of Batz which looms all foamy white. Their fathers, husbands, lovers, sons, unite With Paimpol's, Audierne's, and Cancale's, away For the far North to sail. How many may, Of these bold fishers, see no more home's light! Above the noise of ocean and of shore The plaintive chant ascends as they implore The Holy Star sailor's last hope in ill; While the Angelus, each face in prayerful wise, From Roscoff 's lowers to those of Sybiril, In the pale, roseate heavens, floats, throbs, and dies. 145 NATURE AND DREAM THE BATH 1 HE man and beast, like antique monster, free, Reinless and nude, the sea have entered in Mid the gold mist of pungent pulverin Athletic group on sky's refulgency. The savage horse, and tamer rude as he, Breathe the brine's fragrance deep their lungs within, As mad with joy they feel upon their skin The Atlantic's billows beating icily. The surge swells, runs, wall-like is piled, Then breaks. They cry. His tail the stallion plies Until the wave in jets transplendent flies; And with disheveled locks and aspect wild Their smoking, heaving breasts they well oppose Against the foam-crowned breakers' lashing blows. 146 NATURE AND DREAM CELESTIAL BLAZON A ' VE seen upon the azure of the West The clouds all silvery, purple, coppery, make Great forms before the dazzled vision take The shape of blazon splendently impressed. An heraldic beast, for bearers or for crest, Alerion, leopard, unicorn or snake Huge captive ones whose chains a gust might break- Uprears its figure and outswells its breast. In those strange combats in the vast of space Of evil seraphs with the archangel race A heavenly Baron must have won this shield Michael or George, perchance; 'tis blazed, I ween, Like theirs who made Constantinople yield: The sun, a gold bezant, on sea of green. 147 NATURE AND DREAM ARMOR JT* OR guide to Raz a shepherd at Trogor, Haired like Evhage of old, took me in care ; And then we trod, breathing its spicy air, The Cymric land with golden broom grown o'er. The West grew red, and still we walked yet more, Till to my face the brine its breath did bear; When cried the man, stretching his long arm where The landscape lay beyond: Sell euz armor ! And o'er the heather's rose the ocean was seen, Which, splendent, monstrous, waters with the green Salt of its waves the cape's granitic breast; And then my heart, before the horizon's void, As evening's vasty shade drew toward the West, The rapture-thrill of space and winds enjoyed. See note p. 190. 148 NATURE AND DREAM A RISING SEA 1 HE sun a beacon seems with fixed, white light. From Raz far as Penmarch the coast's in fume, And only wind-blown gulls with ruffled plume Through the mad tempest whirl in aimless flight. With ceaseless roll and fierce, impetuous might The glaucous waves, beneath their mane of spume Dispersing clouds of mist to thunderous boom, The distant, streaming reefs with plumes bedight. And so the billows of my thought have course Spent hopes and dreams, regrets for wasted force, With nothing left but memory mocking me. Ocean has spoken in fraternal strain, For that same clamor which impels the sea Mounts to the Gods from man, eternal, vain. See note p. 190. 149 NATURE AND DREAM A SEA BREEZE JL HE winter has deflowered garden and heath; Nought lives; and on the rock's unchanging gray, Where the Atlantic's endless billows play, The Jast pistil to petal clings in death. Yet, what rare scents this sea breeze furnisheth I know not grateful, warm effluvia they That bid my heart to mad delight give way; Whence comes this strangely odoriferous breath? Ah, now I know! 'tis from the far-off West, Where the Antilles swoon in languorous rest Beneath the torrid occidental heat; And from this reef, by Cymric billows rolled, I've breathed, in winds my natal air made sweet, America's dear flowers I loved of old. 150 NATURE AND DREAM THE SHELL AN what cold seas, under what winters' reign, Who knows, or can know, nacreous, fragile Shell !- Hast thou mid current, wave and tidal swell, In hallows and abysses restless lain? To-day, beneath the sky, far from the main, Thou hast in golden sands thy bed made well ; But vain thy hope, for still within thy cell Despairing sounds great ocean's mournful strain. My soul a prison all sonorous lies, Where, as of old, complaining tears and sighs With sad refrain make clamor as in thee; So from the heart-depths She alone can fill, Dull, slow, unfeeling, yet eternal still, The far, tumultuous murmur moans in me. 151 NATURE AND DREAM THE BED VV HETHER with serge becurtained or brocade, Sad as a tomb or joyous as a nest, 'Tis there we mate, are born, lie peace-possessed, Child, spouse, old man, old woman, wife or maid. In glad or sad, with holy water sprayed Under black crucifix or branch that's blest, All there begins, all there meets final rest, From life's first light to death's eternal shade. Rude, humble and closed, or proud with canopy Whose gorgeous colors blaze triumphantly, Of cypress's, or oak's, or maple's mould, Blest he who sleeps, his cares all laid aside, In that paternal, massive bed of old, Where all his own were born and all have died. 152 NATURE AND DREAM THE EAGLE'S DEATH A.BOVE the sempiternal snow aspires The vast-winged eagle still to loftier air, That nearer to the sun, in blue more fair, He may refresh his sight's undaunted ires. He rises. Sparks in torrents he inspires. Still up, in proud, calm flight, he glories where The tempest draws fell lightnings to its lair ; Whereat his wings are smit by their fierce fires. With scream, and in the storm-cloud whirling, he, Sublimely tasting the flame's withering kiss, Deep plunges to the fulgurant abyss. Blest he who, thrilled by Fame or Liberty, In strength's full pride and dream's enrapturing bli Dies such heroic, dazzling death as this. 153 NATURE AND DREAM MORE BEYOND JVL AN has o'ercome the lion's burning zone, As that of venoms and of reptiles' bale, And vexed the ocean where the nautili sail The track which galleons blazoned as their own. But farther than Spitzbergen's breast of stone, Than whirlpools dire, or snows that never fail, The warm, free polar waves the isles assail Where flag of mariner has never flown. Depart! The insuperable ice I'll dare, For my stout spirit would no longer bear The fame that wreathes the Conquerors of Gold. I go, to mount the utmost promontory, And feel the sea, that silences enfold, Caress my pride with whispered hope of glory. 154 NATURE AND DREAM THE LIFE OF THE DEAD TO THE POET ARMAND SILVESTRE VvHEN over us the cross its shadow throws, Our frames enshrouded in the mould of night, Thou wilt reflower in the lily white, And from my flesh be born the ensanguined rose. And Death divine thy verse in music knows, With silence and oblivion to his flight, Will bear us, cradled in serene delight, Through charmed ways that strange new stars disclose. And mounting to the Sun our spirits twain, Absorbed and melted in his depths, will gain The tranquil raptures of unceasing fire ; While friend and poet, by Fame's pure chrism blest, Will find eternity of life where rest The immortal Shades made kindred by the Lyre. 155 NATURE AND DREAM TO THE TRAGEDIAN E. ROSSI AFTER A RECITATION FROM DANTE JL'VE seen thee, Rossi, robed in black, give fair Ophelia's tender heart thy rending blow, And, tiger mad with love and phrenzied woe, Read in the handkerchief thy soul's despair. Macbeth and Lear I've seen, and wept whene'er I saw thee, who lov'st old Italia so, Kiss Juliet in her nuptial tomb laid low; Yet once beyond all these I found thee dare. For mine the horror and the joy sublime Of then first listening to the triple rhyme Sound in thy golden voice its iron swell; And, lit by flames of the infernal shore, I saw and shuddered to my being's core The living Dante chant his song of Hell. 156 NATURE AND DREAM MICHELANGELO HAUNTED he was by torments tragical, When in the Sistine where no fete he knew, Lonely, his Sibyls and his Prophets grew, And his Last Judgment on the sombrous wall. He heard the tear-drops unremitting fall, Titan whose wish to highest summits flew, Where Country, Glory, Love, their failures rue; And deemed that dreams are false, that death wins all. And so, these Giants, bloodless, weary grown, These Slaves bound ever to the unyielding stone, How strangely twisted at his sovran will; While in the icy-hearted marbles where His great soul seethes, how runs with vibrant thrill The passion of a God imprisoned there. 157 NATURE AND DREAM ON A BROKEN MARBLE A WAS pious, O moss, to close those eyes of thine; For from this wasted wood has fled and gone The Virgin who the milk and wine poured on The earth to that fair name which marked the line. Viburnum, hops and ivy this divine Ruin enfold unknowing if 'twas Faun, Pan, Hermes or Silvanus; and upon Its scarred, maimed front their verdurous tendrils twine. See ! The slant ray, caressf ul as of old, In its flat face has set two orbs of gold; As though from lip the vines with laughter run ; And, magic spell, the breeze around it blown, The leaves, the wavering shadows, and the sun, Have made a living God of this wrecked stone. See note p. 191. 158 HEREDIA DEAD HEREDIA DEAD October 3, 1905 Vainly you'll call importunate and long On him to add fresh jewels to his store, For muse-beloved he dwells forevermore With all the crowned ones of his lofty song; And in the midst of that imperial throng, Now newly splendored by his sonnet-lore, Fame gently seats him, and delights to score Her beadroll with his name in letters strong: For though hefelinoijjassion's noblest ire_ Thai bears the uttered thought on wings of fire, Nor made his numbers all the vastness sweep, Yet he was Art's and drank of her desire, Until Imagination, true and deep, Burst into beauty on his flawless lyre. See note p, 192. NOTES NOTES NEMEA (page 9). The slaying of the Nemean Lion by Hercules is told by Theocritus in wonderfully graphic fashion in his twenty- fifth Idyl. In James Henry Hallard's translation of the Idyls into English will be found a rendering of this Idyl in the hexameters of the original. Andrew Lang has ren- dered the Idyls into English prose. CENTAURS AND LAPITH^ (page 13). The combat compacted into this sonnet is related in Book XII of Ovid's Metamorphoses and has been rendered into English blank verse by Henry King. THE AWAKENING OF A GOD (page 30). Mysterious Spouse by whom the myrrh's bedewed. Adonis "was said to have been born from a myrrh-tree, the bark of which bursting, after a ten months' gesta- tion, allowed the lovely infant to come forth. According to some, a boar rent the bark with his tusk and so opened a passage for the babe." Frazer's "Golden Bough," p. 281. Of the annual celebration by the Syrians and other peoples of the death and resurrection of Adonis, see Frazer's book as above, pp. 276-296. THE MAGICIAN (page 31). The late Dr. Jacob Cooper, of Rutgers College, New Jersey, pointed out to me (using now his words) the following: "In an unknown Greek author, believed to be Aelian, and quoted in defining a word by Suidas in his Greek 165 NOTES Lexicon in Greek we have an account of a young woman who was betrothed, under the most solemn cir- cumstances, in the presence and by the authority of the Divinity of the Cabiri. (Betrothals were a part of the duties of these mysterious Divinities, as is shown by a well-known case, viz., of Olympias and Philip, the parents of Alexander the Great.) This damsel, after the solemn betrothal, was deserted by her affianced husband. She, then, as I quote from Suidas's Lexicon, translating the passage : 'Beseeches the Cabiri to avenge her, and follow up (i. e., to pursue to destruction) the perjurer. This is un- doubtedly the love-lorn damsel who is the "Magicienne" of your French poet.' "The Eumolpidai were a priestly family, deriving their origin from a Pelasgian Thracian named Eumolpus the one with a good voice or melody. They were clothed with long, purple robes which they shook against the threshold of those they cursed. This was a significant action among all ancient peoples vide Nehemiah, Chap. V, v. 13 and is so among orientals to this day." MARSYAS (page 33). Thy natal pines that raptured heard thy strains Burnt not thy flesh, O thou to woes decreed! Thy bones are shattered, and thy blood-drops feed The Hood the Phrygian Mount pours toward the plains. That is, not only did Marsyas not have his funeral pyre made of the wood furnished by the pines that saw his birth, and under whose branches he had fluted, but his body was so treated as to frustrate any attempt at sepul- 166 NOTES I ture of it. Nothing seems to have been more abhorrent to the Greek mind than the thought of the non-burial, without appropriate rites, of the human body or of its ashes. And this thought was so predominant as to impel the Greeks to inter even the bodies of their enemies slain in battle. Jebbs says, in the Introduction to his translation of the Antigone of Sophocles, that "The Spartan Lysander omitted to bury the Athenians who fell at ^Egospotami; and that omission was remembered centuries later, as an indelible stigma upon his name." And so it was, that the Athenian Generals who had so decisively defeated the Spartans in the great naval battle of the Arginusae, were treated with ignominy by their own countrymen because of their not having taken extraor- dinary pains to recover the bodies of their slain for the purpose of interment. The notion seems to have been, that in the absence of appropriate burial, the shade of the dead one could not enter Hades, but was forced to wan- der disconsolately about the earth. But it was not, per- haps, so much for the ease of the wandering shade that the kinsfolk were moved to take due care of the dead body; for unless the shade were safely housed in Hades, it was in a position in its lonely wanderings to do harm, and would be inclined to do such harm, to those who had neglected to see that it was properly cared for. REGILLA (page 53). In the Blest Isles with him who rules austere For an original and interesting treatment of an antique theme, see Edmund Gosse's beautiful and melodious poem, "The Island of the Blest," in his volume entitled "Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems." Homer, in the 167 NOTES fourth book of The Odyssey, puts Rhadamanthus in the Elysian Fields. The passage is thus rendered by William Morris: "But, Zeus-cherished Menelaus, to thee it shall not come In the horse-kind land of Argos to meet thy death and doom. But unto the fields Elysian and the wide world's utmost end, Where dwells tawny Rhadamanthus, the Deathless thee shall send, Wherein are the softest life-days that men may ever gain; No snow and no ill weather, nor any drift of rain; But Ocean ever wafteth the wind of the shrilly west, On menfolk ever breathing, to give them might and rest; Because thou hast wedded Helen, and God's son art said to be." Pindar, on the other hand, in his second Olympian Ode, puts Rhadamanthus in the Islands of the Blest. The fol- lowing is the passage as rendered in prose form by Ernest Myers: "Then whosoever have been of good courage to the abiding steadfast thrice on either side of death and have refrained their souls from all iniquity, travel the road of Zeus unto the tower of Kronos: there round the islands of the blest the Ocean-breezes blow, and golden flowers are glowing, some from the land on trees of splendour, and some the water feedeth, with wreaths whereof they entwine their hands: so ordereth Rhadamanthus' just de- cree, whom at his own right hand hath ever the father Kronos, husband of Rhea, throned above all worlds." Hesiod, in his Works and Days, treats of the Isles of 168 NOTES the Blest in the following beautiful passage which is here given in the translation of the Rev. J. Banks: "But when earth had covered this race also, again Jove, son of Cronus, wrought yet another, a fourth, on the many-nourishing ground, more just and more worthy, a Godlike race of hero-men, who are called by the former age demi-gods over the boundless earth. And these, baneful war, as well as the dire battle-din, destroyed, a part fighting before seven-gated Thebes, in the Cadmean land, for the flocks of CEdipus, and part also in ships be- yond the vast depths of the sea, when it had led them to Troy for fair-haired Helen's sake. There indeed the end of death enshrouded them; but to them Jove, the son of Cronus, their sire, having given life and settlements apart from men, made them to dwell at the confines of earth, apart from the immortals. Among these Cronus rules. And they indeed dwell with careless spirit in the Isles of the Blest, beside deep-eddying Ocean; blest heroes, for whom thrice in a year doth the fertile soil bear blooming fruits as sweet as honey." As to whether the ancient Greeks conceived the Elysian Fields and the Islands Cor Island) of the Blest as being one and the same region under differing names, or as separate and distinct regions, or conceived the Elysian Fields as being in the Blest Isles, and so a part of them, is perhaps not easy to make out with any degree of certainty. THE CHARIOTEER (page 55). This Libyan bold dear to the Emperor's soul. The word in the original here translated Emperor is Autocrator. Under the Eastern Empire, as Bury points 169 NOTES out in his "History of the Later Roman Empire," Auto- crator got to be used as an official title of the Emperor. The second tercet of this sonnet is as follows in the original: Et tu vas voir, si 1'ceil d'un mortel puet suffire A cette apotheose ou fuit un char de feu, La Victoire voler pour rejoindre Porphyre. A stranger, who is present at the games, and who is evidently seeking information as to the names, etc., of the contestants, runs across an adherent of the Blue fac- tion of the circus, who is willing to gratify him, and who thereupon points out to him a great charioteer of that faction in the person of the son of Calchas, who is an illustrious Libyan and a favorite of the Emperor. While he is talking the race begins, but he still makes running comments, and at its close enthusiastically joins in the acclaim to the victor. Then in the language of extrava- gance, carried away by the exaltation of the moment, and being perhaps something of a poet, he exclaims to -the stranger that if mortal eye can suffice for the blaze of so much glory he may see the goddess Victory in her car of fire again crowning Porphyry the son of Calchas as she doubtless had done more than once before. The scene might very well be laid at Constantinople during the reign of Justinian, who was not only a patron of the Blues, but was a frequent attendant on the games of the circus. Indeed, as we learn from Gibbon, the factions of the cir- cus never before had raged as they did during his reign. 170 NOTES FOR VIRGIL'S SHIP (page 59). Thus Horace (excerpt from Ode III, Book I): Sic te diva potens Cypri, Sic fratres Helens, lucida sidera, Ventorumque regat pater, Obstrictis aliis prjeter lapyga, Navis, quae tibi creditum Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis Reddas incolumem, precor, Et serves animae dimidium meae. This is beautifully rendered by Lord Lytton as follows: So may the goddess who rules over Cyprus, So may the brothers of Helen, bright stars, So may the Father of Winds, while he fetters All, save lapyx, the Breeze of the West, Speed thee, O Ship, as I pray thee to render Virgil, a debt duly lent to thy charge, Whole and intact on the Attican borders, Faithfully guarding the half of my soul. Sargent renders the passage as follows: So may thy course the queen of Cyprus guide, So Helena's twin brethren light thy sails, And ^Eolus restrain all winds beside The North-west sweeping in propitious gales; That thou, O Ship, I earnestly implore, Mayst guard the precious freightage in thy care And through the billows to the Attic shore, Virgil, my soul's own half, in safety bear! 171 NOTES It is interesting to compare with these the inferior version of Gladstone: So may the queen of Cyprian heights, So Helen's brethren, starry lights, So speed thy course the Lord of wind, And all, save Zephyr, fastly bind: O Ship, thou hast a debt to pay Our Virgil: hold him well I pray, Unharmed to Attic bounds consign, And save that life, the half of mine! TO SEXTIUS (page 62). Clear skies; the sands the boat has glided o'er; Horace's Ode (Ode IV of Book I), which furnishes the basis for this sonnet, reads thus: "Trahuntque siccas machinae carinas" literally, And the machines [or en- gines] draw the dry keels [or boats]. That is, the vessels, which, during the winter, have been hauled upon the shore for safety, are, now that spring has come, drawn into the water. GOD OF THE GARDENS V (page 69). In the fore-court the wax ancestors grace I should grow old, and on their virile day The children round my neck their bullce place. The God, after lamenting his sad state and the fact that he is not treated with the same consideration as the Household Gods, ventures to suggest, that if he had his 172 NOTES deserts he would be placed in the vestibule near the wax ancestors, where, as he grew old, the youths would devote their bullae to him on their assumption at puberty of the toga virilis. The vestibulum of the Roman house was, as is shown in Becker's Callus, essentially a fore-court, and no part of the house proper. It was ornamented in various ways. It is related by Suetonius that in the vestibule of Nero's great house there was a colossal image of himself. The Romans preserved the features of their ancestors in masks of wax, which they hung on the walls as we do family portraits. The wax was sometimes colored and the eyes represented by glass. We read that under the mask, in the old patrician families, were inscriptions indicating the name, the dignities and the great deeds of the de- ceased; and these portrait masks were connected in such a way as to indicate the genealogy of the family. This is illustrated as follows in the opening lines of Juvenal's eighth Satire. The translation is that of Gifford: "Your ancient house!" no more. I cannot see The wondrous merits of a pedigree: No, Ponticus; nor of a proud display Of smoky ancestors, in wax or clay; ^Emilius, mounted on his car sublime, Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time, Corvinus, dwindled to a shapeless bust, And high-born Galba, crumbling into dust. What boots it, on the lineal tree to trace Through many a branch, the founders of our race, Time-honored chiefs; if, in their sight, we give A loose to vice, and like low villains live? 173 NOTES Say, what avails it, that, on either hand, The stern Numantii, an illustrious band, Frown from the walls, if their degenerate race Waste the long night at dice, before their face? Fond man! though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine In proud display; yet take this truth from me, Virtue alone is true nobility. Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view, The bright example of their lives pursue; Let these precede the statues of your race, And these, when Consul, of your rods take place. TEPIDARIUM (page 70). And the pale daughters of Ausonia see Ausonia was a name given by some of the poets to ancient Italy. See the seventh TRANQUILLUS (page 71). And here with pointed stylus he has told, Scratched in the unpitying wax, of him who tried In Capri all that's foul when he was old. It is scarcely credible that Tiberius could have led the life in Capri described with such disgusting detail in the pages of Suetonius. 174 NOTES LUPERCUS (page 72). Martial's Epigram in the original is as follows: IN LUPERCUM Occurris quoties, Luperce, nobis, Vis mittam puerum, subinde dicis, Cui tradas Epigrammaton libellum, Lectum quern tibi protinus remittam? Non est, quod puerum, Luperce, vexes Longum est, si velit ad Pyrum venire. Et scalis habito tribus, sed altis. Quod quaeris, propius petas licebit: Argi nempe soles subire letum. Contra Caesaris est forum taberna, Scriptis postibus hinc et inde totis, Omnes ut cito perlegas Poetas. Illinc me pete; ne roges Atrectum: Hoc nomen dominus gerit taberns De primo dabit, alterove nido, Rasum pumice, purpuraque, cultum, Denariis tibi quinque Martialem. Tanti non es, ais? sapis, Luperce. The following translation may be ventured on. TO LUPERCUS When meeting me, how oft have you, Lupercus, Asked, may I not my servant send unto thee, To fetch that little book where brightly sparkle Thy wondrous Epigrams the very latest, Which, when I've read, I shall at once return thee?- 175 NOTES But thus the boy you should not wish to harass; For long, in truth, he'll find the road to Pyrum,* And at my house three flights of steepy stairway. Why go so far when near is all you wish for: Of course you enter oft the Argiletum.* Where, facing Caesar's Forum, is a bookshop, Whose posts are so becovered o'er with titles, One may the poets quickly well examine. There you should seek me; you may ask Atrectus; His name's displayed full plainly as the owner. From his first shelf or mayhap from some other, With pumice smoothed and richly clothed in purple, For five denarii he'll give you Martial. Too much, you say? All wise are you, Lupercus. AFTER CANN^: (page 74). The one-eyed Chieftain to their anxious -view. Intermediate the battle of the Trebia and that of Cannae Hannibal lost an eye as the result of an ophthalmia. THE CYDNUS (page 79). The dusky Lagian opes, in that charmed air, Lagus (a Macedonian) was the founder of the dynasty to which Cleopatra belonged. Hence "la brune Lagide" of the original. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, was the first of the so-called Macedonian Kings of Egypt. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (page 81). Only unbounded seas where galleys fly. Alluding, of course, to the flight of Cleopatra's galleys at the battle of Actium. *Pyrum was the region of Rome in which Martial lived, and Argiletum was a region famous for bookshops. 176 NOTES EPIGRAPHIC SONNETS (pages 85, 86, 87, 88 and 89). The Roman cippus was used, among other things, for memorial inscriptions, as is illustrated in the headings to the sonnets on pages 85, 86, 87, 88 and 89. The "V. S. L. M." in three of these headings are the initial letters of the words, votum solvit libens merito meaning that the vow [to erect the cippus] is gladly and deservedly ful- filled. These cippi were from the plainest to the most ornate in character. A MEDAL (page 96). Of all the tyrants whom a people hate, Count, Duke or Marquis, Prince or Princeling e'en, Galeas, Hercules, Can or Ezzelin, None can the haughty Malatesta mate. Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan (the Galeas of the text), was born in 1444 and died by assassination in 1476. There were three sovereigns of the House of Este bear- ing the name of Hercules, one of whom was Duke of Modena in the eighteenth century. The two others were: Hercules I, Duke of Ferrara and Modena, who began his reign in 1471 and died in 1505; and Hercules II, Duke of Ferrara and Modena, who was born in 1508, and died in 1559, and whose mother was the celebrated Lucrezia Borgia. There were three Cans who were sovereigns of Verona, their names being Can-Grande della Scala. The one 177 NOTES mentioned in the text is doubtless the second one, of whom we read in Larousse that he was assassinated at Verona in 1359 by his brother Can-Signore, leaving be- hind him the memory of a rapacious and cruel tyrant. The most noted and best of them was the first one, who is familiarly known to us as Can-Grande, the friend of Dante. He sheltered the poet in his palace during a part of the time of his exile, and Dante gave him, on its completion, a copy of the Paradiso. In fact, it is thought there are several commendatory references to him in the Divine Comedy. It seems that an estrangement subse- quently grew up between them. This Can-Grande was the Imperial Vicar, and was not only a great military leader, but a patron as well of letters and of the arts. He was born in 1291 and died in 1329, after a rule in Verona of nearly twenty years. Ezzelino III is the Ezzelin mentioned in the text. He was known as the tyrant of Padua. He was born in 1194 and died in 1259. Plumptre, in one of his foot-notes to his translation of the twelfth Canto of Dante's Inferno, speaks of this Ezzelin as follows: "Of all the tyrants of that evil time, Ezzelin, known in popular legend as the Child of the Devil, was the most steeped in cruelties. Sismondi shrinks from telling the tale of his rapacity, his massacres, his fiendish tortures of his enemies. And his death was the fit close of such a life. Wounded and taken captive on his way to attack Milan, he was imprisoned at Soriano, refused all food and medical aid, sat for eleven days in gloomy silence, tore the bandages from his wound, and died." Dante puts him in the Seventh Circle of Hell with some other tyrants. 178 NOTES On this Ezzelin, Eugene Lee-Hamilton has the follow- ing remarkable sonnet, to be found in his book of "Imaginary Sonnets": EZZELIN TO LUCIFER (1250) The wolves were yelping round the castle tower; The witches croaked a baleful bridal hymn; The marsh lights danced all round the black moat's rim, Where swam the moonlit snakes at spellful hour; Like a hot whirlwind to my mother's bower, Then, Fiend, thou earnest scorching breast and limb With sulph'rous kisses, till the stars grew dim And hungry Day did the thin moon devour. O Lucifer, O Father, have I done Enough in thy dread service? Art thou pleased, O pain-inflictor, with thy Paduan son? Have I not turned my cities into hells? Foreburnt thy damned, innumerably teased Men's feet with fire, and filled the world with yells? The Malatestas, Lords of Rimini and of great part of the Romagna, began their career as sovereigns in the latter part of the thirteenth century and ended it in the early part of the sixteenth. THE BEAUTIFUL VIOLE (page 100). The original, from which the poet has taken for motto the first three lines, is as follows: 179 NOTES D'UN VANNEUR DE BLE AUX VENTS A vous trouppe legere Qui d'aile passagere Par le monde volez, Et d'un sifflant murmure L'ombrageuse verdure Doulcement esbranlez, J'offre ces violettes Ces Us & ces fleurettes, Et ces roses icy, Ces vermeillettes roses Sont freschement ecloses, Et ces ceillets aussi. De vostre doulce haleine Eventez ceste plaine Eventez ce sejour; Ce pendant que j'ahanne A mon ble que je vanne A la chaleur du jour. This may be translated as follows: FROM A WINNOWER OF GRAIN TO THE WINDS Nimble troop, to you That on light pinion through The world forever pass, And with a murmuring sweet Where shade and verdure meet Toss gently leaf and grass, 180 NOTES I give these violets, Lilies and flowerets, And roses here that blow; All these red-blushing roses Whose freshness now uncloses, And these rich pinks also. With your soft breath now deign To fan the spreading plain, And fan, too, this retreat, Whilst I with toil and strain Winnow my golden grain In the day's scorching heat. Andrew Lang's beautiful version as taken from his 'Ballads and Lyrics of Old France" (1872), is as follows: HYMN TO THE WINDS The winds are invoked by the Winnowers of Corn Du Bellay, 1550. To you, troop so fleet, That with winged wandering feet, Through the wide world pass,. And with soft murmuring Toss the green shades of spring In woods and grass, Lily and violet I give, and blossoms wet, Roses and dew; 181 NOTES This branch of blushing roses, Whose fresh bud uncloses, Wind-flowers too. Ah, winnow with sweet breath, Winnow the holt and heath Round this retreat; Where all the golden morn We fan the gold o' the corn, In the sun's heat. We are told that the poet accompanied his relative Cardinal Du Bellay to Rome in 1552, where he remained for nearly five years. Among his poems is a series of sonnets addressed to one Mademoiselle de Viole. THE CONQUERORS (page 113). Cipango's mines in rich perfection bear, "Zipangu is a very large island on the east, and fifteen hundred miles distant from the shores of Mangi. The people of the island are of a white complexion and of gentle manners, and have a king of their own. They have gold in plenty, as few merchants resort thither, and no gold is allowed to be exported. Such as have traded to this island speak of the King's palace as being covered over with gold as our churches are with lead, and that the windows and floors are likewise of gold. It abounds in gold and is amazingly rich." Travels of Marco Polo. Marco Polo does not pretend that he saw these things. Indeed, he says, "But I will now leave Zipangu, be- cause I never was there, as it is not subject to the Khan." What he describes as having seen with his own 182 NOTES eyes is now deemed to be veracious. Zipangu or Cipango is doubtless the modern Japan. THE ANCESTOR (page 117). Evidently descriptive of a portrait in enamel of the poet's ancestor by Claudius Popelin. The sonnet on page 107 celebrates Popelin's work in that field of art. The sonnets on pages 118 and 119 are in honor of this same ancestor the founder of Cartagena. Sierras, Terra Firma, Islands fair; At this time the whole of South America was known by the name of Terra Firma. TO A DEAD CITY (page 120). Since Drake's fell heretics' rapacious raid Thy lonely walls have mouldered in decay, And, like some collar gloomed by pearls of gray, Show gaping holes by Pointis' cannon made. Drake captured Cartagena by assault in the latter part of the year 1585, Gates, of Drake's party, telling us that "in this furious entree the Lieutenant-General slue with his owne hands the chief ensigne-bearer of the Spaniards, who fought very manfully to his life's end." The Eng- lish kept possession of the place for six weeks, and then surrendered it on payment of a ransom of one hundred and ten thousand ducats, to which was added a thousand crowns for the surrender of the priory or abbey situated a short distance from the city. Cates deemed this ran- som sufficient, "inasmuch as," among other reasons, "we have taken our full pleasure, both in the uttermost sack- 183 NOTES ing and spoiling of all their household goods and mer- chandise, as also in that we have consumed and ruined a great part of their town with fire." Barrow's Life of Drake, pp. 199-203. Jean-Bernard Pointis, Baron de Desjeans, who was born in 1645 and died in 1707, was a distinguished naval officer of France. He had command of the expedition against Cartagena in 1697. He carried the city and was wounded in the attack upon it. VISION OF KHEM II (page 124). Behind the Bari, which the priests convey, Of Ammon-Ra, the sun's almighty head; The Bari was a sacred boat in which the priests bore the image of a God or Gods. If on land, the boat was generally borne on the shoulders of the bearers. In the present instance the Bari, with the image of the God Ammon-Ra seated in it, is conveyed by the priests at the head of the imaginary procession. "Ammon was the great God of Thebes, the southern Egyptian capital. According to Manetho, his name signi- fied 'concealment' or 'that which is concealed'; and this meaning is confirmed both by the fact, which is now cer- tain, that the root anon, in the hieroglyphics has the signification 'to veil,' 'to hide,' and also by statements in the religious poems of the Egyptians. We may there- fore safely adopt the view of Plutarch, that the original notion of Ammon was that of a concealed or secret god, one who hid himself and whom it was difficult to find; or, in other words, that the mysterious and inscrutable nature 184 NOTES of the Deity was the predominant idea in the minds of those who first worshipped God under this name. * Originally Ammon was quite distinct from Ra, 'the Sun,' no two ideas being more absolutely opposed than those of 'a concealed god' and of the great manifestation of Divine power and great illuminator of all things on earth, the solar luminary. But from the time of the eighteenth dynasty a union of the two Divinities took place, and Ammon was worshipped thenceforth almost exclusively as Ammon-Ra, and was depicted with the solar orb on his head." R awlin son's Ancient Egypt. This god became the head of the Egyptian pantheon, so that finally he was to the Egyptian what Zeus was to the Greek and Jupiter to the Roman. Oscar Wilde, in his finely imaginative poem, "The Sphinx," sings thus of the God Ammon: With Syrian oils his brows were bright: and widespread as a tent at noon His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a larger light. His long hair was nine cubits' span and coloured like that yellow gem Which hidden in their garment's hem the merchants bring from Kurdistan. His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new- made wine: The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his eyes. His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veins of blue: 185 NOTES And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his flowing silk. On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright to look upon: For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean emerald, That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Colchian caves Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to the Colchian witch. Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine - wreathed corybants, And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot, And lines of swarthy Nubians bore up his litter as he rode Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding peacock-fans. The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their painted ships: The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite. The merchants brought him cedar-chests of rich apparel bound with cords: His train was borne by Memphian lords : young kings were glad to be his guests. - Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon's altar day and night, Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon's carven house and now 186 NOTES Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone to stone, For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith ! Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the mouldering gates: Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted drums. And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of Horus sits And gibbers while the figtree splits the pillars of the peristyle. THE SAMURAI (page 128). This was a man with two swords. A fully equipped Samurai had two swords a long one with which to do his fighting, and a short one for the hara-kiri. THE DAIMIO (page 129). Where burns its satin with a crimson sun. The flag of Japan is white, with a large crimson disk in the centre. THE CENTURY FLOWER (page 131). Herexlia, in this sonnet, has chosen to follow the erroneous notion, held by many, of the Century Plant not blooming until it has lived for a hundred years; and likewise, as is not unusual, he has confused the Agave 187 NOTES with the Aloe. In fact, some of our dictionaries call the Agave the American Aloe. On this subject Miss Alice Eastwood, of the California Academy of Sciences, has been kind enough to write me as follows: "The Aloe of Belles Lettres, like the deadly Upas Tree, exists only in the imagination of the poets. It seems to be a combination of Agave or Century Plant, the Aloe, and probably a species of Cactus. "The confusion arises undoubtedly from the similarity in manner of growth of the Agave and the Aloe. Both have thick, large, stiff-p'ointed leaves in a rosette at the surface of the ground from which the flowering stem arises. The Agave blooms generally in from ten to fifteen years. The flowering stalk at first resembles an immense green asparagus. It rapidly grows and soon reaches a height of from ten to twenty feet. It branches like a huge candelabrum, and the greenish flowers consist chiefly of the organs of reproduction. It belongs to the Amaryllis family. The Aloe sends up a comparatively slender stem, often curving gracefully, sometimes branching, and bear- ing numerous red, yellow or orange flowers in a spike or raceme, or sometimes densely clustered at the ends of branchlets. The flowers are tubular and about an inch long, usually pendent. It blooms often and belongs to the Lily family. "Lowell, in 'A Fable for Critics,' alludes to the same superstition in the part beginning: 'Here comes Philothea,' etc." Nor does the Century Plant bear a single flower, and 188 NOTES that a scarlet one; on the contrary, it bears quite a num- ber (I have counted as many as twenty), arranged in the fashion of a candelabrum and green in color, as pointed out by Miss Eastwood. The Century Plant, with its candelabrum of green blooms, is not an altogether un- familiar object in the gardens of California. The truth is, Heredia has treated, in this instance, for poetic purposes, one of the myths of the vegetable world, just as he has treated other myths in such wonderful manner in his other sonnets. And the poem is, indeed, beautiful, particularly in view of its suggested thought the non-realization of our year-long hopes and dreams. THE FUNERAL (page 136). To Phocis' lustrous fanes as Pytho there, Rock-bound and lightning-girdled, ruled alone. Pytho was the ancient name of Delphi, the capital of Phocis. Hence the priestess who delivered the oracular responses at Delphi was called Pythia, and hence the games that were held near Delphi were called the Pythian games. The monuments at Delphi got to be of great magnificence. It is said that Nero took as many as seventy-five thousand statues from there to Rome. BRITTANY (page 142). Voluptuous Is and mighty Occismor. Is and Occismor were two old cities of Brittany which were destroyed by extraordinary tidal waves near the middle of the fifth century. 189 NOTES A FLOWERY SEA (page 143). The inundation which seems to have furnished the sub- ject of this sonnet may have been produced by a tidal wave of some such character as that which destroyed in old time the cities of Is and Occismor. In 1904, on the second of February, a tidal wave swept the coast of Pen- march, mentioned in the sonnet on page 149. One-third of the commune of Penmarch was submerged, and an immense amount of damage done. ARMOR (page 148). "Sell euz ar-mor." This is in the Armoric dialect, and literally translated is, We have sight upon the sea; or, as we might say in English, Behold the sea! Armor is from ar, upon; and mor, sea hence Armorica. A RISING SEA (page 149). Larousse, in his Universal Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century, says of the coast of Raz (mentioned in several of the sonnets): "La cote du Raz est extremement dan- gereuse, herissee d'ecueils longtemps funestes aux marins, jusqu'a 1'etablissement d'un phare construit il y a quelques annees a cote d'un menhir. Le detroit (raz en breton) qui separe le cap de 1'ile de Sein est d'une traversee extremement penible, a cause d'un violent courant qui se porte entre le cap et 1'ile de Sein. De la 1'adage breton dont voici la traduction litterale: Jamais homme n'a passe le Raz sans avoir peur ott mal. 190 NOTES "C'est au moment d'une tempete qu'il faut visiter le bee du Raz," dit M. Pol de Courcy. "Quoique eleve de 72 metres au-dessus de la mer, le promontoire semble a chaque instant pret a s'engloutir sous les vagues; une ecume salee vous couvre, et des rugissements horribles dans les fcavernes des rochers etourdissent a donner le vertige." (The coast of Raz is extremely dangerous, as it bristles with reefs which for a long time were fatal to mariners until the establishment of a lighthouse constructed some years ago near a menhir. The strait (raz in the Breton) which separates the cape from the isle of Sein is very difficult in the passage by reason of a violent current which runs between the cape and the isle of Sein. There is a Breton adage of which the following is a literal translation: No man ever passed Raz without feeling fear or suffering harm. "It is at the time of tempest when one should visit the beak of Raz," says M. Pol de Courcy. "Although at an elevation of some 72 metres above the sea, it seems as though at each moment the promontory might be engulfed in the waves; a salted foam covers you, and the horrible roarings in the caverns of the rocks are so deafening as to make one dizzy.") ON A BROKEN MARBLE (page 158). The Sonnets of the Trophies, which begin with "Obli- ion," very appropriately close with "On a Broken Marble" the statue of the God Terminus in a state of wreck. 191 NOTES HEREDIA DEAD (page 161). Jose-Maria de Heredia was born on the 22d day of November, 1842, on a coffee plantation (La Fortuna) in the Sierra Madre Mountains, near Santiago de Cuba, and died on the 3d day of October, 1905, at the Chateau de Bourdonne, in Seine-et-Oise, France. His ancestry on the father's side is traceable to one of those daring Spanish Dons that made such famous and terrible history in the sixteenth century his ancestor having been one of the founders of Cartagena. This is made brilliantly lustrous in the eight sonnets constituting the Conquerors' series of his Trophies. His mother was a Frenchwoman, and at eight years of age he went to France for his education, which, having been partly achieved, he returned to Cuba for study at the University of Havana; but he subsequently returned to France for his permanent home, his residence having been taken up at Paris, where, in 1897, he was made librarian of the Arsenal Library. As Edmund Gosse well says, he was no more Spanish than was Rossetti Italian. < His first verses were published in 1862, and from time to time there were publications of his in the Revue des deux Mondes, and other periodicals; but it was not until 1893 that his Trophies burst upon the world of letters in all the aggregation of their perfection and splendor. At the first vacancy after this publication he was elected to the Academy, he having defeated Zola for that honor; nor has any challenge ever been made of the entire fitness of his selection, though the work which 192 NOTES prompted it consisted of but one hundred and eighteen sonnets. His three daughters married three men of letters, M. Henri de Regnier, M. Pierre Louys and M. Maurice Maindron; and at least one of these daughters (Mme. de Regnier) has written poems and novels of great merit. 193 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. NOV101986 52 RECEIVED MOV 10 '66 -3PM M^AN DJSHk MftYl619W65 RECEIVED Qfp i VCQ ti /iu acr i j &y -J2 MM v\if\\H -\ 1A7JI O fl .n' i ;v ^ 1974 J ^ 'ccf*'* 1 * T T\ 01 A en <7 e General Library I iG442TriOH T 7 6 B Uni ' e ' s g r k f cl C e f fo " ia 271436 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY I