I 
 
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A 
 
 
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THE POETICAL WORKS 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 k 
 
THE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
 The printed List of Subscribers is withheld at present, that 
 it may be published in a more perfect state in the course of 
 Januauy. All names sent to Mr. Moxon's before the First 
 of that month will be included, and the List will bo forwarded 
 to the Subscribers on a sheet uniform with the volume. 
 
 Xoir.MnFR '11 th, 1832. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND-STREET. 
 
 MD( f CXXXI 
 
A bough, thin hung with leaves, is all my tree; ^ 
 
 And I look forth, 'twixt hope and fear, to see, f- 
 
 Whether the winter starve or spare it me. -^ 
 RniK dell' Ariosto 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 I INTENDED to write a very short preface to the 
 volume here submitted to the public indulgence ; but 
 finding the small number of pages to which it 
 amounted, compared with the price put upon it in 
 the advertisement, I wished to do what I could 
 towards bringing it to a becoming size. To add 
 verses which I had rejected, would have been an 
 injustice both to the readers and myself. It was 
 suggested to me that a ** good gossiping preface" 
 would not be ill received ; and I therefore write one 
 in the true spirit of that word, leaving it to their 
 good nature to interpret it accordingly. 
 
 I am so aware that the world is rich in books of all 
 sorts, and that its attention, beyond the moment, is 
 not to be looked for by voluminous writers, except 
 
 iv:2G2454 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 those of the first order, that I have done my best to 
 render my verses as little unworthy of re-perusal, as 
 correction and omission could make them. I have 
 availed myself of the criticism both of friends and ene- 
 mies ; and have been so willing to construe in my dis- 
 favour any doubts which arose in my own mind, that the 
 volume does not contain above a third of the verses 
 I have written. I took for granted, that an author's 
 self-love is pretty sure not to be too hard upon him, 
 and adopted the principle of making the doubt itself a 
 sentence of condemnation. Upon this I have acted in 
 every instance, with the exception of the Fragmeiits 
 upon the Nymphs, the Sonnet on the Nile, and the 
 passages out of the Bacchus m Tuscany. The frag- 
 ments, and the sonnet, a partial friend induced me not 
 to discard : otherwise, with a doubt perhaps in favour 
 of the second and eighth lines of the sonnet, I felt that 
 they did not possess enough of the subtler and remoter 
 spirit of poetry, demanded by the titles. Of the Bac- 
 chus I retained a few specimens, partly for the sake of 
 old associations, and of the tune echoed into it from 
 the Italian ; but chiefly in consequence of discovering 
 that it had found favour in unexpected quarters. 
 
 If it be asked, why I have not been as scrupulous 
 with the whole volume, or whether I look upon the 
 
TKEFACE. Vll 
 
 rest of it as being free from objection, I answer, that I 
 only believe it to be as good as it was in the writer's 
 power to make it. What tliat power may be, if any, is 
 another matter. At all events, I cannot accuse myself 
 of taking no pains to satisfy my own judgment, or to 
 bespeak the reader's good wishes. I have not shovelled 
 my verses out by cart-loads, leaving the public, much 
 less another generation, to save me the trouble of 
 selection! I do not believe that other generations 
 will take the trouble to rake for jewels in much 
 nobler dust than mine. Posterity is too rich and idle. 
 The only hope I can have of coming into any one's 
 hands, and exciting his attention beyond the moment, 
 is by putting my workmanship, such as it is, into its 
 best and compactest state. 
 
 The truth is, I have such a reverence for poetry, 
 pre-eminently so called, (by which I mean that which 
 posterity and the greatest poets agree to call such), 
 that I should not dare to apply the term to anything 
 written by me in verse, were I not fortunate enough to 
 be of opinion, that poetry, like the trees and flowers, 
 is not of one class only ; but that if the plant comes 
 out of Natures hands, and not the gauze-maker's, it is 
 still a plant, and has ground for it. All houses are not 
 palaces, nor every shrine a cathedral. In domo patn's 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 mei (not to speak it profanely) 7ncmsiones muLtcs 
 sunt. 
 
 Poetry, in its highest sense, belongs exclusively to 
 such men as Shakspeare, Spenser, and others, who 
 possessed the deepest insight into the spirit and sym- 
 pathies of all things ; but poetry, in the most compre- 
 hensive application of the term, I take to be the flower 
 of any kind of experience, rooted in truth, and issuing 
 forth into beauty. All that the critic has a right to 
 demand of it, according to its degree, is, that it should 
 spring out of a real impulse, be consistent in its parts, 
 and shaped into some characteristic harmony of verse. 
 Without these requisites, (apart from fleeting and 
 artificial causes,) the world will scarcely look at any 
 poetical production a second time ; whereas, if it pos- 
 sess them, the humblest poetry stands a chance of 
 surviving not only whatever is falsely so called, but 
 much that contains, here and there, more poetical 
 passages than itself; passages that are the fits and 
 starts of a fancy without judgment, — the incoherences 
 of a nature, poetical only by convulsion, but prosaic in 
 its ordinary strength. 
 
 Thus, in their several kinds, we have the poetry of 
 thought and passion in Shakspeare and Chaucer ; of 
 poetical abstraction and enjoyment in Spenser; of scho- 
 
PHKFACE. 
 
 larship and a rapt ambition in Milton; of courtliness in 
 Waller, (who writes like an inspired gentleman-usher) ; 
 of gallantry in Suckling ; of wit and satire in Pope ; of 
 heartiness in Burns ; of the " flit of the land" in Thom- 
 son ; of a certain sequestered gentleness in Shenstone ; 
 and the poetry of prose itself in Dryden : not that 
 he was a prosaic writer, but that what other people 
 thought in prose, he could think in verse ; and so 
 made absolute poems of pamphlets and party-rea- 
 soning. 
 
 The first quality of a poet is imagination, or that 
 faculty by which the subtlest idea is given us of the 
 nature or condition of any one thing, by illustration 
 from another, or by the inclusion of remote affinities : 
 as when Shakspeare speaks of moonlight sleeping on 
 a bank ; or of nice customs curtseying to great kings 
 (though the reader may, if he pleases, put this under 
 the head of wit, or imagination in miniature) ; or 
 where Milton speaks of towers bosomed in trees, or 
 of motes that people the sun-beams ; or compares 
 Satan on the wing at a distance, to a fleet of ships 
 luinging in the clouds ; or where Mr. Shelley (for 
 I avoid quoting from living writers, lest it should be 
 thought invidious towards such as are not quoted) 
 puts that stately, superior, and comprehensive image. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 into the mouth of a speaker who is at once firm of 
 soul, and yet anticipates a dreadful necessity, — 
 
 " I see, as from a tower, the end of all : " 
 
 or lastly, where Mr. Keats tells us of the reahnless 
 eyes of old Saturn (as he sits musing after his dethrone- 
 ment) ; or of the two brothers and their murdered 
 man, riding from Florence ; that is to say, the man 
 whom they were about to murder ; or where, by one 
 exquisite touch, he describes an important and affect- 
 ing office of the god Mercury, and the effects of it 
 upon the spectators in the lower world, — calling him 
 " the star of Lethe ; " by which we see that he was 
 the only bright object which visited that dreary region. 
 We behold him rising on its borders. 
 
 In proportion to the imagination, is the abstract 
 poetical faculty : in proportion to extent of sympathy, 
 (for passion, which is everywhere in poetry, may be 
 comparatively narrow and self-revolving,) is the power 
 of universality : in proportion to energy of tempera- 
 ment and variety of experience, is the power of em- 
 bodying the conceptions in a greater or less amount 
 of consistent and stirring action, whether narrative or 
 dramatic. The greatest poets have the greatest amount 
 of all these qualities conjoined : the next greatest are 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 those wlio unite the first two : the next, those vvliose 
 imagination is exquisite as far as it goes, but is con- 
 fined to certain spheres of contemplation : then come 
 the poets, who have less imagination, but more action, — 
 who are imaginative, as it were, in the mass, and with a 
 certain vague enjoyment allied to the feelings of youth : 
 then the purely artificial poets, or such as poetize in art 
 rather than nature, or upon conventional beauty and 
 propriety, as distinguished from beauty universal : and 
 then follow the minor wits, the song-writers, bur- 
 lesquers, &c. In every instance, the indispensable 
 requisites are truth of feeling, freedom from super- 
 fluity, (that is, absence of forced or unfitting thoughts), 
 and beauty of result ; and in proportion as these 
 requisites are comprehensive, profound, and active, 
 the poet is great. But it is always to be borne 
 in mind, that the writers in any of these classes, who 
 take lasting hold of the world's attention, are justly 
 accounted superior to such as afford less evidences of 
 power in a higher class. The pretension is nothing ; 
 the performance every thing. A good apple is better 
 than an insipid peach. A song of Burns is (literally) 
 worth half the poets in the collections. 
 
 Suckling's Balhid on (i IVedding is a small and 
 unambitious, yet unmisgiving and happy ))r()(luction, 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 of no rank whatsoever considered with reference to 
 the height of poetry ; but so excellent of its kind for 
 consistency, freshness, and relish, that it has survived 
 hundreds of epithalamiums, and epics too ; and will 
 last as long as beauty has a lip, or gallantry frank- 
 ness. 
 
 Shenstone's School-mistress is a poem of a very 
 humble description in subject, style, and everything, 
 except its humane and thoughtful sweetness : yet 
 being founded in truth, and consistent, and desiring 
 nothing but truth and consistency, it has survived in 
 like manner. Compared with greater productions, it 
 resembles the herbs which the author speaks of in its 
 cottage-garden ; but balm and mint have their flou- 
 rishing, as well as the aloe ; and like them, and its old 
 heroine, it has secured its " grey renown," clean as her 
 mob-cap, and laid up in lavender. Crashaw is a poet 
 now scarcely known except to book-worms. Pope said 
 of him, that his writing was " a mixture of tender 
 gentle thoughts and suitable expressions, of forced and 
 inextricable conceits, and of needless fillers-up to the 
 rest." Crashaw had a morbid enthusiasm, which some- 
 times helped him to an apprehensiveness and depth of 
 expression, perhaps beyond the voluntary power of his 
 great critic j yet Pope, by writing nothing out of what 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 the painters call " keeping," or unworthy of" himself, is 
 justly reckoned worth a hundred Crashaws. Random 
 thoughts and fiUings-up are a \)oet's folo de se. 
 
 Far am I, in making these remarks, from pretending 
 to claim any part or parcel in the fellowship of names 
 consecrated by time. I can truly say, that, except 
 when I look upon some others that get into the collec- 
 tions, consecrated by no hands but the book-jobbers, I 
 do not know (after I have written them) whether my 
 verses deserve to live a dozen days longer. The con- 
 fession may be thought strong or weak, as it happens ; 
 but such is the fact. I have witnessed so much self- 
 delusion in my time, and partaken of so much, and tlie 
 older I grow, my veneration so increases for poetry not 
 to be questioned, that all I can be sure of, is my ad- 
 miration of genius in others. I cannot say how far I 
 overvalue it, or even undervalue it, in myself. I am 
 in the condition of a lover who is sure that he loves, 
 and is therefore happy in the presence of the beloved 
 object ; but is uncertain how far he is worthy to be 
 beloved. Perhaps the symptom is a bad one, and only 
 better than that of a confident ignorance. Perhaps the 
 many struggles of my life; the strange conflicting 
 thoughts upon a thousand matters, into which I have 
 been forced ; the necessity of cultivating some modesty 
 of self-knowledge, as a set-off to peremptoriness of 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 public action ; and the unceasing alternation of a 
 melancholy and a cheerfulness, equally native to my 
 blood, — and the latter of which I have suffered to 
 go its lengths, both as an innocent propensity and a 
 means of resistance, — have combined in me to baffle 
 conclusion, and filled me full of these perhapsesj 
 which I have observed growing upon my writings for 
 many years past. Perhaps the question is not 
 worth a word I have said of it, except upon that prin- 
 ciple of " gossiping" with which my preface sets out, 
 and which I hope will procure me the reader's pardon 
 for starting it. All that I was going to say was, that 
 if I cannot do in poetry what ought to be done, I know 
 what ought not ; and that if there is no truth in my 
 my verses, I look for no indulgence. 
 
 As I do write poetry however, such as it is, I must 
 have my side of confidence as well as of misgiving ; 
 and when I am in the humour for thinking that I have 
 done something that may dare hope to be called by the 
 name, I fancy I know where my station is. I please 
 myself with thinking, that had the circumstances of 
 my life permitted it, I might have done something a 
 little worthier of acceptance, in the way of a mixed 
 kind of narrative poetry, part lively and part serious, 
 somewhere between the longer poems of the Italians, 
 and the Fabliaux of the old French. My propensity 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 would have been (and, oh ! had my duties permitted, 
 how willingly would I have passed my life in it ! how 
 willingly now pass it !) to write *' eternal new stories" 
 in verse, of no great length, but just sufficient to vent 
 the pleasure with which I am stung on meeting with 
 some touching adventure, and which haunts me till 1 
 can speak of it somehow. 1 would have dared to pre- 
 tend to be a servant in the train of Ariosto, nay, of 
 Chaucer, 
 
 " — and far off his skirts adore." 
 
 I sometimes look at the trusting animal spirits in which 
 the following poems were written, (for my doubts come 
 after I have done writing, and not while I am about 
 it,) and wonder whether or not they are of a right 
 sort. I know not. I cannot tell whether what 
 pleased me at the moment, was mere pleasure taken in 
 the subject, or whether it involved the power of com- 
 municating it to the reader. All I can be sure of is, 
 that I was in earnest ; that the feelings, whatever they 
 were, which I pretended to have, I had. It was the 
 mistake of the criticism of a northern climate, to think 
 that the occasional quaintnesses and neologisms, which 
 formerly disfigured the St or?/ of Rimini, arose out of 
 affectation. They were the sheer license of animal 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 spirits. While I was writing them, I never imagined that 
 they were not proper to be indulged in. I have tropical 
 blood in my veins, inherited through many generations, 
 and was too full of impulse and sincerity to pretend to 
 anything I did not feel. Probably the criticisms were not 
 altogether a matter of climate ; for I was a writer of 
 politics as well as verses, and the former (two years 
 agol) were as illegal as the sallies of phraseology. Be 
 this as it may, I have here shown, that I have at any 
 rate not enough of the vanity of affectation to hinder 
 me from availing myself of experience, and ridding my 
 volume both of superfluities of a larger sort, and of 
 those petty anomalies of words and phrases which I 
 never thought worth defending. I believe there are 
 but two words remaining in the Story of Rimini, 
 to which any body would think it worth while to 
 object ; and one of these (the word swirl in page 2) 
 I had marked to be taken out, but found it restored by 
 a friend who saw the passage as it was going through 
 the press (no stickler for neologisms), and who put a 
 wondering *' qucere " why it should be omitted. I used 
 it to express the entrance of a sailing boat into har- 
 bour, when it turns the corner of it, and comes round 
 with a sweeping motion. *' Sweep '* would have described 
 the motion but not the figure. " Wheel " appeared 
 
PREFACE. XVU 
 
 to me too mechanical, and to make the circle too com- 
 plete. I could find, therefore, no other word for the 
 mixed idea which I wished to convey ; and as swirl is 
 in tlie dictionaries, I had no hesitation in submitting 
 to the query, and letting it remain. The other word 
 is *' coredy" at page 41, meaning something that has 
 taken root in the heart of our consciousness. I give it 
 up to the critic, if he dislikes it, having accidentally 
 let the proof-sheet, which contained it, go to press 
 beyond power of recal. 1 care no more for it, than 
 if it had been the oldest and least venerable of com- 
 mon-places. I should beg the reader's pardon for de- 
 taining him so long with these trifles, did not my value 
 for his good opinion in higher matters, make me wish 
 not to be thought contemptuous of it in the smallest. 
 
 My verses having thus been corrected, as flir as I 
 saw occasion, and evidence enough ( I hope) having 
 been given to show that I have no overweening value 
 for what I have written, merely because I Jiaiie written 
 it, I should prove indeed that I had no reason to doubt 
 the measure of my pretensions, if I gave up the right 
 of keeping my own opinion, upon points on which I 
 did not feel it shaken.* I have therefore retained in 
 
 * See, with reference to feelings of thi^ kiiul, and upon many of 
 b 
 
my versification, not only the triplets and alexandrines 
 which some have objected to, because they have been 
 rarely used in heroic poetry since the time of Dryden, 
 but the double rhymes which have been disused since 
 the days of Milton. 
 
 It has been said of the triplet, that it is only a temp- 
 tation to add a needless line, to what ought to be 
 comprised in two. This is manifestly a half-sighted 
 objection ; for at least the converse of the proposition 
 may be as true ; namely, that it comprises, in one 
 additional line, what two might have needlessly ex- 
 tended. And undoubtedly compression is often ob- 
 tained by the triplet, and should never be injured by 
 it ; but I take its true spirit to be this ; — that it carries 
 onward the fervour of the poet's feeling ; delivers him 
 for the moment, and on the most suitable occasions, 
 from the ordinary laws of his verse ; and enables him 
 to finish his impulse with triumph. In all in- 
 stances, where the triplet is not used for the mere 
 sake of convenience, it expresses continuity of some 
 sort, whether for the purpose of extension, or inclu- 
 
 the highest points of his art, the Essays accompanying- the works 
 of a great Hving- poet (Mr. Woi'ds worth). Every lover of poetry, 
 and especially every critical reader of it, ought to make himself 
 intimate with them. 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 sion ; and tliis is the reason why tlie alexandrine so 
 admirably suits it, the spirit of both being a sustained 
 enthusiasm. In proportion as this enthusiasm is less, or 
 the feeling to be conveyed is one of hurry in the midst 
 of aggregation, the alexandrine is perhaps generally 
 dropped. The continuity implied by the triplet, is one 
 of four kinds : it is either an impatience of stopping, 
 arising out of an eagerness to include ; or it is the 
 march of triumphant power ; or it *' builds the lofty 
 rhyme " for some staider shew of it ; or lastly, it is 
 the indulgence of a sense of luxury and beauty, a pro- 
 longation of delight. Dryden has fine specimens of all. 
 Of the impatience of stopping : — a description of 
 agitation of nerves : — 
 
 " While listening to the murmuring leaves he stood, 
 More than a mile immersed within the wood, 
 At once the wind was laid — the whispering sound 
 Was dumb — a rising earthquake rock'd the gi'ound : 
 With deeper brown the grove was overspread, -^ 
 A sudden horror seized his giddy head, I 
 
 And his ears tinkled, and his colour fled." J 
 
 Theodore and Ilonoria. 
 
 Of the sense of power : — 
 
 " If joys hereafter must bo purchased here, 
 With loss of all that mortals hold so dear, 
 1)2 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 Then welcome infamy and public shame, 
 
 And last, a long farewell to worldly fame ! 
 
 'Tis said with ease ; but oh, how hardly tried ^ 
 
 By haughty souls to human honour tied I )• 
 
 Oh, sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride !" J 
 
 Hind and Panther, 
 
 Of elevation and proportion: — 
 
 " Our builders were with want of genius curst ; 
 The second temple was not like the first ; 
 Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, 
 Our beauties equal, but excel our strength : 
 Firm Doric pillars found your solid base, ^ 
 
 The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space ; [ 
 Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace." I 
 
 Epistle to Congreve. 
 
 Of continuity of enjoyment : — 
 
 " The fanning wind upon her bosom blows, ^ 
 
 To meet the fanning wind the bosom rose; )» 
 
 The fanning wind and purling stream continue her repose." J 
 Cymon and Iphigenia. 
 
 This last verse, which is two syllables longer than 
 an alexandrine, and is happily introduced in this place, 
 is peculiar to Dryden, and was taken by him from the 
 lyric poets of his day. So was the alexandrine itself, 
 and the triplet. 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 If Dryden had had sentiment, he would have been 
 as great a poet natural, as he was artificial. The want, 
 it must be owned, is no trifle! It is idle, however, 
 to wish the addition of these cubits to human stature. 
 Let us be content with the greatness his genius gave 
 him, and with our power to look up to it. 
 
 Pope denounced alexandrines in a celebrated cou- 
 plet, in which he seems to confound length of line 
 with slowness of motion ; two very distinct things, as 
 Mr. Lamb has shown in one of his masterly essays. 
 
 " A needless alexandrine ends the song, 
 Which like a wounded snake, drag^ its slow length along." 
 
 And yet, in his no less celebrated eulogy upon the 
 versification of Dryden, he has attempted an imitation 
 of his master's style, in which he has introduced both 
 alexandrine and triplet. 
 
 " Waller was smooth ; but Dryden taught to join "> 
 The varying verse, the full majestic line, S 
 
 The long resounding march, and energy divine." J 
 
 How comes it then, that he rejected both from his 
 own poetry? The reason was, that he acted by a 
 judicious instinct. He felt, that variety and energy 
 were not what his muse would deal in, but beauties of 
 
XXll PREFACE. 
 
 a different sort ; and he wisely confined himself to 
 what he could do best. It is true, it seems strange 
 that he should exalt Dry den's variety at the expense 
 of Waller's smoothness. It looks like dispraising him- 
 self. But then he felt that he had more in him than 
 Waller; and that if he had not Dryden*s variety, 
 neither had he his carelessness, but carried the rhyming 
 heroic to what he thought a perfection superior to 
 both, and justly purchased by the sacrifice of Dryden's 
 inequality. Inferior indeed as Pope's versification is 
 to Dryden's, upon every principle both of power and 
 music, nobody can deny that it admirably suits the 
 nicer point of his genius, and the subjects on which it 
 was exercised. Dryden had a tranchant sword, which 
 demanded stoutness in the sheath. Pope's weapon 
 was a lancet enclosed in pearl.* 
 
 Let it not be thought (as it has too often been 
 unthinkingly asserted), that remarks of this kind are 
 
 * We may see the difference exemplified in a couplet from their 
 respective translations of Homer, neither of them, it must be con- 
 fessed, worthy of the great broad hand of the old Greek : but the 
 two passages, especially the words marked in italics, are singTilarly 
 characteristic of the writers. It is in the scene of the quari'el with 
 Agamemnon, where Achilles, with his sword half out of the sheath, 
 
PREFACE. XXlll 
 
 meant to disparage our great master of poetic wit ; to 
 vvliose genius I should think it a foppery to express 
 even my homage, were it not for the sake of guarding 
 against the imputation of a more preposterous im- 
 modesty. But, in endeavouring to ascertain critically 
 what is best in general composition, one is sometimes 
 obliged to notice what is not so good, except in specific 
 instances. 
 
 I confess I like the very bracket that marks out the 
 triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the 
 music of it. It has a look like the bridge of a lute. 
 
 suddenly feels the hair of his head seized hy his adraonitress, 
 IMinerva, and with moody submission, dashes the blade l)ack ag-ain. 
 Homer says : — 
 
 "^H, (cat 'fir' apyvpfT) KWTrri (rx^Oi X*'P" fiapetav 
 *A\p 5' 4s KsXiov wfff aiya ^i<pos, k'S" amQr)ffe 
 Mietp Aerivalr]S. Lib. 1. v.2\0. 
 
 Dryden thus gives the passage: — 
 
 " He said; with surly faith believed her word, 
 And in the sheath, reluctant, plung'd the sword." 
 
 Pope has it thus : — 
 
 " He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid, 
 Then in the sheath return d the shining blade." 
 
 " Surly faith" is too homely and familiar; but the word plung'd 
 is excellent, and comes precisely at the point of the verse where the 
 sound of it is strongest and most analogous. It is the action itself. 
 Popes ib that of an officer on parade. 
 
XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 With regard to double rhymes in the serious heroic 
 couplet, they have been exploded among us, ever since 
 we fell under the formal spirit of the French school of 
 Louis the Fourteenth's time. Waller, 1 believe, is the 
 last writer of eminence in whom they are to be found ; 
 and in him they are very rare, and probably confined 
 to his younger verses. Yet it is curious, that the 
 rhyme in heroic French poetry is alternately single 
 and double ; in Italian poetry, it is all double. In 
 both instances, words have dictated to thoughts. The 
 Italian language is so abundant in words of more than 
 one syllable, and in accents upon the last syllable but 
 one, that, except in lyric pieces (where the understood 
 accompaniment of music has modified the more formal 
 rules of composition in all languages, and where the 
 Italian singer nevertheless stretches out one termi- 
 nating sound into two, whenever he can), a rhyming 
 monosyllable has a quaintness and singularity in it, 
 almost as startling as a box on the ear. It is for this 
 reason, that whenever Pulci and the other old poets 
 made use of it, they took the liberty of adding a 
 syllable, or of restoring one which custom had cut off. 
 In the case of the French, their stock of ultimate and 
 penultimate accents is more equally divided than in 
 either Italian or English; and as their poetry, though 
 
PREFACE. XXV 
 
 in the How of its lines it really has more of the Italian 
 freedom than ours, yet for want of equal vigour to 
 either, has fallen more under the necessity of dis- 
 tinguishing itself from prose, they gladly availed 
 themselves of the circumstance, and made a rhyming 
 system out of the alternation above-mentioned.* In 
 English, we have so many monosyllables, in addition 
 to our stock of final accents, that when the sense of 
 elegance and regularity became superior with us to 
 passion and the love of truth, the superabundance of 
 single rhymes had a natural tendency to throw out the 
 double ones. Matter became secondary to manner ; 
 
 * In the works of Drummond of Hawthornden (Songs and Son- 
 nets, Part I.) is a poem written after the French rhyming fashion, 
 the only one (as far as I am aware) in the language. The following 
 is a specimen, selected for the graceful vision in it : — 
 
 " JMethought through all the neighbour woods a noise 
 Of choristers, more sweet than lute or voice, 
 (For those harmonious sounds to Jove are given 
 By the svvitt touches of the nine-string'd heaven, — 
 Such air has nothing else) did wound mine ear, 
 No soul but would become all ear to hear : 
 And whilst I listening lay, O lovely wonder ! 
 I saw a pleasant myrtle cleave asunder, — 
 A myrtle great with birth, — out of whose womb 
 Three naked nymphs more white than snow forth come ; — 
 For nymphs they seemed. About their heavenly faces, 
 In waves of gold, flouted their cuiling tresses," 6tc. 
 
XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 and by a natural consequence, the manner was not 
 the best, but proceeded upon secondary assumptions. 
 Poetry came under a sort of court regulation. Good 
 sense (as it was interpreted), that is to say, the reign- 
 ing sense of the artificial world in contradistinction to 
 that of the world universal, undertook to order and 
 put upon its good behaviour the impulses of genius, as 
 though it were a thing for a levee ; till at length, like 
 the feelings of the audiences at court theatres in the 
 time of the prince above-mentioned, the sense of the 
 ridiculous, and even of the pathetic, fell under a con- 
 ventional government ; and people were not to laugh 
 or to weep, except as the mode permitted. Luckily, 
 being a king, and not accustomed to have any propen- 
 sity checked, his Majesty, for all his face-making, 
 could not help laughing at Moliere's humour; upon 
 which, though with reluctance, (for the poet had 
 attacked them), all the courtiers began loyally shaking 
 their shoulders, and comedy carried the day. The 
 feelings of audiences in those times must have been 
 less called upon to restrict themselves to a polite sense 
 of the pathetic, because there was less tragedy to dis- 
 concert them ; and in both cases, the Parisian city 
 theatres sometimes vindicated nature, and reversed the 
 judgments of the court. Yet so long does fashion 
 
PREFACE. XXVll 
 
 succeed in palming its petty instincts upon tlie world 
 for those of a nation and of nature, that it is only of 
 late years that the French have ceased to think some 
 of the most affecting passages in Shakspeare ridiculous ; 
 such, for instance, as that in which Hamlet speaks 
 of the shoes with which his mother had followed her 
 husband to the grave. 
 
 " A little while or ere those shoes were old, 
 
 With which she followed my poor father s body," &c. 
 
 " What ? " said they, " a queen, and talk of her 
 shoes ! " as if it was the queen and not the wife, of 
 which Hamlet was speaking ; or sorrow disrespected 
 things homely ; or the very abstract indifference of the 
 shoes did not come in finely, as of a piece with her 
 conduct. Yet the English themselves, no great while 
 since, half blushed at these criticisms, and were con- 
 tent if the epithet *' bizarre " (^" voire hizarre Shak- 
 speare") was allowed to be translated into a " wild, 
 irregular genius." Every thing was wild and irregular 
 except rhymesters in toupees. A petty conspiracy of 
 decorums took the place of what was becoming to 
 liumanity, and poets were absolutely thought not to 
 write with nature, unless they could bring the most 
 manifest proofs that they did it with art. A man 
 remaining unmoved over a pathetic passage, or moved 
 only by a sense of its unfashionable style, might with 
 
XXVlll PREFACE. 
 
 propriety have adopted the answer given by the clown, 
 when he was asked why he did not weep at an affect- 
 ing sermon : *' I am not of this parish." 
 
 I have made a compromise in this matter of double 
 rhymes. I have altered them to single ones, wherever 
 I felt that they could be readily discarded, or without 
 gainsaying the impulse with which I wrote. In the 
 other cases, I have retained them. My first determi- 
 nation, in sitting down to correct the Story ofRiminiy 
 was to discard them altogether. I was prevented by 
 a couplet in a great poet, which I cannot at present 
 find. But I was wrong in the misgiving ; for I wrote 
 them out of a real impulse, and not a pretended one ; 
 and I may venture to think, that impulses of this kind 
 are a proper modification of the style of those who feel 
 them. To deny them for the sake of denying, would 
 be as foolish a thing as for a painter to efface the most 
 involuntary touches of his pencil, not because they 
 were out of nature, but because they were out of 
 fashion. There is a consistency in manner as well as 
 matter. The foliage of every species of tree does not 
 suit every other, nor would be very safely displaced for 
 any. And after all, the use which I have made of 
 double rhymes, is a revival, not an innovation. That 
 they are in themselves not incompatible with the 
 greatest feeling and seriousness, might be shown, not 
 
PREFACE. XX1\ 
 
 only by the footing tliey have retained in lyric verse 
 upon the loftiest occasions, but by a hundred examples 
 out of the rhymed couplet, in the works of our greatest 
 poets. Hear young Milton, practising his organic 
 numbers. He is addressing his native language : — 
 
 " Yet I had rather, if I were to chuse. 
 Thy service in some graver subject use, 
 Such as may make thee search thy coffers round, 
 Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound ; 
 Such where the deep transported mind may soar 
 Above the wheeling- poles, and at heaven's door 
 Look in, and see each blissful deity, - 
 How he before the thunderous throne doth lie, 
 Listening to what the unshorn Apollo sings 
 To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings 
 Immortal nectar to her kingly sire : 
 Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire. 
 And misty regions of wide air next under, 
 And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder, 
 May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves, 
 In heaven's defiance mustering all his waves." 
 
 So, who would lose the melancholy sounds of the 
 words morroiv and sorrow y in Spenser's famous 
 description of the miseries of a court-suitor? 
 
 " Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride, 
 What hell it is in suing long to bide ; 
 
XXX PREFACE. 
 
 To lose good dayes, that mig-ht be better spent ; 
 To waste long nights in pensive discontent ; 
 To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; 
 To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow ; 
 To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peeres ; 
 To have thy asking, yet waite manie years ; 
 To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
 To eate thy heart with comfortlesse despaires ; 
 To fawne, to crouch, to waite, to ride, to runne. 
 To spend, to give, to want, to be undone." 
 
 I will here observe, by the way, how easy it was 
 for these great poets to write in the smooth measure 
 of the moderns, and how well they did it when they 
 thought fit. Spenser wanted to make out a list of 
 his court grievances (for they were his own), and 
 he felt that a sort of energetic formality was the best 
 shape in which to put it. It would be the better 
 itemed in the memory. Shakspeare has written Iago*s 
 famous banter on good women, upon a similar princi- 
 ple. The smooth and reckoning formality of the versi- 
 fication answers to the moral idea intended to be 
 conveyed : — 
 
 ^^Desdemona. O heavy ignorance ! — thou praisest the worst best. 
 But what praise could'st thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed! 
 one, that in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch 
 of very malice itself? 
 
rUEFACE. XXXI 
 
 " lago. Slie that was over fair, and never proiid, 
 
 Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud; 
 Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay ; 
 Fled from her wish, and yet said, ' Now I may ;* 
 She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, 
 Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly; 
 She, that in wisdom never was so frail, 
 To take the cod's head for the salmon's tail ; 
 She that would think, and ne'er disclose her mind ; 
 See suitors following, and not look behind : 
 She was a wight — if ever such wight were — 
 
 " Des. To do what ? 
 
 " lago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer." 
 
 Witli very little allowance, this is the heroic style of 
 versification, such as it prevailed in the last century. 
 The concluding line might have been one of Pope's. 
 It is in his best manner, both as to sound and wit. 
 The satires of Hall, written in the time of Shakspeare, 
 are full of this kind of music, and are the real origina- 
 tors of it as a thing continuous, and not the poems of 
 Waller ; though the smoother subjects of the latter, 
 and the care he took to have no roughness at all, 
 set the more immediate example to the writers who 
 followed him.* 
 
 * It must have been a shp of the memory (wonderful was it for 
 not slipping more!) which induced Sir Walter Scott (in his edition 
 
XXXll PREFACE. 
 
 To return to double rhymes. They are as okl in 
 our language as Chaucer, whose versification is as 
 unlike the crabbed and unintentional stuff it is sup- 
 posed to be, as possible, and has never had justice done 
 it. The sweet and delicate gravity of its music is 
 answerable to the sincerity of the writer's heart. 
 Take a specimen out of his character of the " Good 
 Priest," including some double rhymes : — 
 
 " Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, 
 And in adversite ful patient : 
 
 And swich he was yproved often sithes ; (often sithence, or since) 
 Full loth were him to cursen for his tithes ; 
 But rather would he given out of doubte, 
 Unto his poore* parishens aboute, 
 Of his offring, and eke of his substance ; 
 He coulde, in litel thing, have suffisance. 
 
 of Dry den, vol. xi. p. 100) to class Hall and Donne together as 
 inharmonious writers. Hall is the smoothest, as Donne is the 
 ruggedest, of all our old satirists. See Warton's remarks upon him 
 in the fifth volume of Chalmers's British Poets. 
 
 * The i, which is to be thus retained whenever the writer pleases, 
 (and which is perhaps the origin of the gratuitous vowel prefixed to 
 verbs and participles, as y-gazing, y-called, star-ypointing, that is to 
 say, starrfe-pointing) is the same as its counterpart still retained in 
 French poetry, and rose doubtless from the same root. Thus poore 
 is the French pauvre. 
 
PUEFACE. XXXIM 
 
 " lie setll" not his beiielioe to liiiv, 
 
 And let his sheep accombrod in the mire, 
 And ran into London, unto Seint Ponies, 
 To seeken him a chantarie for soules, 
 Or with a brotherhood to be withold ; 
 But dwelt at home, and kept^ wel his fold, 
 So that the wolf ne made it not miscarrie : 
 He was a shepherd, and no mercenarie" 
 
 There is one other custom of the old poets, or 
 rather of Chaucer, (for I cannot call to mind any 
 other who has made a principle of it as he has done, 
 though in the poets before the Restoration, it is occa- 
 sionally found among them in the course of their para- 
 graphs), which appears to me very fit for revival ; and 
 that is, the closing a period or a paragraph with the 
 first line of a couplet, and beginning the next with the 
 second. There is but one instance of it (as to para- 
 graph) in the volume before the reader. It is in the 
 lines entitled Power and Gentleness, at page 17'^. 
 Chaucer took the custom from the French poets, who 
 have retained it to this day. It surely has a fine air, 
 both of conclusion and resumption ; as though it would, 
 leave off when it thought proper, knowing iiow well it 
 could re-commence.* Chaucer has some fine examples 
 
 * The preservation, by th(! I'renrh poets, of a license so hostile 
 c 
 
XXXIV PREFACE. 
 
 of this break of the couplet in his Cambuscan ; a story 
 which lingered in the ear of Milton. And Milton him- 
 self, in a passing way, has used the license nobly, in the 
 lines before quoted. 
 
 " Listening to what the unshorn Apollo sings 
 To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings 
 Immortal nectar to her kingly sire : — 
 TTien passing through the spheres of watchful^/'P 
 And misty regions of wide air," &c. 
 
 I make no apology for repeating thus much of the 
 passage. Fine music provokes repetition.* The fol- 
 lowing is one of the passages alluded to in Chaucer. It 
 
 to the general formality of their rhyming system, would appear un- 
 accountable, if the national character, for so many generations, did 
 not seem made up of a similar compound of extremes, of a rejec- 
 tion and approbation of restraint, each excess tending to a counter- 
 poise from the other. Our gallant neighbours, however, treated the 
 world with a fine practical specimen of the heau ideal in the year 
 1830, a super-epical chapter in the history of nations, imaginative 
 enough in all conscience, and the only vi et armis piece of Christian 
 warfare ever truly described by those contradictory words. Let us 
 not doubt the " preferment " of it in the long run. 
 
 * There is a beautiful, and manifestly conscious use of this pause 
 in the concluding passage of Mr, Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 
 
PllEFACE. XXXV 
 
 exhibits several examples of the like modulation in its 
 progress. 
 
 " At Sarra, in the land of Tartarib, 
 Ther dwelt a king that warrifed Ilussie, 
 Through which ther died many a doughty man : — 
 This noble king was clepfed Cambuscan, 
 Which in his time was of so great renown, 
 That ther was no wher, in no regioun, 
 So excellent a lord in all^ thing : — 
 Him lacked nought that longeth to a king 
 As of the sect of which that he was borne ; 
 He kept his law to which he was ysworn ; 
 And thereto he was bardie, wise, and rich, 
 And piteous, and just, and alway yliche, (always alike) 
 Trewe of his word, benign e and honourable, 
 Of his courage as any centre stable ; 
 Young, fresh, and strong, in arms desirous, 
 As any bachelor of all his house. 
 A fair person he was, and fortunate, 
 And kept alway, so well, real estate, (royal estate) 
 That ther was no wher such another man. 
 TJiis noble king, this Tartar, Cambuscan, 
 
 The poet has intimated the marked pleasure he took in it, by his full 
 stop, and the dash by which it is strengthened. 
 
 '< Eternal Hope ! when yonder spheres sublime 
 Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, 
 Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade. — 
 When all tlie sister planets have decayed." 
 c2 
 
XXXVl P REPACK. 
 
 Hadd^ two sonnes by Elfeta his wife, 
 
 Of which the eldest sonne hight Alg-arsife— " &c. 
 
 So in the Knighfs Tale, after the paragraph ending, 
 
 '.' Ther as this Emelie had her playing-. 
 
 Bright was the sonne, and clear the morwening — ' ' 
 
 which, by the way, is a noble re-commencing verse. 
 The trissyllable moricenmg is particularly beautiful, 
 — much better than mornings or even than morr ow- 
 ning, which was its next modification. 
 
 It seems to me, that beautiful as are the composi- 
 tions which the English language possesses in the 
 heroic couplet, both by deceased and living writers, 
 it remains for some poet hereafter to perfect the versi- 
 fication, by making a just compromise between the 
 inharmonious freedom of our old poets in general, 
 (who were greatest in greater measures,) and the 
 regularity of Dryden himself; who, noble as his ma- 
 nagement of it is, beats, after all, too much upon 
 the rhyme. It hinders his matter from having due 
 pre-eminence before his manner. If any one could 
 unite the vigour of Dryden with the ready and easy 
 variety of pause in the works of the late Mr. Crabbe, 
 and the lovely poetic consciousness in the Lamia of 
 Keats, in which the lines seem to take pleasure in the 
 
rUEFACE. XXXVll 
 
 progress of their own beauty, like sea-nyniphs luxuri- 
 ating through the water, he would be a perfect master 
 of rhyming heroic verse. 
 
 To quit these considerations of the more bodily part 
 of poetry, and say something of the spirit of the fol- 
 lowing pieces : — I took up the subject of the Stori/ 
 of Ri))ii7ii at one of the happiest periods of my life ; 
 otherwise I confess I should have chosen a less melan- 
 choly one. Not that melancholy subjects are unpopu- 
 lar, or that pain, for any great purpose, is to be avoided ; 
 much less so sweet a one as that of pity. I am apt 
 enough to think, with the poet's good-natured title 
 to his play, that " All's well that ends well ; " and 
 am as willing as any man to bear my share of suffering, 
 for the pui-pose of bringing about that moral to human 
 story. My life has been half made up of the effort. 
 Neither is every tragical subject so melancholy as the 
 word might be supposed to imply; for not to men- 
 tion those balms of beauty and humanity with which 
 great poets reconcile the sharpest wounds they give us, 
 there are stories, (^Hero and Leander is one of them,) 
 in which the persons concerned are so innocent, and 
 appear to have been happy for so long a time, that 
 the most distressing termination of their felicity hardly 
 hinders a secret conviction, that they might well sulfer 
 
XXXVlll PREFACE. 
 
 bitterly for so short a one. Their tragedy is the ter- 
 mination of happiness, and not the consummation of 
 misery. 
 
 But besides the tendency I have from animal spirits, 
 as well as from need of comfort, to indulge my fancy 
 in happier subjects, it appears to me, that the world 
 jjas become experienced enough to be capable of re- 
 ceiving its best profit through the medium of pleasur- 
 able, instead of painful, appeals to its reflection. There 
 is an old philosophic conviction reviving among us as a 
 popular one, (and there could not be one more desira- 
 ble,) that it is time for those who would benefit their 
 species, to put an end to recriminations, and denounce- 
 ments, and threats, and agree to consider the suffer- 
 ings of mankind as arising out of want of knowledge 
 rather than defect of goodness, — as intimations which, 
 like the physical pain of a wound, or a galling liga- 
 ment, tell us that we are to set about removing the 
 causes of pain, instead of venting the spleen of it. 
 
 Agreeably to this conviction, and to the good- 
 nature of it, it appears desirable, that tragical stories 
 should be so written, as to leave no chance of miscon- 
 ception with regard to the first discernible causes of 
 the error that produced the tragedy. Now what is 
 this first cause in the story which stands at the head of 
 
PRKFACE. XXXIX 
 
 the present volume? Is it the crime committed by 
 the lather, in entrapping his daughter into a marriage 
 unfit for her ? No : it is not even that. It is the 
 habit of falsehood which pervaded society around him, 
 and which therefore enabled and encouraged him to lie 
 for that purpose : in other words, it was the great 
 social mistake, still the commonest among us, arising 
 from want of better knowledge, and producing endless 
 mistake, confusion, and a war of principle, in all the 
 relations of life. Society lied, and taught lying, with 
 contradictory tenets that drove the habit to despera- 
 tion; and then, with the natural anger of incon- 
 venienced folly, and after the fashion of the brute 
 beasts we read of, who sit clawing their wounds, it took 
 the last guilty sufferer for the first : and this it has 
 been doing, more or less, ever since half-knowledge 
 took itself for whole, or a partial perception of its 
 ignorance exasperated and degraded it into spleen and 
 bigotry. A secret uneasiness has accordingly pervaded 
 all moral criticism, especially where the critic has not 
 been wanting in a good measure of natural benevolence ; 
 nay, where the temperament has been violent, and the 
 will greater than the reason, it has sometimes exaspe- 
 rated him and made him inhuman, in proportion to his 
 very desire of sympathy. I remember 1 was never 
 
xl PREFACE. 
 
 more astonished, than when some of the critics of the 
 poem in question (not altogether impartial, however, 
 on the political score,) found out, that the hero and 
 heroine had not suffered enough for the cause of good 
 morals, and that they were too amiable ! What would 
 such critics have? Is it the unamiable alone who 
 suffer, or who require to be warned against the perils 
 they undergo ? Or is it none but the amiable who are 
 w^eak and thoughtless? Or must the cruellest temp- 
 tations into which duplicity and error can bring people, 
 be kept out of sight, purely to please the morbid fancies 
 and social bad consciences of those who perpetuate 
 them ? Lastly, I would ask, whether a long train of 
 misery, and a tragical death, are no calamities, or 
 *' nothing to speak of? " I cannot answer, either 
 for the misgivings of faLse morals, or for the strange 
 fascinations of those, who might choose, for aught I 
 know, to go and disobey their parents, and take to 
 drinking poison, because last night they had seen the 
 play of Romeo and Juliet, or the Orphan ! But this 
 I know, that I thought the catastrophe a very dreadful 
 one when I wrote it, and the previous misery still 
 worse; and that although I certainly intended no 
 moral lesson, or thought about it, when I was led by 
 the perusal of the story in Dante to attempt making 
 
I'REFACK. 
 
 xli 
 
 a book of it, the subject graduiilly forced upon uie tlie 
 consideration of those first causes of error, of which 
 I have been speaking. I thought of putting for a 
 motto to the second edition, a passage out of the 
 Orla7ido Innamorato : 
 
 " Bisogna ben guardare 
 Al primo errore, ed inconveniente." 
 
 " Guard well against the first, unfit mistake." 
 
 But so little did I suspect that any one could remain 
 unimpressed with the catastrophe, that I doubted 
 whether the motto itself would not be mixed up 
 too exclusively with the principal sufferers. I am 
 glad to think it is now likely to be otherwise, and that 
 to those who choose to reflect on the tragedy of Dante*s 
 story, no link in the chain of moral causes need be lost 
 sight of. It would be idle to reply, that, by bringing 
 out a first cause, we cease to absorb attention upon the 
 second, and endanger a just dread of it. Society only 
 becomes the more bound to see into that first evil, 
 without the existence of which we should not have so 
 many others. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to me to reflect, that, before 1 
 had become aware of the inestimable value of the love 
 of truth, as the foundation of every tiling finally good, 
 in poetry, philosophy, and the government of the 
 
xlii PREFACE. 
 
 world, I had unconsciously been giving a lesson upon 
 it in a poetical form. 
 
 Of the like moral, in the story of the Gentle Armour, 
 I was aware enough : but the reader is not bound to 
 keep it in view, except as part of the story. My great 
 object in writing the poem, was to vent my delight at 
 the gallantry of a lover who could fight three armed 
 people at once, with no other covering, than a senti- 
 ment in the shape of a piece of linen. All poetry, 
 like every thing else in the world, contains a moral, 
 whether intended or not ; and, generally speaking, 
 that which contains it least obviously, contains it most ; 
 because nature with her boundless instinct is speaking 
 to us, and not the individual with his narrow experi- 
 ence. Yet sincerity of purpose is part of the truth of 
 nature. People talk of trick and delusion, as if they 
 were at the top of all things : whereas nothing is more 
 certain, than that they are comprehended in some- 
 thing greater than themselves, and that nature must 
 have been a good deal in earnest when she produced the 
 mountains, and the stars, and sent the planets rolling 
 in the everlasting hunger of their energy round the 
 sun. Falsehood is the dreg in her operations, and is 
 to be thrown off, as truth gathers that strength and 
 concenti'ation of movement, which the yearnings of 
 
PREFACE. xliil 
 
 pliilosophy and of human want equally shew that she 
 intends for it. It becomes us, it is true, to reverence 
 and think the best of all the operations of nature, in- 
 cluding those yearnings, let them apparently terminate 
 as they may. But it does not become us to assert — 
 on the contrary, it may be very pernicious, and unde- 
 sired by nature, (except as matter of consolation and 
 reconcilement to us, in default of our being able to do 
 anything), — that she intends to perpetuate any mixture 
 of evil or contradiction in her works ; or that she can- 
 not work without their aid. Better believe in a fugitive 
 exception to good, however mysterious, generated by 
 some convulsion in the great lapses of time, and of 
 necessity worked off by the energy of the planet that 
 suffers under it, till the star resumes the golden state 
 of tranquillity natural to its heavenly brotherhood, than 
 take for granted any kind of perpetuation, equally gra- 
 tuitous, a great deal more contradictory, and infinitely 
 more saddening. Where there is a choice of opinions, 
 it is wise to adopt the best ; especially when we con- 
 sider that mankind has a natural impulse towards en- 
 deavour, and that nature herself has given us both the 
 endeavour and the choice. — But I am takino; larg-e 
 measure, indeed, of the word *' gossiping, " when a 
 copy of verses makes me ramble after this fashion ! 
 when a butterfly leads me a chace among the stars ! 
 
xlii niEFACE. 
 
 world, I had unconsciously been giving a lesson upon 
 it in a poetical form. 
 
 Of the like moral, in the story of the Gentle Ar7nour, 
 I was aware enough : but the reader is not bound to 
 keep it in view, except as part of the story. My great 
 object in writing the poem, was to vent my delight at 
 the gallantry of a lover who could fight three armed 
 people at once, with no other covering, than a senti- 
 ment in the shape of a piece of linen. All poetry, 
 like every thing else in the world, contains a moral, 
 whether intended or not ; and, generally speaking, 
 that which contains it least obviously, contains it most ; 
 because nature with her boundless instinct is speaking 
 to us, and not the individual with his narrow experi- 
 ence. Yet sincerity of purpose is part of the truth of 
 nature. People talk of trick and delusion, as if they 
 were at the top of all things : whereas nothing is more 
 certain, than that they are comprehended in some- 
 thing greater than themselves, and that nature must 
 have been a good deal in earnest when she produced the 
 mountains, and the stars, and sent the planets rolling 
 in the everlasting hunger of their energy round the 
 sun. Falsehood is the dreg in her operations, and is 
 to be thrown off, as truth gathers that strength and 
 concentration of movement, which the yearnings of 
 
PREPACK. xlii 
 
 pliilosophy and of human want equally shew that she 
 intends for it. It becomes us, it is true, to reverence 
 and think the best of all the operations of nature, in- 
 cluding those yearnings, let them apparently terminate 
 as they may. But it does not become us to assert — 
 on the contrary, it may be very pernicious, and unde- 
 sired by nature, (except as matter of consolation and 
 reconcilement to us, in default of our being able to do 
 anything), — that she intends to perpetuate any mixture 
 of evil or contradiction in her works ; or that she can- 
 not work without their aid. Better believe in a fugitive 
 exception to good, however mysterious, generated by 
 some convulsion in the great lapses of time, and of 
 necessity worked off by the energy of the planet that 
 suffers under it, till the star resumes the golden state 
 of tranquillity natural to its heavenly brotherhood, than 
 take for granted any kind of perpetuation, equally gra- 
 tuitous, a great deal more contradictory, and infinitely 
 more saddening. Where there is a choice of opinions, 
 it is wise to adopt the best ; especially when we con- 
 sider that mankind has a natural impulse towards en- 
 deavour, and that nature herself has given us both the 
 endeavour and the choice. — But I am taking; larce 
 measure, indeed, of the word " gossiping, " when a 
 copy of verses makes me ramble after this fashion ! 
 when a butterfly leads me a chacc among the stars ! 
 
xliv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 More is said of the Gentle Armour., as well as of 
 some of the other poems, in their places in the volume. 
 It is here published for the first time ; and is the first 
 poem of any length, which I have written for many 
 years, having been debarred from that delight by ill 
 health, and the constant necessity of writing prose. 
 What I felt, when I found I could again recreate 
 myself in this way, and when the verses came flowing 
 again, I will not say ; lest I should excite awkward 
 comparisons between what I delight in doing, and what 
 it amounts to when done. But as Gray wished that 
 he could lie all his life upon sofas, reading "eternal 
 new novels of Marivaux and Crebillon,'* so, notwith- 
 standing the helps afforded us by the grander notions of 
 the age, or rather in consequence of the very helps they 
 afford, I can conceive no mode of existence more exqui- 
 site (apart from the affections) than after contributing 
 a portion of one's morning to the furtherance of the 
 common good — the better if in the same way— to devote 
 the rest of one's time to reading romantic adventures, 
 and versifying the best of them.* What golden days 
 
 * It has been calculated, according to Franklin, that if every body 
 worked four hours a day, all the rest of it might be passed by 
 the whole community in peace and luxury. One would think such 
 an experiment worth trying, even by those who enjoy the privileges 
 of ennui. 
 
I'REFACE. \lv 
 
 would not such be for a builder of" palaces " with 
 Words!" What country-houses would he not possess 
 in all quarters of the world, — and of time! What flights 
 not take from Greece to Araby, from Normandy to 
 Cathay, from the Courts of Charlemagne and of Arthur, 
 to the corners of the sea, and the House of Morpheus ! 
 With what transport not wake up, and find himself in 
 the company of his beloved old books, content to be 
 master of the world when he had his wings on, and to 
 look for no better footing for the sole of his feet, than 
 the hearth of an uninsulted poverty. felix ter et 
 nmplius! No man ever deserved even to wish to be 
 a poet, who could not think in this manner, or not 
 think it as much at forty as at twenty. 
 
 The poem of Hero and Leandei\ as well as the 
 Story of Rimini^ I have corrected since it first ap- 
 peared, the former indeed considerably altered ; I hope 
 with improvement to it as an unhalting and consistent 
 narrative. They ought, it is true, to have been so written 
 at first, as to require nothing which it was in my power 
 to do for them afterwards ; but I was conscious of 
 letting some of the passages slip from me too carelessly. 
 The long description, by the way, of the garden in the 
 Story of Rimini, I have suffered to remain, though it 
 may seem injurious to the progress of the action ; but 
 
xlvi PREFACE. 
 
 in spirit I thought it not so ; because the heroine is 
 to be prepared as gradually as possible for the change 
 in her conduct ; and a luxurious enjoyment of the 
 works of nature, in the present perplexed condition of 
 the world, is too often rendered an additional means 
 of confusion, instead of being, as it ought to be, one 
 of the final modes of the common good.* The great 
 point however is, whether the reader would rather 
 have the description or not. Laws in poetry are 
 nothing but the conclusions which critics have come 
 to, respecting the means adopted by the best poets, 
 for giving the greatest amount of pleasure. The ap- 
 
 * In all which the writer intimates, here or in any other place, 
 respecting- the happiness which mankind may attain to in this life, 
 he is far from wishing to imply any thing against the existence 
 of another. He is of opinion with Selden in that matter, in his 
 famous argument derived from the subject in hand, — a garden; 
 where he says, that he sees no reason why a man should not make 
 himself as happy as possible in one beautiful place, because the 
 giver of it has promised him another. If it be argued that evil 
 here is necessary in order to enhance good in another world, so 
 let it be ai'gued ; it is well and wise ; but this consideration is for 
 comfort, and not for action. No doctrines inculcate human endea- 
 vour, for the sake of the species and their improvement, more than 
 those of Christianity. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 peal always lies from the law-makers to the reader's 
 feeling. No laws whatever have yet been perfected, 
 because in no art or science has the entire circle 
 of truth been run round. There is one thing in 
 Shakspeare himself which is unnatural, and it pervades 
 almost all his plays ; namely, the making his people 
 talk so wonderfully well, with a profusion of thought 
 and imagery to be found only in a mind like his own. 
 It suits the excess of reflection in such characters as 
 Hamlet and Lear, but scarcely any one else ; and yet 
 who would wish it away ? Nature is included still, 
 and that is sufficient. The drama itself is in nature : 
 art is in nature : and provided no requisite beauty 
 be omitted, it is a fine thing to see how far a poet 
 can enrich his entertainment without oppressing de- 
 light. 
 
 The next composition, the Feast of the Poets, 
 was the earliest of my grown productions in verse. 
 I was full of animal spirits when I wrote it, and have 
 a regard for it accordingly, like that for one's other 
 associations of youth. It was however a good deal 
 more personal than at present, and showed me the 
 truth of what has been observed respecting the danger 
 of a young writer's commencing his career with satire : 
 for I have reason to believe, that its offences, both of 
 
xlviil PREFACE. 
 
 commission and omission, gave rise to some of the most 
 inveterate enmities I have experienced. I will honestly 
 confess, especially as I had a nobler field of warfare to 
 suffer in, that I would willingly not have aroused 
 enmity by such means. I acknowledge also, that a 
 young author was presumptuous in pronouncing judg- 
 ment upon older men, some of whom made me blush 
 afterwards with a better self-knowledge. I can only, 
 offer in excuse, that I had not at that time suffered 
 enough myself, to be aware of the pain to be given in, 
 this way ; and that I was a young student, full of my 
 favourite writers, and regarding a satire as nothing but 
 a pleasant thing in a book. 
 
 To omit this poem in the present collection, appeared 
 to me, for various reasons, improper ; but it has been 
 altered to suit my present feelings; and if all the 
 hostile passages have not been left out, the retention 
 under the circumstances, is, I think, not unwarrantable. 
 The passage on the late Mr. Gifford I have a value 
 for, partly because Mr. Hazlitt liked it ; but the chief 
 reason why I let this and two others remain is, that if 
 men have a right to quarrel personally with anything, 
 it is with prosperous insincerity, and with inhumani- 
 ties which neither age nor suffering do away. And 
 1 have another reason. I think it necessary, for the 
 
I'UErACE. xlix 
 
 sake of many interests, to shew that I have still arms 
 at my side. I have no desire to use them. Never 
 had I so little. But my determination to use them, if 
 insisted upon, never was so great. I have made amends, 
 by long and patient forbearance, for a young mistake ; 
 but injuries affecting more than myself, I will repel. 
 This is a grave piece of discourse upon so light a sub- 
 ject ; but criticism and poetry are apt to be cloud and 
 sunshine. 
 
 To the Translations the originals have been ap- 
 pended, partly out of a recollection of the pleasure I 
 used to feel when a boy, at seeing the Latin under 
 Pope's Imitations of Horace ; partly from a willing- 
 ness to shew the pains taken to do the originals justice. 
 I have translated the whole of Tasso's Amijntas, of 
 Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany^ and of the Lutrin of 
 Boileau : the JBacchus, from good will ; the two other 
 poems, from a less voluntary motive. The Lutrin^ 
 fortunately, has not been published ; for 1 doubt whether 
 it would have been better received than the Bacchus ; 
 and from the Amyntas I have retained only the Ode 
 to the Golden A^e^ which I fear is the only really 
 fine thing in the original. Of the Jhtcchiis and the 
 Lutrin^ I have given such specimens as 1 thought 
 might afford the reader some gratification. 1 speak, of 
 
 (I 
 
1 PREFACE. 
 
 course, only of the translations : though I doubt, how- 
 ever well they might have been rendered, whether in 
 England we could have received anything like such a 
 pleasure from them, as the French and Italians do from 
 the originals, owing to our want of intimacy with the 
 same customs. The Lutrin has a "catholic" relish 
 with it ; but not in the truly learned and universal 
 sense of Sancho Panza's draught out of the flask ; 
 and Redi's wines become flat by importation. 
 
 Let me take this opportunity of saying, that with 
 all the praise occasionally bestowed upon the serious 
 powers of Theocritus, and his indications of a genius for 
 epic poetry, I am not aware that justice has been done 
 to the wonderful evidences he has given of a combina- 
 tion of faculties for the light and the passionate, the 
 social and the sequestered, the humorous and the 
 pathetic, the minute and the grand. This delightful 
 poet courts a milk-maid or a sea-nymph with equal fit- 
 ness of address ; is a countryman and a townsman ; a 
 clown, a courtier, and a satirist ; fills a house at mid- 
 night with ghastly phenomena; describes a piece of 
 pugilism in a style to make the bones of the *' Fancy" 
 crack under them ; and makes us at once shudder and 
 pity the great monster Polypheme, whom he reconciles 
 to humanity by subduing with love. Then there is 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 his Hylas, disappearing inider tlie water like a falling 
 star ; and his lion at noon-day, with all the villagers 
 indoors around him ; and his infant Hercules, the little 
 jovial potency, the true infiint demi-god, tearless and 
 sovereign, of whose encounter witli the Serpents I have 
 endeavoured to give some idea. If Theocritus had 
 written an epic, the world would have had a poet 
 unknown to it, a romance-writer equally great for 
 abundance and concentration, a Greek Ariosto. 
 
 I fear I have indeed been gossiping in this preface, 
 and that I shall be thought by some to have wasted a 
 great many words upon rhyme and numbers, things a 
 little too much forgotten perhaps in the general poetry 
 of the age. There is enough romance however in 
 my volume to save me from the charge of a mechanical 
 impertinence, when I venture to congratulate the 
 reader on the manifest failure of that prophecy, which 
 announced the downfall of all poetry and fiction in the 
 ascendancy of the steam engine, and would fain have 
 persuaded us, that the heart, and imagination, and 
 flesh and blood of man, were to quit him at the approach 
 of science and utilitarianism, and leave him nothing 
 but his ribs to reckon upon. O believe it not ! Count 
 it not feasible, or in nature ! The very flowers on the 
 tea-cups, the grace with which a ball of cotton is rolled 
 d-2 
 
/ 
 
 Hi PREFACE. 
 
 up, might luive slievvn to tlie contrary. You must take 
 colour out of the grass first, preference out of the 
 fancy, passion out of the blood. Nay the more drought, 
 the more thirst. The want makes the wish. You 
 may make sects in opinion, and formalize a people for 
 a while, here and there ; but you cannot undo human 
 nature. The very passion that makes them obstinate in 
 what is formal, shall counteract itself in the blood of 
 their children, and betray them back to imagination. 
 Opinion may dogmatize; science may be mechanical 
 in its operation ; but in explaining one cause, it only 
 throws us back upon another, and opens a wider and 
 remoter world for the fancy to riot in. And the ope- 
 rators, by very reason of the solid footing they require, 
 are apt to lose themselves most, if they do not hold 
 fast. Newton himself got into strange border-lands of 
 dissent. Pascal was a hypochondriacal dreamer. With 
 the growth of this formidable mechanical epoch, that 
 was to take all dulce out of the utile^ we have had 
 the wonderful works of Sir Walter Scott, the criticism 
 of Hazlitt, the imagination of Keats, the tragedy and 
 winged philosophy of Shelley, the passion of Byron, 
 the wit and festivity of Moore, tales and novels endless, 
 and Mr. W^ordsworth has become a classic, and the 
 Germans have poured forth every species of romance. 
 
rUEFACK. 
 
 and the very French have thought fit to Geimanize, 
 and our American brethren have written little but 
 novels and verses, and Sir Humphry Davy has been 
 dividing his time between coal-mines and fairy-land, 
 (no very remote regions;) and the shop itself and the 
 Corn Laws have given us a poet, and Mr. Crabbe has 
 been versifying the very Parish Registers ; and last, 
 not least, the Utilitarians themselves are poetical ! 
 Dr. Bowring is not satisfied unless we hear of the 
 poetry of the " Maggyars ;" and if you want a proper 
 Bacchanalian uproar in a song, you must go to the 
 author of " Headlong Hall," who will not advance 
 utility itself, unless it be jovial. It is a moot point 
 which he admires most, Bentham or Rossini. 
 
 The truth is, that if the literature of the age reminds 
 us in any respect of the mechanical, it is in a certain 
 irregularity and random thinking, and at the same 
 time a want of animal spirits. There is something in 
 it both of the turbulence and the melancholy of the 
 manufactories, and it is traceable to the same causes, 
 mixed with some portion of what is not exactly a pas- 
 sion for truth and simplicity -, to wit, those which have 
 made England itself the melancholy bankrupt of the 
 wars of Europe. The poor have a right to complain ; 
 but if others have their collateral grievances, and must 
 
liv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 complain too, it would be better if they would hand- 
 somely merge them into that commoner stock, and 
 thus mourn to some purpose. A man, who enjoys any 
 of the reliefs of literature, and who sees what a beau- 
 tiful world this is, and how all might enjoy it, if all 
 would try for all, should be ashamed, however distressed 
 or struggling, to mourn openly for himself. General 
 endeavour, animated by particular, is the only thing at 
 last that will do away individual trouble ; and it is a 
 pity that the comic philosopher mentioned at the close 
 of my last paragraph, and the brilliant minstrel of 
 Erin, who are alm.ost the only writers whose animal 
 spirits come out in strong relief from the general som- 
 breness of our literature, cannot strike a little more 
 vivacity into the blood of their countrymen, and help 
 them to feel the value of it in proportion to the neces- 
 sity for effort. It would enable "us youth," who mix 
 up something of the jovial with our very melancholy, 
 to come in with a better grace under the shadow of 
 their wing. Let us hope that as effort is unavoidable, 
 cheerfulness will come with it. At present, we have 
 become thinking enough to grow more tolerant, even 
 towards those who hold pleasant teaching to be better 
 than painful ; but our determination, nevertheless, to be 
 *' all unhappy together," is remarkable. The loudest 
 
PRKFACE. IV 
 
 and most ostentatious of the lively do but bluster, 
 and even declare it an ostentation ; the most successful 
 betray the most melancholy opinions ; the very happiest 
 try hard at a misgiving. Poets, novelists, critics, fine 
 gentlemen, ladies, magazine-writers, annualists — all are 
 in one common story of sorrowfulness, over all sorts of 
 things that have surely been sufficiently sorrowed over, 
 and tell us of little else but the vanity of their hopes and 
 the error of their ways. Rich and poor, old and young, 
 book-writers, and stanza-writers, the necessitous and the 
 easy, all are alike '* melancholy and wise," and give us 
 to understand that they shall consider it an imperti- 
 nence and a proof of a shallow understanding, if we 
 offer to comfort them. The ladies in particular, not 
 having the fear of dullness and calumny before their 
 eyes, make such a point of expatiating on the sad things 
 they have become acquainted with, on the blighting 
 effects of *' guilt," the lost happiness of their child- 
 hood, the peace which they must " never hope for 
 more," &c., that were it not for the very innocence of 
 the lamentation, we should wonder that the parish- 
 officers had not taken them all up, and brought them 
 before the magistrate. However, out of all this dissa- 
 tisfaction it is to be ho])ed there will come advance- 
 ment. What an honest man might complain of, 
 
IVl PREFACE. 
 
 iiieainvhile, for his share of the grievance, is, that these 
 fair mourners are so very clever, and look so well in 
 their black, and afford him so many bewitching glimpses 
 of their taste for felicity, that their refusal to be con- 
 soled becomes doubly hard upon his sympathy. 
 
 Alas ! (to borrow their style of lamentation when it 
 is most used, namely, when there is least ground for 
 it,) even " gossiping" must have an end. I must ter- 
 minate this long preiace with again reminding the 
 reader of its exordium, and with begging him to con- 
 strue me, not as arrogating a right to be considered 
 exemplary on any point of authorship of which it has 
 spoken, nor as challenging a comparison with any 
 person alluded to, but only as a writer who is '* nothing 
 if not social,'" and who would willingly read other 
 jnen's prefaces, if they were twice as long, and does 
 read them. 
 
 I have one thing more, however, to allude to, but 
 it is very fit that I should do it, and will be a still more 
 becoming conclusion to this preface, which would not 
 have been written but on the strength of it. It is to 
 the subscription, by which this volume has been enabled 
 to appear in its present shape. I was thinking of 
 making a selection of my verses, in order to give them 
 a chance of surviving me, at the moment when a kind 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Ivii 
 
 fVieiul came upon me with tlic project. There were 
 reasons why I did not dare to say nay to him ; and the 
 mode of publication was reconciled to my self-love by 
 many flattering recollections. To all the persons con- 
 cerned in bringing it out, my friend in particular, and 
 the publisher who has shewn himself a friend, and the 
 printers who have taken such pains with it, and have 
 indulged me in my "brackets," and other interferences 
 with the sightliness of their page, I return my best 
 thanks. I dare not say much to the subscribers in gene- 
 ral, lest in proportion as I seemed to make my book of 
 no value, 1 should deprive all parties of a grace. It is 
 impossible not to feel a strong moment of confidence 
 and self-complacency (however it may give way, the 
 next, to a sense of their good -nature,) when a set of 
 names, comprising almost the flower of existing lite- 
 rature, have not hesitated to give my pretensions, as a 
 writer, the ornament of their recognition. Of opinions, 
 I say nothing ; except that it is an additional and de- 
 lightful proof of the growth of one of the best of all 
 opinions ; namely, the right of their independence. I 
 can truly say, that I have seldom felt greater pleasure, 
 not only on my own account, but on that of my species, 
 when 1 saw some of the names that came into the list. 
 1 will not enter into more particular reasons why, lest 
 
Iviii PREFACE. 
 
 I should seem to flatter myself, more than honour 
 them ; which is assuredly not the case. I leave them to 
 be guessed by those who know what political warfare is, 
 and who might think these evidences of good-will after 
 the battle incompatible with it. I must say for myself, 
 that I never was of that opinion, nor ever gave the 
 world reason to think so ; and therefore, so far, I am 
 not as surprised as some may be, nor indeed surprised 
 at all. I am only glad and confirmed. Wliat was 
 observed by one of these gentlemen, particularly de- 
 lighted me. It amounted to saying, that he would 
 gladly help in binding up my wounds, and the battle 
 mio-ht be renewed afterwards. This is in true chival- 
 rous style, and poetry in action. Let me add, that the 
 end of all conflict, carried on in this spirit, and secured 
 by the knowledge of the time, can only be good for 
 all parties, and merge them in the great cause of 
 mankind. 
 
 L. H. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Story of Rimini 
 The Gentle Armour 
 Hero and Leander 
 The Feast of the Poets 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 
 Mahmoud . 
 Lines written in May 
 Alter et Idem 
 Power and Gentleness 
 The Panther 
 To T. L. H. 
 To J. H. . 
 The Nun 
 
 Ariadne Waking- . 
 On Pomfret's " Choice 
 A House and Grounds 
 A Picture of Naiads . 
 The Dryads 
 The Ephydriads 
 The Cloud . 
 
 SONNETS— 
 
 To Thomas Barnes, Esq. 
 
 To the Grasshopper and the Cricket 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 . . 101 
 
 . 121 
 
 . . 141 
 
 . 161 
 
 . 
 
 166 
 
 . 
 
 170 
 
 . 
 
 172 
 
 . 
 
 . 175 
 
 . 
 
 179 
 
 
 182 
 
 . 
 
 188 
 
 . 
 
 190 
 
 • 
 
 191 
 
 . 
 
 193 
 
 . 
 
 196 
 
 . 
 
 198 
 
 . 
 
 201 
 
 • 
 
 203 
 
 . 207 
 
 . 
 
 208 
 
Ix COXTENTS. 
 
 SONNETS— 
 To Kosciusko 
 To Stothard . 
 A Thought on The Nile . 
 
 To , M. D. 
 
 On a Lock of Milton's Hair 
 
 Page. 
 
 209 
 210 
 211 
 212 
 213 
 
 TRANSLATIONS — 
 
 Theocritus. — The Infant Hercules and the Serpents . 217 
 
 Catullus. — Catullus's Return Home . . . 228 
 
 Ovid. —The Story of Cyllarus and Hylonome . . 230 
 
 Martial. — Epitaph on Erotion . . . . 238 
 
 Walter de Mapes.— The Jovial Priest's Confession . 240 
 From the English drama of " Amyxtas." — Song of 
 
 Fairies Robbing an Orchard .... 244 
 
 Milton.— Plato's Archetypal Man . . . . 246 
 
 Petrarch. — Contemplations of Death in the Bower of Laura 253 
 
 Andrea de Basso.— Ode to a Dead Body . . 261 
 
 Ariosto. — The Lover's Prison . . . . 274 
 
 Tasso.— Ode to the Golden Age . . . .276 
 
 Red I. — Bacchus in Tuscany . , . . . 284 
 
 D'Herbelot. — A Blessed Spot .... 324 
 
 Clement Marot. On the Laugh of Madame D'Albret . 325 
 
 — — A Court Love-Lesson . . .327 
 Destouches. — Epitaph on an Englishman . . . 328 
 De Boufflers. — Love and War .... 329 
 
 — — Love and Reason . . . . 331 
 Anonymous. — The Essence of Opera . . . 334 
 Boileau. — Elves in a Monastery . . . . 339 
 
 — The Old Kings of France . . .341 
 
 — The Battle of the Books . . . . 343 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Time, the Fotirleenlh Cenlttri/. The Scene lies first at Ravenna, and 
 afterwards at liimini. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 This Poem is founded on the beautiful episode of Paulo and Francesca 
 in tlie fifth book of the Inferno, where it stands like a lily in the mouth 
 of Tartarus. The substance of what Dante tells us of the history of the 
 two lovers is to be found at the end of the third Canto. The rest has 
 been gathered from the commentators. They differ in their accounts of it, 
 but all agree that the lady was, in some measure, beguiled into the 
 match with the elder and less attractive Malatesta, — Boccaccio says, by 
 having the younger brother pointed out to her as her destined husband, 
 as he was passing over a bijuare. 
 
 Francesca of Ravenna was the daughter of Guido Novello da Polenta, 
 lord of that city, and was married to Giovanni, or, as others call him, 
 Launcelot Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, under circumstances that had given 
 her an innocent predilection for Paulo, his younger brother. The false- 
 hood thus practised upon her had fatal consequences. In the Poem 
 before tlie reader, the Duke her father, a weak, though not ill-disposed 
 man, desirous, on a political account, of marrying her to the Prince of 
 
ARGUMKNT. 
 
 Rimini, and dreading lier objections in case she sees him, and becomes 
 acquainted with his unamiable manners, contrives that he sliall send his 
 brother as his proxy, and that the poor girl shall believe the one prince 
 to be the sample of the other. Experience undeceives her ; Paulo has 
 been told the perilous secret of her preference for him ; and in both of 
 them a struggle with their sense of duty takes place, for which the in- 
 sincere and selfish morals of others had not prepared them. Giovanni 
 discovers the secret, from words uttered by his wife in her sleep : he 
 forces Paulo to meet him in single combat, and slays him, not without 
 sorrow for both, and great indignation against the father : Francesca dies 
 of a broken heart ; and the two lovers, who had come to Ravenna in the 
 midst of a gay cavalcade, are sent back to Ravenn^, dead, in order that 
 he who first helped to unite them with his falsehood, should bury them 
 in one grave for his repentance. The poor old man loses his wits ; and 
 the burial takes place. 
 
THE 
 
 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 THE COMING TO FETCH THE BRIDE FROM RAVENNA. 
 
 The sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May 
 Round old Ravenna's clear-shewn towers and bay, 
 A morn, the loveliest which the year has seen, 
 Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green ; 
 For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night, 
 Have left a sparkling welcome for the light, 
 And there's a crystal clearness all about ; 
 The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out ; 
 
» STORY OF RIMIXI. 
 
 A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze ; 
 The smoke goes dancing from the cottage trees ; 
 And when you listen, you may hear a coil 
 Of bubbling springs about the grassier soil ; 
 And all the scene in short, — sky, earth, and sea, 
 Breathes like a bright-eyed face, that laughs out 
 openly. 
 
 'Tis nature, full of spirits, waked and springing : — 
 The birds to the delicious time are singing. 
 Darting with freaks and snatches up and dow^n, 
 Where the light woods go seaward from the town ; 
 While happy faces, striking through the green 
 Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen ; 
 And the far ships, lifting their sails of white 
 Like joyful hands, come up with scatter'd light. 
 Come gleaming up, true to the wished-for day, 
 And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay. 
 
 And well may all who can, come crowding there. 
 If peace returning, and processions rare, 
 
STOHY OF lUMINI. 
 
 And to crown all, a marriage in the sprin<j 
 Can set enjoying fancies on the wing ; 
 For on this sparkling day, Ravenna's pride, 
 The daughter of their prince, becomes a bride, 
 A bride, to ransom an exhausted land : 
 And he, whose victories have obtained her hand, 
 Has taken with the dawn, so flies report. 
 His promised journey to the expecting court, 
 With hasting pomp, and squires of high degree, 
 The bold Giovanni, lord of Rimini. 
 
 Already in the streets the stir grows loud 
 Of joy increasing and a bustling crowd. 
 With feet and voice the gathering hum contends, 
 Yearns the deep talk, the ready laugh ascends : 
 Callings, and clapping doors, and curs unite, 
 And shouts from mere exuberance of delight. 
 And armed bands, making important way, 
 Gallant and grave, the lords of holiday, 
 And nodding neighbours, greeting as they run, 
 And pilgrims, chanting in the morning sun. 
 b2 
 
4 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 With heaved-oiit tapestry the wmdows glow. 
 
 By lovely faces brought, that come and go ; 
 
 Till, the work smoothed, and all the street attired. 
 
 They take their seats, with upward gaze admired ; 
 
 Some looking down, some forwards or aside, 
 
 Some re-adjusting tresses newly tied, 
 
 Some turning a trim waist, or o'er the flow 
 
 Of crimson cloths hanging a hand of snow ; 
 
 But all with smiles prepared, and garlands green. 
 
 And all in fluttering talk, impatient for the scene. 
 
 And hark I the approaching trumpets, with a start, 
 On the smooth wind come dancing to the heart. 
 A moment's hush succeeds ; and from the walls, 
 Firm and at once, a silver answer calls. 
 Then press the crowd ; and all, who best can strive 
 In shuffling struggle, tow'rd the palace drive, 
 Where baluster'd and broad, of marble ftiir. 
 Its portico commands the public square ; 
 For there Duke Guido is to hold his state 
 With his fair daughter, seated o'er the gate : — 
 
STOUY OF IIIMINI. 5 
 
 But the full place rejects the invading tide ; 
 And after a rude heave from side to side, 
 ^^'ith angry faces turned, and feet regained. 
 The peaceful press with order is maintained. 
 Leaving tlie path-ways only for the crowd. 
 The space within for the procession proud. 
 
 For in this manner is the square set out : — 
 The sides, path-deep, are crowded round about, 
 And faced with guards, who keep the road entire ; 
 And opposite to these a brilliant quire 
 Of knights and ladies hold the central spot, 
 Seated in groups upon a grassy plot ; 
 The seats with boughs are shaded from above 
 Of early trees transplanted from a grove. 
 And in the midst, fresh whistling through the scene, 
 A lightsome fountain starts from out the green. 
 Clear and compact, till, at its height o'er-run. 
 It shakes its loosenino; silver in the sun. 
 
O STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 There, talking with the ladies, you may see, 
 As in some nest of faery poetry, 
 Some of the finest warriors of the court, — 
 Baptist, and Hugo of the princely port. 
 And Azo, and Obizo, and the grace 
 Of frank Esmeriald with his open face, 
 And Felix the Fine Arm, and him who well 
 Repays his lavish honours, Lionel, 
 Besides a host of spirits, nursed in glory. 
 Fit for sweet woman's love and for the poet's story. 
 
 There too, in thickest of the bright-eyed throng. 
 Stands the young father of Italian song, 
 Guy Cavalcanti, of a knightly race ; 
 The poet looks out in his earnest face ; 
 He with the pheasant's plume — there — bending now ; 
 Something he speaks around him with a bow, 
 And all the listening looks, with nods and flushes, 
 Break round him into smiles and sparkling blushes. 
 
STOHY OF lU.MINI. 
 
 Another start of tnini])ets, with reply ; 
 And o'er the gate a sudden canopy 
 Of snowy white disparts its draperied shade, 
 And Guido issues with the princely maid, 
 And sits ; — the courtiers fall on eitlier side ; 
 But every look is fixed upon the bride, 
 A\Tio pensive comes at first, and hardly hears 
 The enormous shout that springs as she appears ; 
 Till, as she views the countless gaze below, 
 And faces that with grateful homage glow, 
 A home to leave, and husband yet to see, 
 Fade in the warmth of that great charity ; 
 And hard it is, she thinks, to have no will ; 
 But not to bless these thousands, harder still : 
 With that, a keen and quivering glance of tears 
 Scarce moves her patient mouth, and disappears ; 
 A smile is underneath, and breaks away. 
 And round she looks and breathes, as best befits 
 the dav. 
 
B STORY OF RIMINU' 
 
 What need I tell of lovely lips and eyes, 
 A perfect waist, and bosom's balmy rise ? 
 There's not in all that crowd a gallant being, 
 ^\^lom if his heart were whole, and rank aijreeinfj:* 
 It would not tire to twice of what he is, 
 To clasp her to his heart, and call her his. 
 
 While thus with tip-toe looks the people gaze, 
 Another shout the neighboring quarters raise : 
 The train are in the town, and gathering near. 
 With noise of cavalry, and trumpets clear ; 
 A princely music, unbedinned with drums ; 
 The mighty brass seems opening as it comes ; 
 And now it fills, and now it shakes the air. 
 And now it bursts into the sounding square ; 
 At which the crowd with such a shout rejoice, 
 Each thinks he's deafen'd with his neighbour's voice. 
 Then, with a long-drawn breath, the clangours die ; 
 The palace trumpets give a last reply. 
 And clattering hoofs succeed, with stately stir 
 Of snortings proud and clinking furniture. 
 
STORY OF IIIMINI. \) 
 
 It seems as if the liarnessed war were near ; 
 But ill their garb of peace tlie train appear, 
 Their swords ak)ne reserved, but idly hung. 
 And the chains freed by which their sliiekls were 
 shiiig. 
 
 First come the trumpeters, chid all in white 
 Except the breast, which wears a scutcheon bright. 
 By four and four they ride, on horses grey ; 
 And as they sit along their easy way. 
 To the steed's motion yielding as they go, 
 Each plants his trumpet on his saddle-bow. 
 
 The heralds next appear, in vests attired 
 Of stiffening gold with radiant colours fired ; 
 And then the pursuivants, who wait on these, 
 All dressed in painted richness to the knees : 
 Each rides a dappled horse, and bears a shield. 
 Charged with three heads upon a golden field.* 
 
 * The anus of tlic Miilutc^ta family. 
 
10 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Twelve ranks of squires come after, twelve in one, 
 AVitli forked pennons lifted in the sun, 
 Which tell, as they look backward in the wind, 
 The bearinsrs of the knidits that ride behind. 
 Their steeds are ruddy bay ; and every squire 
 His master's colour shews in his attire. 
 
 These past, and at a lordly distance, come 
 The knights themselves, and fill the quickening hum. 
 The flower of Rimini. Apart they ride, 
 Six in a row, and with a various pride ; 
 But all as fresh as fancy could desire. 
 All shapes of gallantry on steeds of fire. 
 
 Differing in colours is the knights' array. 
 The horses, black and chesnut, roan and bay ; — 
 The horsemen, crimson vested, purple, and white, — 
 All but the scarlet cloak for every knight. 
 Which thrown apart, and hanging loose behind. 
 Rests on the steed, and ruffles in the wind. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 11 
 
 Instead of helm, in draperies they appear 
 Of folded cloth, depending by the ear : 
 And the steeds also make a mantled show ; 
 The golden bits keep wrangling as they go : 
 A\'itli gold the bridles glance against the sun ; 
 And the rich horse-cloths, ample every one, 
 Which, from the saddle-bow, dress half the steed. 
 Are some of them all thick with golden thread : 
 Others have spots, on grounds of dijfferent hue. 
 As burning stars upon a cloth of blue ; 
 Or purple smearings, with a velvet light. 
 Rich from the glary yellow thickening bright ; 
 Or a spring green, powdered with April posies ; 
 Or flush vermilion, set with silver roses : 
 But all go sweeping back, and seem to dress 
 The forward march with loitering stateliness. 
 
 With various earnestness the crowd admire 
 Horsemen and horse, the motion and the attire. 
 Some watch, as they go by, the riders' fiices 
 Looking composure, and their knightly graces ; 
 
12 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 The life, the carelessness, the sudden heed, 
 The body curving to the rearing steed. 
 The patting hand, that best persuades the check. 
 And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck. 
 The travell'd hues of some, the bloom of those. 
 And scars, the keepsakes of admiring foes. 
 
 Others the horses and their pride explore, 
 Their jauntiness behind and strength before ; 
 The flowing back, firm chest, and fetlocks clean. 
 The branching veins ridging the glossy lean. 
 The mane hung sleekly, the projecting eye 
 That to the stander near looks awfully. 
 The finished head, in its compactness free, 
 Small, and o'erarching to the lifted knee, 
 The start and snatch, as if they felt the comb, 
 With mouths that fling about the creamy foam. 
 The snorting turbidence, the nod, the champing. 
 The shift, the tossing, and the fiery tramping. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 13 
 
 And now the Princess, pale and with fixed eye, 
 Perceives the last of those precursors nigh, 
 Each rank uncovering, as they pass in state, 
 Both to the courtly fountain and the gate. 
 And then a second interval succeeds 
 Of stately length, and then a troop of steeds 
 Milkwhite and unattired, Arabian bred, 
 Each by a blooming boy lightsomely led : 
 In every limb is seen their faultless race ; 
 But sprightly malice glances in the face ; 
 They doubt their masters in a foreign place : 
 Slender their spotless shapes, and meet the 
 
 sight 
 With freshness, after all those colours bright : 
 And as with easy pitch their steps they bear, 
 The very ease seems something to beware : 
 The yielding head has still a wilful air. 
 These for a princely present are divined, 
 And shew the giver is not far behind. 
 
14 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 The talk increases now, and now advance, 
 Space after space, with many a sprightly prance, 
 The pages of the court, in rows of three ; 
 Of white and crimson is their livery. 
 Space after space, — and still the train appear, — 
 A fervid whisper fills the general ear— 
 Ah — yes — no — *tis not he— but 'tis the squires 
 Who go before him when his pomp requires ; 
 And now his huntsman shews the lessening train, 
 Now the squire-carver, and the chamberlain, — 
 And now his banner comes, and now his shield 
 Borne by the squire that waits him to the field, — 
 And then an interval,— a lordly space ; — 
 A pin-drop silence strikes o'er all the place ; 
 The princess, from a distance, scarcely knows 
 Which way to look ; her colour comes and goes. 
 And, with an impulse and affection free. 
 She lays her hand upon her father's knee. 
 Who looks upon her with a laboured smile, 
 Gathering it up into his own the while. 
 
STORY OF ItlMINT. 15 
 
 AVlien some one's voice, as if it knew not liow 
 
 To check itself, exclaims, "The prince! now— 
 
 now !" 
 And on a milk-white courser, like the air, 
 A glorious figure springs into the square ; 
 Up, with a burst of thunder, goes the shout. 
 And rolls the trembling walls and peopled roofs about. 
 
 Never was nobler finish of fine sight ; 
 *Twas like the coming of a shape of light ; 
 And every lovely gazer, with a start, 
 Felt the quick pleasure smite across her heart : — 
 The princess, who at first could scarcely see, 
 Though looking still that way from dignity, 
 Gathers new courage as the praise goes round, 
 And bends her eyes to learn what they have found. 
 And see, — his horse obeys the check unseen ; 
 And with an air 'twixt ardent and serene, 
 Letting a fall of curls about his brow, 
 He takes his cap off' with a gallant bow ; 
 
16 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Then for another and a deafening shout, 
 
 And scarfs are waved, and flowers come fluttering out, 
 
 And, shaken by the noise, the reeling air '] 
 
 Sweeps with a giddy whirl among the fair, 
 
 And whisks their ojarments, and their shining hair. 
 
 With busy interchange of wonder glows 
 The crowd, and loves his bravery as he goes, — 
 But on his shape the gentler sight attends, 
 Moves as he passes, — as he bends him, bends, — 
 Watches his air, his gesture, and his face. 
 And thinks it never saw such manly grace. 
 So fine are his bare throat, and curls of black, — 
 So lightsomely dropt in, his lordly back— 
 His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance. 
 So heaped with strength, and turned with elegance ; 
 But above all, so meaning is his look, 
 Full, and as readable as open book ; 
 And such true gallantry the sex descries 
 In th'e frank lifting of his cordial eyes. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI- 17 
 
 His haughty steed, who seems by turns to be 
 Vexed and made proud by that cool mastery, 
 Shakes at his bit, and rolls his eyes with care, 
 Reaching with stately step at the fine air ; 
 And now and then, sideling his restless pace, 
 Drops with his hinder legs, and shifts his place. 
 And feels through all his frame a fiery thrill : 
 The princely rider on his back sits still. 
 And looks where'er he likes, and sways him at his 
 will. 
 
 Surprise, relief, a joy scarce understood, 
 Something perhaps of very gratitude. 
 And fifty feelings, undefin'd and new. 
 Dance through the bride, and flush her faded hue. 
 " Could I but once," she thinks, " securely place 
 A trust for the contents on such a case, 
 And know the spirit that should fill that dwelling, 
 This chance of mine would hardly be compelling." 
 Just then, the stranger, coming slowly round 
 By the clear fountain and the brilliant ground, 
 
18 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And bending, as he goes, with frequent thanks, 
 Beckons a follower to him from the ranks, 
 And loosening, as he speaks, from its light hold, 
 A dropping jewel with its chain of gold, 
 Sends it, in token he had loved him long, 
 To the young father of Italian song : 
 The youth smiles up, and with a lowly grace 
 Bending his lifted eyes and blushing face, 
 Looks after his new friend, who, scarcely gone 
 In the wide turning, nods and passes on. 
 
 This is sufficient for the destined bride ; 
 She took an interest first, but now a pride ; 
 And as the prince comes riding to the place, 
 Baring his head, and raising his fine face. 
 She meets his full obeisance with an eye 
 Of self-permission and sweet gravity ; 
 He looks with touched respect, and gazes, and 
 goes by. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 CANTO 11. 
 
CANTO II. 
 
 THE BRIDE'S JOURNEY TO RIMINI. 
 
 Pass we the followers, and their closing state ; 
 The court was entered by a hinder gate ; 
 The duke and princess had retired before, 
 Joined by the knights and ladies at the door ; 
 But something seemed amiss, and there ensued 
 Deep talk among the spreading multitude, 
 \Vlio stood in groups, or paced the measured street, 
 Filling with earnest hum the noontide heat ; 
 Nor ceased the wonder, as the day increased. 
 And brought no symptoms of a bridal feast, 
 
22 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 No mass, no tilt, no largess for the crowd, 
 Nothing to answer that procession proud ; 
 But a blank look, as if no court had been ; 
 Silence without and secrecy within ; 
 And nothing heard by listening at the walls. 
 But now and then a bustling through the halls, 
 Or the dim organ roused at gathering intervals. 
 
 The truth was this : — The bridegroom had not 
 come. 
 But sent his brother, proxy in his room. 
 A lofty spirit the former was, and proud, . 
 Little gallant, and had a sort of cloud 
 Hanging for ever on his cold address, 
 Which he mistook for sovereign manliness. 
 But more of this hereafter. Guido knew 
 The prince's faults ; and he was conscious too. 
 That sweet as was his daughter, and prepared 
 To do her duty, where appeal was barred, 
 She had a sense of marriage, just and free ; 
 And where the match looked ill for hai-mony. 
 
STORY ^OF UIMINI. 
 
 Might pause with firmness, and refuse to strike 
 A chord her own sweet music so unlike. 
 The okl man therefore, kind enough at heart, 
 Yet fond, from liabit, of intrigue and art, 
 And little formed for sentiments like these, 
 Wliich seemed to him mere maiden niceties, 
 Had thought at once to gratify the pride 
 Of his stern neighbour, and secure the bride, 
 By telling him, that if, as he had heard. 
 Busy he was just then, 'twas but a word, 
 And he might send and wed her by a third ; 
 Only the duke thus farther must presume. 
 For both their sakes, — that still a prince must come. 
 The bride meantime was told, and not unmoved, 
 To look for one no sooner seen than loved ; 
 And when Giovanni, struck with what he thought 
 Mere proof how his triumphant hand was sought. 
 Dispatched the wished-for prince, who was a creature 
 Formed in the very poetry of nature. 
 The effect was perfect, and the future wife 
 Caught in the elaborate snare, perhaps for life. 
 
24 - STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 One shock there was, however, to sustain. 
 Which nigh restored her to herself again. 
 She saw, when all were housed, in Guido's face 
 A look of leisurely surprise take place ; 
 A little whispering followed for a while, 
 And then 'twas told her with an easy smile. 
 That Prince Giovanni, to his great chagrin, 
 Had been delayed by something unforeseen. 
 But rather than defer his day of bliss 
 (If his fair ruler took it not amiss) 
 Had sent his brother Paulo in his stead ; 
 " Who," said old Guido, with a nodding head, 
 *' May well be said to represent his brother. 
 For when you see the one, you know the other." 
 
 By this time Paulo joined them w^here they stood, 
 And seeing her in some uneasy mood, 
 Changed the mere cold respects his brother sent 
 To such a strain of cordial compliment, 
 And paid them with an air so frank and bright, 
 As to a friend appreciated at sight. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 25 
 
 That air in short which sets you at your case, 
 Without implying your perplexities, 
 That what with the surprise in every way. 
 The hurry of the time, the appointed day. 
 The very shame, which now appeared increased, 
 Of begging leave to have her hand released. 
 And above all, those tones, and smiles, and looks. 
 Which seemed to realize the dreams of books. 
 And helped her genial fancy to conclude 
 That fruit of such a stock must all be good, 
 She knew no longer how she could oppose : 
 Quick were the marriage-rites ; and at the close. 
 The proxy, turning midst the general hush. 
 Kissed her meek lips, betwixt a rosy blush. 
 
 At last, about the vesper hour, a score 
 Of trumpets issued from the palace door. 
 The banners of their brass with favours tied. 
 And with a blast proclaimed the wedded bride. 
 But not a word the sullen silence broke. 
 Till something of a gift the herald spoke. 
 
^b STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And with a bag of money issuing out, 
 Scattered the ready harvest round about ; 
 Then burst the mob into a jovial cry, 
 And largess ! largess ! claps against the sky, 
 And bold Giovanni's name, the lord of Rimini. 
 
 The rest however still were looking on. 
 Careless and mute, and scarce the noise was gone, 
 When riding from the gate with banners reared, 
 Again the morning visitors appeared. 
 The prince was in his place ; and in a car. 
 Before him, glistening like a farewell star. 
 Sate the dear lady with her brimming eyes ; 
 And off they set, through doubtful looks and cries ; 
 For some too shrewdly guessed, and some were vexed 
 At the dull day, and some the whole perplexed ; 
 And all great pity thought it to divide 
 Two that seemed made for bridegroom and for bride. 
 Ev'n she, whose heart this strange, abrupt event 
 Had cross'd and sear'd with burning wonderment, 
 
STORY OF RIIMINI. 27 
 
 Could scarce, at times, a starting cry forbear 
 At leaving her own home and native air ; 
 Till passing now the limits of the town, 
 And on the last few gazers looking down, 
 She saw^ by the road-side an aged throng. 
 Who wanting power to bustle with the strong, 
 Had learnt their gracious mistress was to go, 
 And gathered there, an unconcerted shew ; 
 Bending they stood, with their old foreheads bare, 
 And the winds fingered with their reverend hair. 
 Farewell ! farewell, my friends ! she would have cried. 
 But in her throat the leaping accents died, 
 And, waving with her hand a vain adieu, "] 
 
 She dropt her veil, and back warder withdrew, | 
 
 And let the kindly tears their own good course 
 pursue. 
 
 It was a lovely evening, fit to close 
 A lovely day, and brilliant in repose. 
 Warm, but not dim, a glow was in the aii' ; 
 The softened breeze came smoothing here and there ; 
 
28 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And every tree, in passing, one by one, 
 Gleamed out with twinkles of the golden sun : 
 For leafy was the road, with tall array. 
 On either side, of mulberry and bay, 
 And distant snatches of blue hills between ; 
 And there the alder was with its bright green, 
 And the broad chestnut, and the poplar's shoot, 
 That like a feather waves from head to foot, 
 With, ever and anon, majestic pines ; 
 And still, from tree to tree, the early vines 
 Hung garlandhig the way in amber lines. 
 
 Nor long the princess kept her from the view 
 Of that dear scenery with its parting hue : 
 For sitting now, calm from the gush of tears. 
 With dreaming eye fixed down, and half-shut ears. 
 Hearing, yet hearing not, the fervent sound 
 Of hoofs thick reckoning and the wheel's moist round, 
 A call of *' slower ! " from the farther part 
 Of the checked riders, woke her with a start ; 
 
STORY OF UIMINI. ^9 
 
 And looking up again, half sigh, half stare, 
 She lifts her veil, and feels the freshening air. 
 
 'Tis down a hill they go, gentle indeed, 
 And such, as with a bold and playful speed 
 Another time they would have scorned to measure;^ 
 But now they take with them a lovely treasure, |> 
 And feel they should consult her gentle pleasure. J 
 
 And now with thicker shades the pines appear ; 
 The noise of hoofs grows duller on the ear ; 
 And quitting suddenly their gravelly toil, 
 The wheels go spinning o'er a sandy soil. 
 Here first the silence of the country seems 
 To come about her with its listening dreams, 
 And, full of anxious thoughts, half freed from pain, 
 In downward musing she relapsed again. 
 Leaving the others who had passed that way 
 In careless spirits of the early day. 
 To look about, and nuuk the reverend scene. 
 For awful tales renowned, and everlasting green. 
 
30 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 A heavy spot the forest looks at first, 
 To one grim shade condemned, and sandy thirst, 
 Or only chequered, here and there, with bushes 
 Dusty and sharp, or plashy pools with rushes, 
 About whose sides the swarming insects fry, 
 Opening with noisome din, as they go by. 
 But entering more and more, they quit the sand 
 At once, and strike upon a grassy land. 
 From which the trees, as from a carpet, rise 
 In knolls and clumps, with rich varieties. 
 A moment's trouble find the knights to rein 
 Their horses in, which, feeling turf again. 
 Thrill, and curvet, and long to be at large 
 To scour the space and give the winds a charge. 
 Or pulling tight the bridles, as they pass. 
 Dip their warm mouths into the freshening grass. 
 But soon in easy rank, from glade to glade. 
 Proceed they, coasting underneath the shade, 
 Some baring to the cool their placid brows. 
 Some looking upward through the glimmering boughs, 
 
STORY OF IIIMINI. 31 
 
 Or peering grave through inward-opening places, 
 And half prepared for glimpse of shadowy faces. 
 Various the trees and passing foliage here, — 
 Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper. 
 With briony between in trails of white, 
 And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light. 
 And moss, warm gleaming with a sudden mark. 
 Like growths of sunshine left upon the bark, 
 And still the pine, long-haired, and dark, and tall. 
 In lordly right, predominant o'er all. 
 
 Much they admire that old religious tree 
 With shaft above the rest up-shooting free, 
 And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind. 
 Its wealthy fruit with rough Mosaic rind. 
 At noisy intervals, the living cloud 
 Of cawing rooks breaks o'er them, gathering loud 
 Like a wild people at a stranger's coming ; 
 Then hushing paths succeed, with insects humming, 
 Or ring-dove, that repeats his pensive plea, 
 Or startled gull up-screaming towards the sea. 
 
32 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 But scarce their eyes encounter living thing, 
 
 Save, now and then, a goat loose wandering. 
 
 Or a few cattle, looking up aslant 
 
 With sleepy eyes and meek mouths ruminant ; 
 
 Or once, a plodding woodman, old and bent. 
 
 Passing with half indifferent wonderment, 
 
 Yet turning, at the last, to look once more ; 
 
 Then feels his trembling staff, and onward as before. 
 
 So ride they pleased, — till now the couching sun 
 Levels his final look through shadows dun ; 
 And the clear moon, with meek o'er-lifted face. 
 Seems come to look into the silvering place. 
 Then first the bride waked up, for then was heard, 
 Sole voice, the poet's and the lover's bird. 
 Preluding first, as if the sounds were cast 
 For the dear leaves about her, till at last 
 With floods of rapture, in a perfect shower, 
 She vents her heart on the delicious hour. 
 Lightly the horsemen go, as if they'd ride 
 A velvet path, and hear no voice beside : 
 A placid hope assures the breath-suspending bride. . 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 33 
 
 So ride tliey in delight through beam and 
 shade ; — 
 Till many a rill now passed, and many a glade, 
 They quit the piny labyrinths, and soon 
 Emerge into the full and day-like moon : 
 Chilling it seems ; and pushing steed on steed. 
 They start them freshly with a homeward speed. 
 Then well-known fields they pass, and straggling cots. 
 Boy-storied trees, and love-remember'd spots. 
 And turning last a sudden corner, see 
 The moon-lit towers of slumbering Rimini. 
 The marble bridge comes heaving forth below 
 AMth a long gleam ; and nearer as they go, 
 They see the still Marecchia, cold and bright. 
 Sleeping along with face against the light. 
 A hollow trample now, — a fall of chains, — -^ 
 
 The bride has entered, — not a voice remains ; — 
 Night, and a maiden silence, wrap the plains. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
CANTO 111. 
 
 THE FATAL PASSION. 
 
 Now why must I disturb a dream of bliss, 
 And bring cold sorrow 'twixt the wedded kiss ? 
 How mar the face of beauty, and disclose 
 The weeping days that with the morning rose, 
 And bring the bitter disappointment in, — 
 The holy cheat, the virtue-binding sin, — 
 The shock, that told this lovely, trusting heart, 
 That she had given, beyond all power to part, 
 Her hope, belief, love, passion, to one brother, 
 Possession (oh, the misery!) to another! 
 
38 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Some likeness was there 'twixt the two, — an air 
 At times, a cheek, a colour of the hair, 
 A tone, when speaking of indifferent things ; 
 Nor, by the scale of common measurings, 
 Would you say more perhaps, than that the one 
 Was more robust, the other finelier spun ; 
 That of the two, Giovanni was the graver, 
 Paulo the livelier, and the more in favour. 
 
 Some tastes there were indeed, that would prefer 
 Giovanni's countenance as the martialler ; 
 And 'twas a soldier's truly, if an eye 
 Ardent and cool at once, drawn-back and high, 
 An eagle's nose and a determined lip, 
 Were the best marks of manly soldiership. 
 Paulo's was fashioned in a different mould, 
 And surely the more fine : for though 'twas bold. 
 When boldness was required, and could put on 
 A glowing frown as if an angel shone, 
 Yet there was nothing in it one might call 
 A stamp exclusive or professional, — 
 
STOllY or IIIIMINI. 39 
 
 No courtier's face, and yet its smile was ready, — 
 No scholar's, yet its look was deep and steady, — 
 No soldier's, for its power was all of mind, 
 Too true for violence, and too refined. 
 The very nose, lightly yet firmly wrought. 
 Shewed taste ; the forehead a clear-spirited thought ; 
 Wisdom looked sweet and inward from his eye ; 
 And round his mouth was sensibility : — 
 It was a face, in short, seemed made to shew 
 How far the genuine flesh and blood could go ; — 
 A morning glass of unaffected nature, — "] 
 
 Something, that baffled looks of loftier feature, — \> 
 The visage of a glorious human creature. J 
 
 If any points there were, at which they came 
 Nearer together, 'twas in knightly fame. 
 And all accomplishments that art may know, — 
 Hunting, and princely hawking, and the bow. 
 The rush together in the bright-eyed list, 
 Fore-thoughted chess, the riddle rarely missed. 
 
40 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And the decision of still knottier points, 
 
 With knife in hand, of boar and peacock joints, — 
 
 Things, that might shake the fame that Tristan got, 
 
 And bring a doubt on perfect Launcelot.* 
 
 But leave we knighthood to the former part ; 
 
 The tale I tell is of the human heart. 
 
 The worst of Prince Giovanni, as his bride 
 Too quickly found, was an ill-tempei''d pride. 
 Bold, handsome, able (if he chose) to please, 
 Punctual and right in common ofhces. 
 He lost the sight of conduct's only worth. 
 The scattering smiles on this uneasy earth, 
 And on the strength of virtues of small weight, 
 Claimed tow'rds himself the exercise of great. 
 
 * The two famous knights of the Round Table, great hunts- 
 men, and of course great carvers. Boars and peacocks, served up 
 whole, the latter with the feathers on, were eminent dishes with 
 the knights of old, and must have called forth all the exercise of 
 this accomplishment. 
 
STORY or niMIM. 41 
 
 He kept no reckoning witli his sweets and sours ; — 
 
 He'd hold a sullen countenance for hours. 
 
 And then, if pleased to cheer himself a space, 
 
 Look for the iunnediate rapture in your face, 
 
 And wonder that a cloud could still be there. 
 
 How small soever, when his own was fair. 
 
 Yet such is conscience, — so designed to keep 
 
 Stern, central watch, though all things else go sleep, 
 
 And so much knowledge of one's self there lies 
 
 Cored, after all, in our complacencies. 
 
 That no suspicion would have touched him more. 
 
 Than that of wanting on the generous score : 
 
 He would have whelmed you with a weight of scorn, 
 
 Been proud at eve, inflexible at morn. 
 
 In short, ill-tempered for a week to come, 
 
 And all to strike that desperate error dumb. 
 
 Taste had he, in a word, for high-turned merit, 
 
 But not the patience, nor the genial spirit ; 
 
 And so he made, 'twixt virtue and defect, 
 
 A sort of fierce demand on your respect, 
 
42 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Which, if assisted by his high degree, 
 It gave him in some eyes a dignity, 
 And struck a meaner deference in the many, 
 Left him at last unloveable with any. 
 
 From this complexion in the reigning brother, 
 His younger birth perhaps had saved the other. 
 Born to a homage less gratuitous, 
 He learned to win a nobler for his house ; 
 And both from habit and a genial heart. 
 Without much trouble of the reasoning art. 
 Found this the wisdom and the sovereign good, — 
 To be, and make, as happy as he could. 
 Not that he saw, or thought he saw, beyond 
 His general age, and could not be as fond 
 Of wars and creeds as any of his race, — 
 But most he loved a happy human face ; 
 And wheresoe'er his fine, frank eyes were thrown. 
 He struck the looks he wished for, with his own. 
 So what but service leaped where'er he went ! 
 Was there a tilt-day or a tournament, — 
 
STOIIY OF RIMINI. 43 
 
 For welcome grace there rode not such another, 
 Nor yet for strength, except his lordly hrother. 
 "Was there a court-day, or a feast, or dance, 
 Or minstrelsy with roving plumes from France, 
 Or summer party to the greenwood shade. 
 With lutes prepared, and cloth on herbage laid, 
 And ladies' laughter coming through the air, — 
 He was the readiest and the blithest there ; 
 And made the time so exquisitely pass 
 With stories told with elbow on the grass, 
 Or touched the music in his turn so finely. 
 That all he did, they thought, was done divinely. 
 
 The lovely stranger could not fail to see 
 Too soon this difference, more especially 
 As her consent, too lightly now, she thought, 
 With hopes far different had been strangely bought ; 
 And many a time the pain of that neglect 
 Would strike in blushes o'er her self-respect : 
 But since the ill was cureless, she applied 
 With busy virtue to resume her pride. 
 
44 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And hoped to value her submissive heart 
 
 On playing well a patriot daughter's part, 
 
 Trying her new-found duties to prefer 
 
 To what a father might have owed to her. 
 
 The very day too when her first surprise 
 
 Was full, kind tears had come into her eyes 
 
 On finding, by his care, her private room 
 
 Furnished, like magic, from her own at home ; 
 
 The very books and all transported there. 
 
 The leafy tapestry, and the crimson chair, 
 
 The lute, the glass that told the shedding hours, 
 
 The little urn of silver for the flowers, 
 
 The frame for broidering, with a piece half done. 
 
 And the white falcon, basking in the sun, 
 
 Who, when he saw her, sidled on his stand, 
 
 And twined his neck against her trembling hand. 
 
 But what had touched her nearest, was the thought, 
 
 That if 'twere destined for her to be brought 
 
 To a sweet mother's bed, the joy would be 
 
 Giovanni's too, and his her family : — 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 4f5 
 
 He seemed already f'atlier of her child. 
 
 And on the nestling pledi>;e in patient thought she 
 
 smiled. 
 Yet then a pang would cross her, and the red 
 In either downward cheek startle and spread. 
 To think that lie, who was to have such part 
 In joys like these, had never shared her heart; 
 But back she chased it with a sigh austere ; 
 And did she chance, at times like these, to hear 
 Her husband's footstep, she would haste the more, 
 And with a double smile open the door. 
 And hope his day had worn a happy face ; 
 Ask how his soldiers pleased him, or the chase. 
 Or what new court had sent to win his sovereign 
 
 grace. 
 
 The prince, at this, would bend on her an eye 
 Cordial enough, and kiss her tenderly ; 
 Nor, to say truth, was he in general slow 
 To accept attentions, flattering to bestow ; 
 
46 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 But then meantime he took no generous pains, 
 
 By mutual pleasing, to secure his gains ; 
 
 He entered not, in turn, in her delights, 
 
 Her books, her flowers, her taste for rural sights ; 
 
 Nay, scarcely her sweet singing minded he. 
 
 Unless his pride was roused by company ; 
 
 Or when to please him, after martial play. 
 
 She strained her lute to some old fiery lay 
 
 Of fierce Orlando, or of Ferumbras, -j 
 
 Or Ryan's cloak, or how by the red grass }> 
 
 In battle you might know where Richard was.* J 
 
 Yet all the while, no doubt, however stern 
 Or cold at times, he thought he loved in turn. 
 And that the joy he took in her sweet ways. 
 The pride he felt when she excited praise, 
 
 * " Sir Ferumbras " was a knight of romance. The cloak 
 of King- Ryan, or Ryence, was said to be made of the beards of 
 his royal brethren, whom he had conquered. Richard is Richard 
 Coeur de Lion, a terrible knight de facto as well as in fable. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 47 
 
 In short, the enjoyment of his own good pleasure, 
 Was tlianks cnougli, and passion beyond measure. 
 
 Slie, had she h)ved him, might have thought so 
 too : 
 For what will loves exalting not go through, 
 Till long neglect, and utter selfishness, 
 Shame the fond pride it takes in its distress ? 
 But ill prepared was she, in her hard lot. 
 To fancy merit where she found it not, — 
 She, who had been beguiled,— she, who was made 
 Within a gentle bosom to be laid, — 
 To bless and to be blessed, — to be heart-bare 
 To one who found his bettered likeness there, — 
 To think for ever with him, like a bride, — 
 To haunt his eye, like taste personified, — 
 To double his delight, to share his sorrow. 
 And like a morning beam, wake to him every morrow. 
 
 Paulo, meantime, who ever since the day 
 He saw her sweet looks bending o'er his way, 
 
48 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Had stored them up, unconsciously, as graces 
 By which to judge all other forms and faces, 
 Had learnt, I know not how, the secret snare, 
 AMiich gave her up, that evening, to his care. 
 Some babbler, may-be, of old Guido's court, 
 Or foolish friend had told him, half in sport : 
 But to his heart the fatal flattery went ; 
 And grave he grew, and inwardly intent. 
 And ran back, in his mind, with sudden spring. 
 Look, gesture, smile, speech, silence, every thing. 
 E'en what before had seemed indifference. 
 And read them over in another sense. 
 Then would he blush with sudden self-disdain. 
 To think how fanciful he was, and vain ; 
 And with half angry, half regretful sigh. 
 Tossing his chin, and feigning a free eye. 
 Breathe off, as 'twere, the idle tale, and look 
 About him for his falcon or his book. 
 Scorning that ever he should entertain 
 One thought that in the end might give his brother 
 pain. 
 
STOKY OF RIMINI. 49 
 
 This Start however came so often romul, — 
 So often fell he in deep thought, and found 
 Occasion to renew his carelessness, 
 Yet every time the power grown less and less, 
 That by degrees, half wearied, half inclined, 
 To the sweet struggling image he resigned ; 
 And merely, as he thought, to make the best 
 Of what by force would come about his breast, 
 Began to bend down his admiring eyes 
 On all her touching looks and qualities. 
 Turning their shapely sweetness every way. 
 Till 'twas his food and habit day by day. 
 And she became companion of his thought ; 
 Silence her gentleness before him brought, 
 Society her sense, reading her books. 
 Music her voice, every sweet thing her looks, 
 Wliich sometimes seemed, when he sat fixed awhile, 
 To steal beneath his eyes with upward smile : 
 And did he stroll into some lonely place. 
 Under the tress, upon the tliick soft grass, 
 
 E 
 
50 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 How charming, would he think, to see her here ! 
 How heightened then, and perfect would appear 
 The two divinest things in earthly lot, 
 A lovely woman in a rural spot ! 
 
 Thus daily went he on, gathering sweet pain 
 About his fancy, till it thrilled again ; 
 And if his brother's image, less and less, 
 Startled him up from his new idleness, 
 'Twas not, — he fancied, — that he reasoned worse. 
 Or felt less scorn of wrong, but the reverse. 
 That one should think of injuring another, 
 Or trenching on his peace, — this too a brother, — 
 And all from selfishness and pure weak will, 
 To him seemed marvellous and impossible. 
 'Tis true, thought he, one being more there was, 
 Who might meantime have weary hours to pass, — 
 One weaker too to bear them, — and for whom ? — 
 No matter ; — he could not reverse her doom ; 
 And so he sighed and smiled, as if one thought 
 Of paltering could suppose that he was to be caught. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 51 
 
 Yt't if slie loved him, common i2;r;ititiule, 
 If not, a sense of what was fair and good, 
 Besides his new relationsliip and right, 
 Would make him wish to please her all he might ; 
 And as to thinking,— where could be the harm, 
 If to his heart he kept its secret charm ? 
 He wished not to himself another's blessing. 
 But then he might console for not possessing ; 
 And glorious things there were, which but to see 
 And not admire, was mere stupidity : 
 He might as well object to his own eyes 
 For loving to behold the fields and skies, 
 His neighbour's grove, or story-painted hall ; 
 'Twas but the taste for w^hat was natural ; 
 Only his fav'rite thought was loveliest of them all. 
 
 Concluding thus, and happier that he knew 
 His ground so well, near and more near he drew; 
 And, sanctioned by his brother's manner, spent 
 Hours by her side, as happy as well-meant. 
 
 £ 2 
 
52 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 He read with her, he rode, he train'd her hawk, 
 He spent still evenings in delightful talk, 
 While she sat busy at her broidery frame ; 
 Or touched the lute with her, and when they came 
 To some fine part, prepared her for the pleasure, 
 And then with double smile stole on the measure. 
 
 Then at the tournament, — who there but she 
 Made him more gallant still than formerly, 
 Couch o'er his tightened lance with double force, 
 Pass like the wind, sweeping down man and horse. 
 And franklier then than ever, midst the shout 
 And dancing trumpets ride, uncovered, roundabout? 
 His brother only, more than hitherto. 
 He would avoid, or sooner let subdue. 
 Partly from something strange unfelt before. 
 Partly because Giovanni sometimes wore 
 A knot his bride had worked him, green and 
 
 gold ;— 
 For in all things with nature did she hold ; 
 
STORY OF lllMINI. 53 
 
 And while 'twas being worked, her fancy was 
 Of sunbeams mingling with a tuft of grass. 
 
 Francesca from herself but ill could hide 
 What pleasure now was added to her side, — 
 How placidly, yet fast, the days flew on 
 Thus link'd in white and loving unison. 
 And how the chair he sat in, and the room, 
 Began to look, when he had failed to come. 
 But as she better knew the cause than he, 
 She seemed to have the more necessity 
 For struggling hard, and rousing all her pride ; 
 And so she did at first ; she even tried 
 To feel a sort of anger at his care ; 
 But these extremes brought but a kind despair ; 
 And then she only spoke more sw^eetly to him, 
 And found her failing eyes give looks that melted 
 through him. 
 
 Giovanni too, who felt relieved indeed 
 To see another to his place succeed. 
 
54} STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Or rather filling up some trifling hours, 
 Better spent elsewhere, and beneath his powers. 
 Left the new tie to strengthen day by day, 
 Talked less and less, and longer kept away, 
 Secure in his self-love and sense of right. 
 That he was welcome most, come when he might. 
 And doubtless, they, in their still finer sense, 
 With added care repaid this confidence, 
 Turning their thoughts from his abuse of it, 
 To what on their own parts was graceful and was 
 fit. 
 
 Ah now, ye gentle pair, — now think awhile. 
 Now, while ye still can think, and still can smile ; 
 Now, while your generous hearts have not been 
 
 grieved 
 Perhaps with something not to be retrieved. 
 And ye have still, within, the power of gladness. 
 From self-resentment free, and retrospective mad- 
 ness ! 
 
STORY OF HIiMINI. 55 
 
 So dill they think ;— but partly from delay, 
 Partly from fancied ignorance of the way, 
 And most from feeling the bare contemplation, 
 Give them fresh need of mutual consolation, 
 They scarcely tried to see each other less, 
 And did but meet with deeper tenderness, 
 Livingi from day to day, as they were used. 
 Only with graver thoughts, and smiles reduced. 
 And sighs more frequent, which, when one would' 
 
 heave. 
 The other longed to start up and receive. 
 For whether some suspicion now had crossed 
 Giovanni's mind, or whether he had lost 
 More of his temper lately, he would treat 
 His wife with petty scorns, and starts of heat. 
 And, to his own omissions proudly blind, 
 O'erlook the pains she took to make him 
 
 kind. 
 And yet be angry, if he thought them less ; 
 He found reproaches in her meek distress. 
 
56 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Forcing her silent tears, and then resenting. 
 Then ahnost angrier grown from half repenting. 
 And, hinting at the last, that some there were 
 Better perhaps than he, and tastefuller, 
 And these, for what he knew, — he little cared, — 
 Might please her, and be pleased, though he des- 
 paired. 
 Then would he quit the room, and half disdain 
 Himself for being in so harsh a strain, 
 And venting thus his temper on a woman ; 
 Yet not the more for that changed he in common, 
 Or took more pains to please her, and be near : — 
 What ! should he truckle to a woman's tear ? 
 
 At times like these the princess tried to shun 
 The face of Paulo as too kind a one ; 
 And shutting up her tears with final sigh. 
 Would walk into the air, and see the sky. 
 And feel about her all the garden green. 
 And hear the birds that shot the covert boughs 
 between. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 57 
 
 A noble ran«»e it was, of many a rood, 
 Walled round with trees, and ending in a wood : 
 Indeed the whole was leafy ; and it had 
 A winding stream about it, clear and glad, 
 That danced from shade to shade, and on its way 
 Seemed smiling with delight to feel the day. 
 There was the pouting rose, both red and white. 
 The flamy heart's-ease, flushed with purple light. 
 Blush-hiding strawberry, sunny-coloured box, 
 Hyacinth, handsome with his clustering locks. 
 The lady lily, looking gently down. 
 Pure lavender, to lay in bridal gown. 
 The daisy, lovely on both sides, — in short. 
 All the sweet cups to which the bees resort, 
 M'itli plots of grass, and perfumed walks between 
 Of citron, honeysuckle and jessamine, 
 With orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit, 
 And look as if they shade a golden fruit ; , 
 And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade 
 Of circling pines, a babbling fountain played, 
 
58 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, 
 Which through the darksome tops glimmered with 
 
 showerino^ light. 
 So now you walked beside an odorous bed 
 Of gorgeous hues, white, azure, golden, red ; 
 And now turned off into a leafy walk, 
 Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk ; 
 And now pursued the stream, and as you trod 
 Onward and onward o'er the velvet sod. 
 Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet, 
 And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet ; 
 And then perhaps you entered upon shades. 
 Pillowed with dells and uplands 'twixt the glades. 
 Through which the distant palace, now and then. 
 Looked lordly forth with many-windowed ken ; 
 A land of trees, which reaching round about, 
 In shady blessing stretched their old arms out, 
 With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks. 
 To lie and read in, sloping into brooks. 
 Where at her drink you started the slim deer. 
 Retreating lightly with a lovely fear. 
 
STORY OF RliMINI. 59 
 
 And all about, the birds kept leafy house, 
 And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs ; 
 And all about, a lovely sky of blue 
 Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through ; 
 And here and there, in every part, were seats, 
 Some in the open walks, some in retreats; 
 AA'ith bowering leaves o'erhead, to which the eye 
 Looked up half sweetly and half awfully, — 
 Places of nestling green, for poets made, 
 Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow shade, 
 The rugged trunks, to inward peeping sight. 
 Thronged in dark pillars up the gold green light. 
 
 But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks, halfway. 
 And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay, 
 A spot, that struck you like enchanted ground : — 
 It was a shallow dell, set in a mound 
 Of sloping shrubs, that mounted by degrees, 
 The birch and poplar mixed with heavier trees ; 
 From under which, sent through a marble spout, 
 Betwixt the dark wet green, a rill gushed out. 
 
60 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said 
 
 Something eternal to that happy shade. 
 
 The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers 
 
 Heaped towards the centre, and with citron bowers ; 
 
 And in the midst of all, clustered with bay 
 
 And myrtle, and just gleaming to the day, 
 
 Lurked a pavilion, — a delicious sight, — 
 
 Small, marble, well-proportioned, mellowy white. 
 
 With yellow vine-leaves sprinkled, — but no more, — 
 
 And a young orange either side the door. 
 
 The door was to the wood, forward and square. 
 
 The rest was domed at top, and circular ; 
 
 And through the dome the only light came in, 
 
 Tinired, as it entered, with the vine-leaves thin. 
 
 It was a beauteous piece of ancient skill, 
 Spared from the rage of war, and perfect still ; 
 By some supposed the work of fairy hands, 
 Famed for luxurious taste, and choice of lands, — 
 Alcina, or Morgana, — who from fights 
 And errant fame inveigled amorous knights. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 6l 
 
 And lived with them in a long round of blisses, 
 Feasts, concerts, baths, and bower-enshaded kisses. 
 But 'twas a temple, as its sculpture told. 
 Built to the Nymphs that haunted there of old ; 
 For o'er the door was carved a sacrifice 
 By girls and shepherds brought, with reverend eyes. 
 Of sylvan drinks and foods, simple and sweet. 
 And goats with struggling horns and planted feet : 
 And round about, ran on a line with this 
 In like relief, a world of Pagan bliss. 
 That shewed, in various scenes, the nymphs them- 
 selves ; 
 Some by the water side on bowery shelves 
 Leaning at will,— some in the water sporting 
 With sides half swelling forth, and looks of court- 
 
 Some in a flowery dell, hearing a swain 
 Play on his pipe, till the hills ring again, — 
 Some tying up their long moist hair, — some sleeping 
 Under the trees, with fauns and satyrs peeping,— 
 
02 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Or, sidelong-eyed, pretending not to see 
 The latter in the brakes come creepingly, 
 Wliile from their careless urns, lying aside 
 In the long grass, the straggling waters slide. 
 Never, be sure, before or since was seen 
 A summer-house so fine in such a nest of green. 
 
 All the green garden, flower-bed, shade, and plot, 
 Francesca loved, but most of all this spot. 
 Whenever she walked forth, wherever went 
 About the grounds, to this at last she bent : 
 Here she had brought a lute and a few books ; 
 Here would she lie for hours, with grateful looks, 
 Thanking at heart the sunshine and the leaves, 
 The vernal rain-drops counting from the eaves, 
 And all that promising, calm smile we see 
 In nature*s face, when we look patiently. 
 Then would she think of heaven ; and you might 
 
 hear 
 Sometimes, when every thing was hushed and clear, 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 6S 
 
 Her gentle voice from out those sliades emerging, 
 
 Singing the evening anthem to the Virgin. 
 
 The gardeners and the rest, who served the pLice, 
 
 And blest whenever they beheld her face, 
 
 Knelt when they heard it, bowing and uncovered, 
 
 And felt as if in air some sainted beauty hovered. 
 
 One day, — *twas on a summer afternoon, 
 When airs and gurgling brooks are best in tune. 
 And grasshoppers are loud, and day-work done, 
 And shades have heavy outlines in the sun, — 
 The princess came to her accustomed bower 
 To get her, if she could, a soothing hour. 
 Trying, as she was used, to leave her cares 
 Without, and slumberously enjoy the airs, 
 And the low-talking leaves, and that cool light 
 The vines let in, and all that hushing sight 
 Of closing wood seen through the opening door, ~] 
 And distant plash of waters tumbling o'er. 
 And smell of citron blooms, and fifty luxuries more. J 
 
64 - STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 She tried, as usual, for the triaPs sake. 
 For even that diminished her heart-ache ; 
 And never yet, how ill soe'er at ease. 
 Came she for nothing 'midst the flowers and trees. 
 Yet how it was she knew not, but that day. 
 She seemed to feel too lightly borne away, — 
 Too much relieved,— too much inclined to draw 
 A careless joy from every thing she saw. 
 And looking round her with a new-born eye. 
 As if some tree of knowledge had been nigh. 
 To taste of nature, primitive and free, 
 And bask at ease in her heart's liberty. 
 
 Painfully clear those rising thoughts appeared. 
 With something dark at bottom that she feared ; 
 And turning from the fields her thoughtful look. 
 She reached o'er-head, and took her down a book. 
 And fell to reading with as fixed an air. 
 As though she had been wrapt since morning 
 there. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. ()5 
 
 'Twas Lauiicelot of tlie Lake, a briglit roniancc, 
 That like a trumpet, made young pulses dance, 
 Yet had a softer note that shook still more ; — 
 She had begun it but the day before, 
 And read with a full heart, half sweet, half sad. 
 How old King Ban was spoiled of all he had 
 But one fair castle : how one summer's day 
 With his fair queen and child he went away 
 To ask the great King Arthur for assistance ; 
 How reaching by himself a hill at distance 
 He turned to give his castle a last look, 
 And saw its far white face : and how a smoke, 
 As he was looking, burst in volumes forth, 
 And good King Ban saw all that he was worth, . 
 And his fair castle, burning to the ground, 
 So that his wearied pulse felt over-wound, 
 And he lay down, and said a prayer apart 
 For those he loved, and broke his poor old heart. 
 Then read slie of the queen with her young child. 
 How she came up, and nearly had gone wild, 
 
 F 
 
66 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And how in journeying on in her despair, 
 She reached a lake and met a lady there, 
 Who pitied her, and took the baby sweet 
 Into her arms, when lo, with closing feet 
 She sprang up all at once, like bird from brake. 
 And vanished with him underneath the lake. 
 The mother's feelings we as well may pass : — 
 The fairy of the place that lady was. 
 And Launcelot (so the boy was called) became 
 Her inmate, till in search of knightly fame 
 He went to Arthur's court, and played his part 
 So rarely, and displayed so frank a heart. 
 That what with all his charms of look and limb. 
 The Queen Geneura fell in love with him : 
 And here, with growing interest in her reading. 
 The princess, doubly fixed, was now proceeding. 
 
 Ready she sat with one hand to turn o'er 
 The leaf, to which her thoughts ran on before, 
 The other propping her white brow, and throwing 
 Its ringlets out, under the skylight glowing. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. Qj 
 
 So sat slic fixed ; and so observed was slie 
 Of one, wlio at the door stood tenderly, — 
 Paulo, — who from a window seeing lier 
 Go straight across tlie lawn, and guessing where, 
 Had tliought she was in tears, and found, that day, 
 His usual efforts vain to keep away. 
 " May I come in ? " said he : — it made her start, — 
 That smiling voice ; — she coloured, pressed her heart 
 A moment, as for breath, and then with free 
 And usual tone said, *' O yes, — certainly." 
 There's wont to be, at conscious times like these. 
 An affectation of a bright-eyed ease. 
 An air of something quite serene and sure, 
 As if to seem so, were to be, secure : 
 With this the lovers met, with this they spoke. 
 With this they sat down to the self-same book, 
 And Paulo, by degrees, gently embraced 
 With one permitted arm her lovely waist ; 
 And both their cheeks, like peaclies on a tree. 
 Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly ; 
 F 'Z 
 
68 STORY OF RTMINF. 
 
 And o*er the book they hung, and nothing said, 
 And every lingering page grew longer as they read. 
 
 As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart 
 Their colour change, they came upon the part 
 Where fond Geneura, with her flame long nurst, 
 Smiled upon Launcelot when he kissed her first: — 
 That touch, at last, through every fibre slid ; 
 And Paulo turned, scarce knowing what he did, 
 Only he felt he could no more dissemble, 
 And kissed her, mouth to mouth, all in a tremble. 
 Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long kiss : 
 Sacred be love from sight, whate'er it is. 
 The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er. 
 Desperate the joy. — That day they read no more. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
CANTO IV. 
 
 HOW THE BRIDE RETURNED TO RAVENNA. 
 
 Sorrow, they say, to one with true touched ear, 
 
 Is but the discord of a warbling sphere, 
 
 A lurking contrast, which though harsh it be, 
 
 Distils the next note more deliciously. 
 
 E'en tales like this, founded on real woe. 
 
 From bitter seed to balmy fruitage grow : 
 
 The woe was earthly, fugitive, is past ; 
 
 The song that sweetens it, may always last. 
 
 And even they, whose shattered hearts and frames 
 
 Make them unhappiest of poetic names, 
 
72 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 What are they, if they know their calling high, 
 But crushed perfumes exhaling to the sky ? 
 Or weeping clouds, that but a while are seen, 
 Yet keep the earth they haste to, bright and green ? 
 
 Once, and but once, — nor with a scornful face 
 Tried worth will hear, — that scene again took place. 
 Partly by chance they met, partly to see 
 The spot where they had last gone cheerfully. 
 But most, from failure of all self-support ; — 
 And oh ! the meeting in that loved resort ! 
 No peevishness there was, no loud distress, 
 No mean retort of sorry selfishness ; 
 But a mute gush of hiding tears from one 
 Clasped to the core of him, who yet shed none, — 
 And self-accusings then, which he began, 
 And into which her tearful sweetness ran ; 
 And then kind looks, with meeting eyes again, 
 Starting to deprecate each other's pain ; 
 Till half persuasions they could scarce do wrong, 
 And sudden sense of wretchedness, more strong, 
 
STORY OF RIIVIINI. 7^ 
 
 And — \\]\y should I add more ? — again tlicy ])artc'd, 
 He doubly torn for her, and she nigh broken-hearted. 
 
 She never ventured in that spot again ; 
 And Paulo knew it, but could not refrain ; 
 He went again one day ; and how it looked ! 
 The calm, old shade ! — his presence felt rebuked. 
 It seemed, as if the hopes of his young heart, 
 His kindness, and his generous scorn of art, 
 Had all been mere a dream, or at the best 
 A vain negation, that could stand no test ; 
 And that on waking from his idle fit, -) 
 
 He found himself (how could he think of it ! ) y 
 A selfish boaster, and a hypocrite. J 
 
 That thought befoi'e had grieved him ; l)ut the 
 pain 
 Cut sharp and sudden, now it came again. 
 Sick thoughts of late had made his ])ody sick. 
 And this, in turn, to them grown strangely (piick ; 
 
74 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And pale he stood, and seemed to burst all o'er 
 
 Into moist anguish never felt before, 
 
 And with a dreadful certainty to know, 
 
 His peace was gone, and all to come was woe. 
 
 Francesca too, — the being, made to bless, — 
 
 Destined by him to the same wretchedness, — 
 
 It seemed as if such whelming thoughts must find 
 
 Some props for them, or he should lose his mind. — 
 
 And find he did, not what the worse disease 
 
 Of want of charity calls sophistries, — 
 
 Nor what can cure a generous heart of pain, — 
 
 But humble guesses, helping to sustain. 
 
 He thought, with quick philosophy, of things 
 
 Rarely found out except through sufferings, — 
 
 Of habit, circumstance, design, degree. 
 
 Merit, and will, and thoughtful charity : 
 
 And these, although they pushed down, as they rose. 
 
 His self-respect, and all those morning shews 
 
 Of true and perfect, which his youth had built. 
 
 Pushed with them too the worst of others' guilt ; 
 
STOHV OF 111 MI XI. 75 
 
 And furnished him, at least, with something kind, 
 On wliich to lean a sad and startled mind : 
 Till youth, and natural vigour, and the dread 
 Of self-betrayal, and a thought that spread 
 From time to time in gladness o'er his face. 
 That she he loved could have done nothing base, 
 Helped to restore him to his usual life. 
 Though grave at heart, and with himself at strife ; 
 And he would rise betimes, day after day. 
 And mount his favourite horse, and ride away 
 Miles in the country, looking round about. 
 As he glode by, to force his thoughts without ; 
 And, when he found it vain, would pierce the shade 
 Of some enwooded field or closer glade. 
 And there dismounting, idly sit, and sigh, 
 Or pluck the grass beside him with vague eye. 
 And almost envy the poor beast, that went 
 Cropping it, here and there, with dumb content. 
 15ut thus, at least, he exercised his blood, 
 And kept it livelier than inaction could ; 
 
76 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And thus he earned for his thought-working head 
 The power of sleeping when he went to bed, 
 And was enabled still to wear away 
 That task of loaded hearts, another day. 
 
 liut she, the gentler frame, — the shaken flower, 
 Plucked up to wither in a foreign bower, — 
 The struggling, virtue-loving, fallen she. 
 The wife that was, the mother that might be, — 
 What could she do, unable thus to keep 
 Her strength alive, but sit, and think, and weep, 
 For ever stooping o'er her broidery frame. 
 Half blind, and longing till the night-time came, 
 When worn and wearied out with the day's sorrow, 
 She might be still and senseless till the morrow ? 
 I 
 
 And oh, the morrow , how it used to rise ! 
 How would she open her despairing eyes. 
 And from the sense of the long lingering day, 
 Rushing upon her, almost turn away. 
 
STORY OF RIMINT. 77 
 
 Loathing the light, and groan to sleep again ! 
 Tlien sighing once for all, to meet the pain, 
 She would get up in haste, and try to pass 
 The time in patience, wretched as it was ; 
 Till patience self, in her distempered sight, 
 Would seem a charm to which she had no right, 
 And trembling at the lip, and pale with fears. 
 She shook her head, and burst into fresh tears. 
 Old comforts now were not at her command : 
 The falcon reached in vain from off his stand ; 
 The flowers were not refreshed ; the very light, 
 The sunshine, seemed as if it shone at night ; 
 The least noise smote her like a sudden wound ; 
 And did she hear but the remotest sound 
 Of song or instrument about the place. 
 She hid with both her hands her streaming;: face. 
 But worse to her than all (and oh ! thought she. 
 That ever, ever, such a worse should be !) 
 The sight of infant was, or child at play ; -> 
 
 Then would she turn, and move her lips, and pray, ^ 
 That heaven would take her, if it pleased, away. J 
 
78 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 1 pass the meetings Paulo had with her: — 
 Calm were they in their outward character, 
 Or pallid efforts, rather, to suppress 
 The pangs within, that either's might be less ; 
 And ended mostly with a passionate start 
 Of tears and kindness, when they came to part. 
 Thinner he grew, she thought, and pale with care ; 
 *' And I, 'twas I, that dashed his noble air!" 
 He saw her wasting, yet with placid shew ; ~] 
 
 And scarce could help exclaiming in his woe, t* 
 
 " O gentle creature, look not at me so ! " J 
 
 But Prince Giovanni, whom her wan distress 
 Had touched, of late, with a new tenderness, 
 Which, to his fresh surprise, did but appear 
 To wound her more than when he was severe. 
 Began, with other helps perhaps, to see 
 Strange things, and missed his brother's company. 
 What a convulsion was the first sensation ! 
 Rage, wonder, misery, scorn, humiliation. 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 79 
 
 A self-love, struck as with a personal blow, 
 Gloomy revenge, a prospect full of woe, 
 All rushed upon him, like the sudden view ^ 
 
 Of some new world, foreign to all he knew, | 
 
 Where he had waked and found disease's visions 
 true. J 
 
 If any lingering hope that he was wrong, 
 Smoothed o'er him now and then, 'twas not so long. 
 Next night, as sullenly awake he lay. 
 Considering what to do the approaching day. 
 He heard his w'ife say something in her sleep : — 
 He shook and listened ; — she began to weep. 
 And moaning louder, seemed to shake her head. 
 Till all at once articulate, she said, 
 " He loves his brother yet — dear heaven, 'twas I — " 
 Then lower voiced — " only — do let me die." 
 
 The prince looked at her hastily ; — no more ; 
 He dresses, takes his sword, and throuuli the door 
 
8Q STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Goes, like a spirit, in the morning air; — 
 
 His squire awaked attends ; and they repair, 
 
 Silent as wonder, to his brother's room : — 
 
 His squire calls him up too ; and forth they come. 
 
 The brothers meet, — Giovanni scarce in breath, 
 Yet firm and fierce, Paulo as pale as death. 
 ** May I request, sir," said the prince, and frowned, 
 " Your ear a moment in the tilting ground ? " 
 " There, brother?" answered Paulo, with an air 
 Surprised and shocked. " Yes, hrotlier" cried he, 
 
 *' there." 
 The word smote crushingly ; and paler still. 
 He bowed, and moved his lips, as waiting on his 
 will. 
 
 Giovanni turned, and down the stairs they bend ; 
 The squires, with looks of sad surprise, attend ; 
 Then issue forth in the moist-striking air, 
 And toward the tilt-yard cross a planted square. 
 
sToiiv OF unriNi. 81 
 
 'Twas a fVosh autiniiii dawn, vii»'oroiis and {liill ; 
 The liglitsome morning star was sparkling still, 
 Ere it turned in to heaven ; and far away 
 Appeared the streaky fingers of the day. 
 An opening in the trees took Paulo's eye, 
 As mute his brother and himself went by : 
 It was a glimpse of the tall wooded mound, 
 That screened Francesca's favorite spot of ground : 
 Massy and dark in the clear twilight stood, 
 As in a lingering sleep, the solenni wood ; 
 And through the bowering arch, which led inside, 
 He almost fancied once, that he descried 
 A marble gleam, where the pavilion lay ; — 
 Starting he turned, and looked another way. 
 
 Arrived, and the two scpiires withdrawn a])art, 
 The prince spoke low, as with a labouring heart, 
 And said, " Before you answer what you can, 
 " I wish to tell you, as a gentleman, 
 " That what you may confess," (and as he sj)oke 
 His voice with breathless and ])ale ])assi()n broke) 
 
 G 
 
82 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 " Will implicate no person known to you, 
 *' More than disquiet in its sleep may do." 
 
 Paulo's heart bled ; he waved his hand, and bent 
 His head a little in acknowledgment. 
 '* Say then, sir, if you can," continued he, 
 " One word will do — you have not injured me : 
 " Tell me but so, and I shall bear the pain 
 " Of having asked a question I disdain ; — 
 " But utter nothing, if not that one word ; 
 " And meet me this:" — he stopped, and drew his 
 
 sword. 
 Paulo seemed firmer grown from his despair ; 
 He drew a little back ; and with the air 
 Of one who would do well, not from a right 
 To be well thought of, but in guilt's despite, 
 " I am," said he, " I know,— 'twas not so ever— 
 " But fisht for it ! and with a brother ! Never." 
 " How ! " with uplifted voice, exclaimed the other ; 
 " The vile pretence ! who asked you — with a brother ? 
 
STORY or in MIX I. 8,3 
 
 ** Brother ! O traitor to tlie noble name 
 
 " Of Malatesta, I deny the chiim. 
 
 *' AVhat ! wound it deepest ? strike me to tlie core, 
 
 " Me, and tlie hopes which I can have no more, 
 
 " And then, as never Malatesta could, 
 
 ** Shrink from the lettinj^ a few drops of blood ?" 
 
 " It is not so," cried Paulo, " 'tis not so ; 
 *' But I would save you from a further woe." 
 
 " A further woe, recreant !" retorted he : 
 " I know of none : yes, one there still may be : 
 " Save me the woe, save me the dire disgrace 
 " Of seeing one of an illustrious race 
 " Bearing about a heart, which feared no law, 
 " And a vile sword, which yet he dare not draw." 
 
 " Brother, dear brother!" Paulo cried, "nay, nay, 
 " Pll use the word no more ; — but peace, I pray ! 
 " You trample on a soul, sunk at your feet !" 
 '* 'Tis false ;" exclaimed the prince ; " 'tis a retreat 
 G 2 
 
84 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 " To whicli you fly, when manly wrongs pursue, 
 *' And fear the grave you bring a woman to." 
 
 A sudden start, yet not of pride or pain, 
 Paulo here gave ; he seemed to rise again ; 
 And taking off his cap without a word. 
 He drew, and kissed the crossed hilt of his sword, 
 Looking to heaven ;- then with a steady brow. 
 Mild, yet not feeble, said, " I'm ready now." 
 
 *' A noble word ! " exclaimed the prince, and smote 
 Preparingly on earth his firming foot : — 
 The squires rush in between, in their despair, 
 But both the princes tell them to beware. 
 " Back, Gerard," cries Giovanni ; " I require 
 *' No teacher here, but an observant squire." 
 " Back, Tristan," Paulo cries ; " fear not for me; 
 " All is not worst that so appears to thee. 
 " And here," said he, *' a word." The poor youth 
 
 came. 
 Starting in sweeter tears to hear his name : 
 
STORY OF UIMINI. 85 
 
 A wliispcr, and a charge there seemed to be, 
 (liven to him kindly yet inflexibly : 
 Both squires then drew apart again, and stood 
 Mournfully both, each in his several mood, — 
 One half in rage, as to himself he speaks, 
 The other with the tears streaming down both his 
 cheeks. 
 
 The prince attacked with nerve in every limb, 
 Nor seemed the other slow to match with him ; 
 Yet as the fight grew warm, 'twas evident, 
 One fought to w^ound, the other to prevent : 
 Giovanni pressed, and pushed, and shifted aim, 
 And played his weapon like a tongue of flame ; 
 Paulo retired, and warded, turned on heel, 
 And led him, step by step, round like a wheel. 
 Sometimes indeed he feigned an angrier start, 
 But still relapsed, and played his former part. 
 " What !" cried Giovanni, who grew still uu)re fierce, 
 " Fighting in sport ? Playing your cart and tierce ?" 
 
86 
 
 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 " Not SO, my prince," said Paulo ; " have a care 
 " How you think so, or I shall wound you there." 
 He stamped, and watching as he spoke the word, 
 Drove, with his breast, full on his brother's sword. 
 'Twas done. He staggered, and in falling prest 
 Giovanni's foot with his right hand and breast : 
 Then on his elbow turned, and raising t'other. 
 He smiled, and said, *' No fault of yours, my brother ; 
 *' An accident — a slip — the finishing one 
 " To errors by that poor old man begun. 
 *' You'll not — you'll not" — his heart leaped on before, 
 And choaked his utterance ; but he smiled once more. 
 For, as his hand grew lax, he felt it prest ; — 
 And so, his dim eyes sliding into rest. 
 He turned him round, and dropt with hiding head. 
 And, in that loosening drop, his spirit fled. 
 
 But noble passion touched Giovanni's soul ; 
 He seemed to feel the clouds of habit roll 
 Away from him at once, with all their scorn ; 
 And out he spoke, in the clear air of morn : — 
 
STOUY OF RIMINI. 87 
 
 " By heaven, by lieaven, and all the better part 
 
 " Of us poor creatures with a human heart, 
 
 " 1 trust we reap at last, as well as plough ; — 
 
 " But there, meantime, my brother, liest thou ; 
 
 ** And, Paulo, thou wert the completest knight, 
 
 ** That ever rode with banner to the light ; 
 
 *' And thou wert the most beautiful to see, 
 
 *' That ever came in press of chivalry ; 
 
 ** And of a sinful man, thou wert the best, 
 
 " That ever for his friend put spear in rest ; 
 
 " And thou wert the most meek and cordial, 
 
 *' That ever among ladies eat in hall ; 
 
 " And thou wert still, for all that bosom gored, 
 
 " The kindest man, that ever struck with sword." 
 
 At this the words forsook his tongue ; and he, 
 
 Who scarcely had shed tears since infancy. 
 
 Felt his stern visage thrill, and meekly bowed 
 
 His head, and for his brother wept aloud. 
 
 The squires with glimmering tears, — Tristan, indeed, 
 
 Heart-struck, and hardly able to proceed, — 
 
88 STOKY OF RIMINI. 
 
 Double their scarfs about the Altai wound, 
 And raise the body up to quit the ground. 
 Giovanni starts ; and motioning to take 
 The way they came, follows his brother back. 
 And having seen him laid upon the bed, 
 No further look he gave him, nor tear shed. 
 But went away, such as he used to be, 
 With looks of stately will, and calm austerity. 
 
 Tristan, who, when he was to make the best 
 Of something sad and not to be redressed. 
 Could shew a heart as firm as it was kind, 
 Now locked his tears up, and seemed all resigned, 
 And to Francesca's chamber took his way. 
 To tell the message of that mortal day. 
 He found her ladies up and down the stairs 
 Moving with noiseless caution, and in tears, 
 And that the new^s, though to herself unknown, 
 On its old wings of vulgar haste had flown. 
 The door, as tenderly as miser's purse, 
 Was opened to him by the aged nurse, 
 
STORY OF RIMINI. 89 
 
 Who sliakiiiij; her ohl head, and pressing ch)se 
 Iler witliered lips to keep the tears tliat rose, 
 Made signs she guessed what grief he came ahout, 
 And so his arm squeezed gently, and went out. 
 
 The princess, who had passed a fearful night. 
 Toiling with dreams, — fright crowding upon fright 
 Had missed her husband at that early hour. 
 And would have ris'n, but found she wanted power 
 Yet as her body seemed to go, her mind 
 Felt, though in anguish still, strangely resigned ; 
 And moving not, nor weeping, mute she lay, 
 Wasting in patient gravity away. 
 The nurse, sometime before, with gentle creep 
 Had drawn the curtains, hoping she might sleep : 
 But suddenly she asked, though not with fear, 
 " Nina, what bustle's that I seem to hear ?" 
 Aiul the poor creature, who the news had heard. 
 Pretending to be busy, had just stirred 
 Something about the room, and answered not a 
 word. 
 
90 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 "Who's there?" said that sweet voice, kindly and 
 
 clear, 
 Which in its stronger days was joy to hear : — 
 Its weakness now almost deprived the squire 
 Of his new firmness, but approaching nigher, 
 " Madam," said he, *' 'tis I ; one who may say, 
 " He loves his friends more than himself to-day ; — 
 " Tristan." — She paused a little, and then said — 
 " Tristan— my friend, what noise thus haunts my 
 
 head ? 
 *' Something I'm sure has happened — tell me what — 
 *' I can bear all, though you may flmcy not." 
 *' Madam," replied the squire, " you are, I know, 
 *' All sweetness— pardon me for saying so. 
 '* My master bade me say then," resumed he, 
 '* That he spoke firmly, when he told it me, — 
 '* That I was also, madam, to your ear 
 " Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear, — 
 " That he was forced this day, whether or no, 
 " To combat with the prince ; and that although 
 
STORY OF HIMINI. 91 
 
 *' His noble brother was no iVatricide, 
 
 ** Yet in that figlit, and on his sword, — lie died." 
 
 " I inulerstand," with firmness answered she ; 
 
 More low in voice, but still composedly. 
 
 " Now, Tristan— faithful friend— leave me ; and take 
 
 *' This trifle here, and keep it for my sake." 
 
 So saying, from the curtains she put forth 
 
 Her thin white hand, that wore a ring of worth ; 
 
 And he, with tears no longer to be kept 
 
 From quenching his heart's thirst, silently wept, 
 
 And kneeling took the ring, and touched her hand 
 
 To either streaming eye, with homage bland, 
 
 And looking on it once, gently up started, 
 
 And, in his reverent stillness, so departed. 
 
 Her fixvourite lady then with the old nurse 
 Returned, and fearing she must now be worse, 
 Gently withdrew the curtains, and looked in : — ^ 
 O, who that feels one godlike spark within. 
 Shall bid not earth be just, before 'tis hard, witl 
 sin ? J 
 
92 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 There lay she praying, upwardly intent, 
 Like a lair statue on a monument, 
 With her two trembling hands together prest, 
 Palm against palm, and pointing from her breast. 
 She ceased, and turning slowly towards the wall. 
 They saw her tremble sharply, feet and all, — 
 Then suddenly be still. Near and more near 
 They bent with pale inquiry and close ear ; — 
 Her eyes were shut— no motion— not a breath — 
 The gentle sufferer was at peace in death. 
 
 I pass the grief that struck to every flice, 
 And the mute anguish all about that place, 
 In which the silent people, here and there, 
 Went soft, as though she still could feel their care 
 The gentle-temper'd for a while forgot 
 Their own distress, or wept the common lot : 
 The warmer, apter now to take offence. 
 Yet hushed as they rebuked, and wondered whence 
 Others at such a time could ij-et their want of 
 
STOllY OF Km INI. 93 
 
 Fain would I haste indeed to fhiisli all ; 
 And so at once I reach the funeral. 
 Private 'twas fancied it nnist be, though some 
 Thought that her sire, the poor old duke, would 
 
 come : 
 And some were wondering in their pity, whether 
 The lovers mii^ht not have one f^i'ave toi^etlier. 
 Next day, however, from the pahice gate 
 A blast of trumpets blew, like voice of fate ; 
 And all in sable clad, forth came again 
 Of knights and squires the former sprightly train ; 
 Gerard was next, and then a rank of friars ; 
 And then, with heralds on each side, two squires, 
 The one of whom upon a cushion bore 
 The coroneted helm Prince Paulo wore. 
 His shield the other ;— then there was a space. 
 And in the middle, with a doubtful pace. 
 His horse succeeded, plumed and trapped in black, 
 Bearing the sword and banner on his back : 
 The noble creature, as in state he trod, 
 Appeared as if he missed his ])rincely load ; 
 
94 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 And witli back-rolling eye and lingering pride, 
 To hope his master still might come to ride. 
 Then Tristan, heedless of what passed around. 
 Rode by himself, with eyes upon the ground. 
 Then heralds in a row : and last of all 
 Appeared a hearse, hung with an ermined pall, 
 And bearing on its top, together set, 
 A prince's and princess's coronet. 
 Mutely they issued forth, black, slow, dejected. 
 Nor stopped within the walls, as most expected ; 
 But passed the gates — the bridge — the last abode, — 
 And towards Ravenna held their silent road. 
 
 The prince, it seems, struck, since his brother's 
 death. 
 With what he hinted with his dying breath, 
 And told by others now of all they knew. 
 Had fixed at once the course he should pursue ; 
 And from a mingled feeling, which he strove 
 To hide no longer from his taught self-love. 
 
STORY OF RBIINI. 95 
 
 Of sorrow, sliamc, resentment, and a sense 
 Of justice owing to that first offence, 
 Had, on the day preceding, written word 
 To tlie old duke of all that liad occurred : — 
 " And though I shall not," (so concluded he) 
 *' Otherwise touch thine age's misery, 
 " Yet as I would that both one grave should hide, 
 " AVliich can, and must not be, where I reside, 
 " *Tis fit, though all have something to deplore, 
 " That he, who joined them once, should keep to 
 part no more." 
 
 The wretched fjither, who, when he had read 
 This letter, felt it wither his grey head, 
 And ever since had paced about his room. 
 Trembling, and seiz'd as with approaching doom, 
 Had given such orders, as he well could frame. 
 To meet devoutly whatsoever came ; 
 And as the news immediately took flight. 
 Few in Ravenna went to sleep that night, 
 
96 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 But talked tlie business over, and reviewed 
 All that they knew of her, the fair and good ; 
 And so with wondering sorrow the next day, 
 Waited till they should see that sad array. 
 
 The days were then at close of autumn, — still, 
 A little rainy, and towards night-fall chill ; 
 There was a fitful, moaning air abroad ; 
 And ever and anon, over the road, 
 The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees, 
 Whose trunks now thronged to sight, in dark varieties. 
 The people, who from reverence kept at home. 
 Listened till afternoon to hear them come ; 
 And hour on hour went by, and nought was heard 
 But some chance horseman, or the wind that stirred. 
 Till towards the vesper hour ; and then 'twas said 
 Some heard a voice, which seemed as if it read ; 
 And others said, that they could hear a sound 
 Of many horses trampling the moist ground. 
 Still nothing came, — till on a sudden, just 
 As the wind opened in a rising gust, 
 
STOllY OK UIMINI. 97 
 
 A voice of chaiitiiii^ rose, and as it spread, 
 
 They plainly heard tlic anthem for tlie dead. 
 
 It was the choristers who went to meet 
 
 Tlic train, and now were entering the first street. 
 
 'I'hen turned aside that city, young and old. 
 
 And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow rolled. 
 
 But of the older ])cople, few could hear 
 To keep the window, when the train dre\v near ; 
 And all felt double tenderness to see 
 The bier approaching, slow and steadily. 
 On wliich those two in senseless coldness lay. 
 Who but a few short months— it seemed a day, 
 Had left their walls, lovely in form and mind, 
 In sunny manhood he, — she first of womankind. 
 
 They say that when Duke Guido saw them come. 
 He clasped his hands, and looking round tlie room. 
 Lost his old wits for ever. From the morrow 
 None saw him after. But no more of sorrow : — 
 
 H 
 
98 STORY OF RIMINI. 
 
 On that same night, those lovers silently 
 Were buried in one grave, under a tree. 
 There side by side, and hand in hand, they lay 
 In the green ground : — and on fine nights in May 
 
 Young hearts betrothed used to come there 
 
 lu iviay > 
 to pray. J 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR: 
 
 A STORY IN TWO CANTOS. 
 
 H Q 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 The main circumstance of this story — aknip,lit fightinp; against three, 
 with no other coat of mail than the ilelicatest garment of his mistress — 
 is taken from one of the Fabliaux that were versified by the late Mr. 
 Way. The lady's appearance in the garment, after the battle, is from the 
 same poem. The turn given to these incidents, the colouring, and the 
 sentiment, are the work of the present writer. The original is a curious 
 specimen of the license of old times. A married woman, who has a good- 
 humoured craven for her husband, is made love to by three knights; to 
 each of whom, as a trial of his affection, and by way of proving the ten- 
 derness of her deserts, she proposes that he shall mix in the fight of a tour- 
 nament, with no other covering to his body than the one just mentioned. 
 Two of them decline the experiment ; the third accepts it, is victorious, 
 and, in order to be on a par with her in delicacy of sentiment, requests 
 that she will make her appearance at her husband's table in the trium- 
 phant investment. She docs so ; the guests are struck with admiration ; 
 
 " While the good spouse (not bold, 'twas lately sung) 
 Cast down his honest eyes, and held his tongue. 
 
 " Speak, guileless damsels ! Dames, in love well read ! 
 Speak, Sirs ! in chivalry and lionour bred ; 
 Who best deserves— the lady or tlic knight > 
 He, death who braved, or she, censorious spite V 
 
 .Allowance is to be made for the opinions of a different age; and we 
 see, even here, right and wrong principles struggling in the perplexities 
 of custom. But the cultivation of brute force is uppermost ; and nothing 
 can reconcile us to the disposition of the woman who could speculate 
 upon such a tribute to her vanity. It is hoped that the heroine of the 
 following version of the story, without being wanting in self-love, is a 
 little better, and not unsuited to any age. 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Arms and a vest I sing, which meant in blame, 
 His glorious hauberk to a knight became. 
 And in the field such dire belabouring bore, 
 As gentle linen never stood before ; 
 A song of love, and worthy generous ears. 
 With smiles begun and clos'd, and manhood in the 
 tears. 
 
 There liv'd a knight, when kniglithood was in 
 fiow'r, 
 Who charmed alike the tilt-yard and the bow'r j 
 
104 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 Young, handsome, blithe, loyal and brave of course, 
 
 He stuck as firmly to his friend as horse ; 
 
 And only show'd, for so complete a youth, 
 
 Somewhat too perfect a regard for truth. 
 
 He own*d 'twas inconvenient ; sometimes felt 
 
 A wish 'twere buckled in another's belt ; 
 
 Doubted its modesty, its use, its right, 
 
 Yet after all remain'd the same true knight : 
 
 So potent is a custom, early taught ; 
 
 And to such straits may honest men be brought. 
 
 'Tis true, to be believ'd was held a claim 
 Of gentle blood, and not to be, a shame : — 
 A liar, notorious as the noon-day sun. 
 Was bound to fight you, if you call'd him one : — 
 But yet to be so nice, and stand, profess'd. 
 All truth, was held a pedantry at best ; 
 Invidious by the men ; and by the fair 
 A thing at once to doat on and beware. 
 What bliss to meet his flatteries, eye to eye ! 
 But could he not, then, tell one little lie ? 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 10.5 
 
 At lengtli our licro found, to take Ills part, 
 A lovely girl, a quick and virgin heart, 
 One that hcliev'd what any friend averr'd, 
 Much more the whisp'rer of earth's sweetest woi'd. 
 He lov'd her for her cordial, trusting ways. 
 Her love of love, and readiness to praise ; 
 And she lov'd him l^ecause he told her so. 
 And truth makes true love doubly sweet to know. 
 
 It chanc'd this lady in relation stood 
 To one as beautiful, but not so good. 
 Who had been blaz'd, for w^hat indeed she was. 
 By a young lord, over his hippocras. 
 Her lover once, but now so far from tender, 
 He swore he'd kick her very least defender. 
 The world look'd hard for some one of her kin 
 To teach this spark to look to his own skin ; 
 But no one came : the lady wept for spite : 
 At length her cousin ask"d it of tlie knight. 
 
106 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 The knight look'd troubled to the last degree, 
 Turn'd pale, then red, but said it could not be. 
 With many sighs he said it, many pray'rs 
 To be well construed — nay, at last with tears ; 
 And own'd a knight might possibly be better, 
 WTio read the truth less nicely to the letter ; 
 But 'twas his weakness, — 'twas his education, — 
 A dying priest had taught him, his relation, 
 A kind of saint, who meant him for the church. 
 And thus had left his breeding in the lurch : 
 The good old man ! he lov'd him, and took blame, 
 (He own'd it) thus to mix his love with shame : 
 " But oh reflect, my sweet one,'' cried the youth, 
 " How you yourself have lov'd me for my truth ; 
 How I love you for loving it, and how 
 Secure it makes us of our mutual vow. 
 To feel this hand, to look into those eyes, — 
 It makes me feel as sure, as of the earth and skies.' 
 
 " I did love, and I do," the lady cried. 
 With hand but half allow'd, and cheek aside ; 
 
THE GENTLE AllMOUU. 107 
 
 *' But then I tlioiight you took mc at my word, 
 And would liave scorn'd wluit I pronoune'd absurd. 
 My cousin's w^rong'd ; I'm sure of it ; do you ^ 
 Be sure as well, and show what you can do : \> 
 
 Let but one mind be seen betwixt us two." J 
 
 In vain our hero, while his aspect glow'd 
 To hear these lovely words, the difference show'd 
 'Twixt her kind wishes and an ill desert : 
 The more he talk'd, the more her pride was hurt, 
 Till rais'd from glow to glow, and tear to tear. 
 And pique to injury, she spoke of fear. 
 
 *' Fear ! " cried the knight, blushing because he 
 blush'd. 
 While sorrow through his gaze in wonder rush'd ; 
 " Had I been present when this lord was heard, 
 I might perhaps have stopped him with a word ; 
 One word (had I suspected it) to show 
 How ignorant you were of what all know ; 
 
108 
 
 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 And with what passion you could take the part 
 Of one, unworthy of your loving heart : 
 But when I know the truth, and know that he 
 Knew not, nor thought, of either you or me, 
 And when I'm call'd on, and in open day, 
 To swear that truth is false, and yea is nay. 
 And know I'm in a lie, and yet go through it. 
 By all that's blest I own I cannot do it. 
 Let me but feel me buckled for the right. 
 And come a world in arms, I'm still a knight : 
 But give my foe the truth, and me the fraud, 
 And the pale scholar of the priest is awed.'* 
 
 " Say not the word, " the hasty fair one cried : 
 " I see it all, and wish I might have died. 
 Go, Sir, oh go ! a soldier and afraid ! 
 Was it for this you lov'd a trusting maid ? 
 Your presence kills me. Sir, with shame and 
 
 grief." — 
 She said ; and sunk in tears and handkerchief. 
 
THE GENTLE AH.MOUH, KM) 
 
 ♦' All, Mabel," said the knii>lit, as with a kiss 
 lie bcnv'd on her dropp'd head, " you 11 mouni for 
 
 this." 
 He looked upon her <;lossy locks, admir'd 
 Their gentleness for once, and with a sigh retir'd. 
 
 From day to day Sir Hugh has paced his floor, 
 Look'd out of window, listen'd at the door, 
 Wrote twice ; wrote tln'ice ; learnt of her health j 
 
 took up 
 His lute, his book ; fill'd, and forgot, a cup ; 
 Tried all but pride, and found no comfort still : 
 Lov'd him she had, but nu)re had lov'd lier will. 
 
 It chanc'd a short time after, that the king 
 Proclaim'd a joust at the return of spring : 
 The suburb was all lunnmers, boards, and crowd ; 
 The knights and tailors pleas'd, the ladies prouil ; 
 All but our hero and the cousins twain. 
 Who nurs'd their several sullenness of pain, 
 
110 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 And tore in secret much their mental hair ; ^ 
 
 The ladies that they had no lovers there, )> 
 
 The gentle knight in amorous despan-. -* 
 
 The lord who had denounc'd the light one's name, 
 Seeing no step to vindicate her fame, 
 And hearing of her cousin's broken vow. 
 Would laugh, and lift his shoulders and his brow, 
 And talk of tricks that run in families ; ~] 
 
 And then he'd lift his glass, and looking wise, 1 
 Drink to the health of " Truth betwixt Two 
 
 Lies." 
 
 Two fluster'd fools, though brave, and men of birth, 
 There were, who joined in this unseemly mirth ; 
 Fellows who knew, and knew it to their shame, 
 The worth of one, and chaff of t'other dame. 
 These clubb'd their jealousies, revenge, and spite. 
 Till broad the scandal grew, and reached the knight. 
 
 Our lover heard with mingled rage and joy. 
 Then rose from out his grief, and called his boy, 
 
THE GENTLE AIlMOUll. Ill 
 
 (A pretty page with letter-bearing faee,) 
 And wrote his mistress to implore her grace ; 
 Her grace and pardon to implore, and some 
 Small fiivour for the battle, now to come, — 
 A glove, a string, aught but a cruel No, 
 To plume his next day's pounce upon the foe. 
 The page returns with doubt upon his eyes, 
 And brings a packet which his lord unties, 
 And speaks the while, '* My lady saw me not, 
 But sends this answer to the note she got." 
 With trembling hands the string is cut, they lift 
 A lid of pasteboard, and behold a shift ! 
 
112 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 " Now whether shame she means me, or my 
 
 bliss," 
 The knight he cries, " thank her for this, for this !' 
 And as he spoke, he smother'd up a kiss : — 
 '* To-morrow sees me panoplied indeed. 
 And blessed be the thought shall clasp me while I 
 
 bleed!" 
 
 Next day the lists are set, the trumpets blown. 
 And grace requested for a knight unknown. 
 Who summons, and to mortal fight defies, 
 Three lordly knights for most unlordly calumnies. 
 What calumnies they are, he need not tell ; 
 Their names and consciences will serve as well. 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR. ll-^ 
 
 The names are then resounded tluoiigli the place, 
 And tow'rds the entrance turns the universal face. 
 
 With scorn and rage the sturdy gallants hear, 
 And ask what madman wants a sepulchre ; 
 But when the stranger, with his ftice unshewn. 
 Rides in, accoutred in a shift alone, 
 (For no defence his body had beside) 
 The doubtful laughter in amazement died. 
 'Twas clear the champion would be drenched with 
 
 wounds, 
 Yet see how calm he rides the accustomed rounds ! 
 His mould is manly as the lawn is frail, 
 A shield is on his arm, his legs and thighs in mail ; — 
 The herald's laws forbid a wounded steed ; — 
 All strain their eyes, and on the shift they read, 
 Written in black, and answering to the part 
 The motto spoke of, " It has touched her heart." 
 
 To admiration deep th' amazement turns, 
 
 The dumbness to discourse, which deeply buiiis ; 
 
 1 
 
114 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 Till the four parties to their posts fall in, 
 And soft eyes dazzle, ere the blows begin. 
 
 No stint or measure in his gallantry 
 The stranger knew ; ,but took at once all three : 
 The trumpets blew their blast of bloody weather. 
 The swords are out, the warriors rush together. 
 And with such bulk and tempest comes the knight. 
 One of the three is overborne outright. 
 Saddle and man, and snaps his wrist. The wretch 
 Proclaims his rage and torture in a screech. 
 The three had thought to save the shift, and bring 
 The wearer down, for laughter to the king : 
 But seeing what they see, and both on fire 
 To reach him first, they turn and charge in ire. 
 And mix the fight ; and such a storm succeeds 
 Of clatt'ring shields, and helms, and hurtling steeds. 
 With such a toil pell-mell, now that, now this. 
 Above, beneath, and rage of hit and miss. 
 And horses half on ground, or staring high. 
 And crouching skill, and trampling sovereignty. 
 
THK GENTLE ARMOUR. 11.5 
 
 That never was beheld a siglit so Ht 
 
 To baffle and turn pale the gazer's wit. 
 
 Nathless such skill the marv'llous knight display'd, 
 
 The shift some time was spotless as tlie maid ; 
 
 Till a great gush proclaiming blood was drawn, 
 
 Redder and redder grew the dainty lawn, 
 
 And drench'd and dripping, not a thread there stood, 
 
 But what was bath'd in his benignant blood. 
 
 Sudden he turn'd ; and whirling like a wheel, 
 
 In both their teeths sent round the whistling steel ; 
 
 Then with a jovial wrist, he flash'd it down. 
 
 And cleft the right man's shoulder to the bone ; 
 
 Who fell, and like the first was borne aside : 
 
 " Is it a devil, or a saint ? " they cried : 
 
 A tenderer nuirmur midst the ladies ran : 
 
 With tears they bless'd *' the angel of a man." 
 
 The gallant lord was now the only foe. 
 
 And fresh he seem'd : the knight could not be so ; 
 
 In that last blow his strength nnist have been suunn'd ; 
 
 His arm appears unhing'd, his brain benumb'd ; 
 1 o 
 
116 
 
 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 And as the sword seems carving him to death, 
 
 At ev'ry gash the crowd draw in their breath. 
 
 Sudden the blades are snapp'd ; the chibs of steel 
 
 Are caird ; the stranger is observ'd to reel ; 
 
 Then grasps with both his hands the saddle-bow, 
 
 And bends for breath ; the people cry " No ! No ! " 
 
 And all the court unconsciously arise : 
 
 The ladies on the king turn weeping eyes, 
 
 And manly pray'rs are mix'd with sobs and cries, j 
 
 The monarch was about to part the fight, 
 
 When, his club brought, sore passion seized the knight, 
 
 Who grasp'd it, rais'd it like an iron frown, 
 
 And rising in his stirrups, sent it down : 
 
 It met the other's, taking heavier pains, 
 
 And dash'd it, club and helmet, in his brains. 
 
 A stifled shriek is heard, the victim falls, "] 
 
 The victor too : '* Help ! Help ! " the monarch j 
 
 calls ; 
 A shout, half terror, shakes the suburb walls. 
 
THE GENTLK ARMOUR. II7 
 
 His helm unloosd, they recognize the face 
 Of tlie best knight that ever bore disgrace, 
 Now seeming dead, and gone to his long rest, 
 In comfort cold of that hard-hearted vest. 
 The loveliest ladies kiss him as he lay. 
 Then watch the leech, who cuts his vest away, 
 And clears his wounds. The weeping dames ^ 
 
 prepare 
 Linen and balms, and part his forlorn hair, I 
 
 And let upon his face the blessed air. j 
 
 Meanwhile the tidings to his mistress come, 
 Who clasps her hands and for a while is dumb j 
 Then owns the secret why the shift was sent, 
 But said he far exceeded what she meant. 
 Pale and despairing to the spot she fliesj 
 Where in his death-like rest her lover lies. 
 And prays to be let in : — they let her in : 
 She sees his hands laid straight, and his pale chin, 
 Nor dares advance to look upon his face, 
 Till round her come the ladies of the place, 
 
118 THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 Who comfort her, and say she must complete 
 The cure, and set her in the nurse's seat. 
 All day she watch'd, all night, and all next day. 
 And scarcely turned her face, except to pray, 
 Till the third morn, when breathing with a moan. 
 And feeling the soft hand that clasped his own, 
 He woke, and saw the face that had not ceas*d 
 To haunt his thoughts, in forest or at feast. 
 Visibly present, sweet with begging fears, 
 And eyes that loved him through remorseful tears. 
 Ah ! love is a soft thing ; and bravest eyes 
 Might answer as his did, with wells of balmy rise. 
 
 What need I say ? a loitering cure is his, 
 But full of sweets, and precious memories. 
 And whispers, laden from the land of bliss. 
 Sir Hugo with the lark has left his bed ; 
 'Tis June ; *tis lovers' month ; in short, they wed. 
 But how? like other people, you suppose, 
 In silks and state, as all good story goes. 
 
THE GENTLE ARMOUR. 
 
 110 
 
 The bridegroom did, and never look'd so well, 
 Not e'en when in the shift he fought pell-mell : 
 But the fair bride, instead of things that bless 
 Wedding-day eyes, displayed a marvellous dress, — 
 Marvellous, and homely, and in open sight ; 
 The people were so mov'd, they wept outright. 
 
 For lo ! with hair let loose about her ears. 
 And taper in her hand the fair appears, 
 And naked feet, a rosy saint at shrift. 
 And round her bosom hangs the ruddy shift : 
 Tatter'd it hangs, all cut and carved to rags ; -j 
 
 Not fairer droop, when the great organ drags }► 
 
 Its thunders forth, a church's hundred flags. J 
 
 With glimmering tears she hastens to his feet, 
 And kneels, and kisses in the public street, 
 Then takes his hand, and ere she will arise, 
 Entreats for pardon at his gracious eyes ; 
 And hopes he will not scorn her love for life. 
 As his most humble and most honour'd wife. 
 
120 THE GENTLE ARMOUR^ 
 
 Awhile her lord, with manly deference, stood 
 Wrapt in the sweetness of that angel mood ; 
 Then stooped, and on her brow his soul impressed, 
 And at the altar thus the bride was dress'd. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER 
 
 A STORY IN TWO CANTOS. 
 
1^3 
 
 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Old is tlie tale I tell, aiul yet as young 
 
 And warm with life as ever minstrel sung : 
 
 Two lovers fill it, — tw^o fair shapes — tw^o souls 
 
 Sweet as the last, for whom the death-bell tolls : 
 
 \\'liat matters it how long ago, or where 
 
 They liv'd, or whether their young locks of hair, 
 
 Like English hyacinths, or Greek, were curled ? 
 
 We hurt the stories of the antique world 
 
 By thinking of our school-books, and the wrongs 
 
 Done them by pedants and fantastic songs, 
 
124 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 Or sculptures, which from Roman "studios'' thrown, 
 Turn back Deucalion's flesh and blood to stone. 
 Truth is for ever truth, and love is love ; 
 The bird of Venus is the living dove. 
 Sweet Hero's eyes, three thousand years ago, 
 Were made precisely like the best we know, 
 Look'd the same looks, and spoke no other Greek 
 Than eyes of honey-moons begun last week. 
 Alas ! and the dread shock that stunn'd her brow 
 Strain'd them as wide as any wretch's now. 
 I never think of poor Leander's fiite, 
 And how he swam, and how his bride sat late. 
 And watch'd the dreadful dawning of the light, 
 But as 1 would of two that died last night. 
 So might they now have liv'd, and so have died ; 
 The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side. 
 
 Beneath the sun which shines this very hour, 
 There stood of yore — behold it now — a tow'r. 
 
IITRO AND LEANDER. 1^5 
 
 Half set in trees and leafy luxury, 
 
 And tlirough them look'd a window on the sea. 
 
 The tow'r is old, but i!;uards a beauteous scene 
 
 Of bow'rs, 'twixt purple hills, a gulf of green, 
 
 Whose farthest side, from out a lifted grove, 
 
 Shews a white temple to the Queen of Love. 
 
 Fair is the morn, the soft trees kiss and breathe ; 
 
 Calm, blue, and glittering is the sea beneath ; 
 
 And by the window a sweet maiden sits, 
 
 Grave with glad thoughts, and watching it by fits, 
 
 For o'er that sea, drawn to her with delight. 
 
 Her love Leander is to come at night ; 
 
 To come, not sailing, or with help of oar, '] 
 
 But with his own warm heart and arms— no more — }> 
 
 A naked bridegroom, bound from shore to shore. J 
 
 A priestess Hero is, an orphan dove, 
 Lodg'd in that turret of the Queen of Love ; 
 A youth Leander, born across the strait, 
 Whose wealthy kin deny him his sweet mate, 
 
126 
 
 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 Beset with spies, and dogg'd with daily spite ; '] 
 But he has made high compact with delight, | 
 
 And found a wondrous passage through the 
 
 welterino; nio^ht. 
 
 So sat she fix'd all day, or now was fain 
 To rise and move, then sighs, then sits again ; 
 Then tries some work, forgets it, and thinks on, 
 Wishing with perfect love the time were gone, 
 And lost to the green trees with their sweet singers. 
 Taps on the casement's ledge with idle fingers. 
 
 An aged nurse had Hero in the place, 
 An under priestess of an humbler race, 
 A\nio partly serv'd, partly kept watch and ward 
 Over the rest, but no good love debarred. 
 The temple's faith, though serious, never crossM 
 Engagements, miss'd to their exchequer's cost ; 
 And though this present knot was to remain 
 Unknown awhile, 'twas bless'd within the fane. 
 
HERO AND LEANDER. 1^7 
 
 And imicli good thanks expected in tlie end 
 
 From tlie dear married daiigliter, and the wealthy 
 
 friend. 
 Poor Hero look'd for no sucli thanks. Her hand, 
 But to be held in his, would have giv'n sea and 
 
 land. 
 
 The reverend crone accordingly took care 
 To do her duty to a time so fair. 
 Saw all things right, secured her own small pay, 
 (Which brought her luxuries to her dying day,) 
 And finishing a talk, which with surprise 
 She saw made grave e'en those goodhumour'd eyes. 
 Laid up, tow'rds night, her service on the shelf. 
 And left her nicer mistress to herself. 
 
 Hesper meanwhile, the star with amorous eye, 
 Shot his fine sparkle from the deep blue sky. 
 A depth of night succeeded, dark, but clear. 
 Such as presents the hollow starry sphere 
 
128 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 Like a high gulf to heaven ; and all above 
 
 Seems waking to a fervid work of love. 
 
 A nightingale, in transport, seemed to fling 
 
 His warble out, and then sit listening : 
 
 And ever and anon, amidst the flush 
 
 Of the thick leaves, there ran a breezy gush ; 
 
 And then, from dewy myrtles lately bloomed. 
 
 An odour small, in at the window, fumed. 
 
 At last, with twinkle o'er a distant tower, 
 A star appeared, that was to shew the hour. 
 The virgin saw ; and going to a room 
 Which held an altar burning with perfume. 
 Cut off a lock of her dark solid hair. 
 And laid it, with a little whispered prayer. 
 Before a statue, that of marble bright 
 Sat smiling downwards o'er the rosy light. 
 Then at the flame a torch of pine she lit. 
 And o'er her head anxiously holding it, 
 Ascended to the roof ; and leaning there, 
 Lifted its lisrht into the darksome air. 
 
IIEKO AND LEANDEH. 1^9 
 
 The boy beheld, — behehl it from the sea, -| 
 
 And parted his wet K)cks, and breathed with glee, 
 And rose, in swimming, more triumphantly. 
 
 Smooth was the sea that night, the lover strong. 
 And in the springy waves he danced along. 
 He rose, he dipped his breast, he aimed, he cut 
 With his clear arms, and from before him put 
 The parting waves, and in and out the air 
 His shoulders felt, and trailed his washing hair ; 
 But when he saw the torch, oh, how he sprung, 
 And thrust his feet against the waves, and flung 
 The foam behind, as though he scorned the sea, 
 And parted his wet locks, and breathed with glee, 
 And rose, and panted, most triumphantly ! 
 
 Arrived at last on shallow ground, he saw 
 The stooping light, as if in haste, withdraw : 
 Again it issued just above the door 
 With a white hand, and vanished as before. 
 
 K 
 
130 HERO AXD LEANDER. 
 
 Then rising, with a sudden-ceasing sound 
 Of wateriness, he stood on the firm ground, 
 And treading up a little slippery bank. 
 With jutting myrtles mixed, and verdure dank, 
 Came to a door ajar, — all hushed, all blind 
 With darkness ; yet he guessed who stood behind ; 
 And entering with a turn, the breathless boy 
 A breathless welcome finds, and words that die 
 for joy. 
 
IIEHO AND LEANDi:i{. 131 
 
 CANTO ir. 
 
 Thus passed the summer shadows in delight : 
 Leander came as surely as the night, 
 And when the morning woke upon the sea, 
 It saw him not, for back at home was he. 
 Sometimes, when it blew fresh, the struggling flare 
 Seemed out ; but then he knew his Hero's care, 
 And that she only walled it with her cloak ; 
 Brighter again from out the dark it broke. 
 Sometimes the night was almost clear as day, 
 Wanting no torch ; and then, with easy ])lay. 
 He dipped along beneath the silver moon, 
 Placidly hearkening to the water's tune. 
 K 2 
 
132 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 The people round the country, who from far 
 
 Used to behold the light, thought it a star, 
 
 Set there perhaps by Venus as a wonder, 
 
 To mark the favourite maiden who slept under. 
 
 Therefore they trod about the grounds by day -j 
 
 Gently ; and fishermen at night, they say, )- 
 
 With reverence kept aloof, cutting their silent way. J 
 
 But autumn now was over ; and the crane 
 Began to clang against the coming rain, 
 And peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea. 
 Which oft returned a face of enmity. 
 The gentle girl, before he went away, 
 Would look out sadly toward the cold-eyed day. 
 And often beg him not to come that night ; 
 But still he came, and still she blessed his sight ; 
 And so, from day to day, he came and went. 
 Till time had almost made her confident. 
 
 One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay 
 And myrtle garlands for a holiday, 
 
HERO AND LEANDEll. 
 
 133 
 
 And watched at intervals the dreary sky, 
 
 In which the dim sun held a languid eye, 
 
 She thought with such a full and quiet sweetness 
 
 Of all Leander's love and his completeness, 
 
 All that he was, and said, and looked, and dared. 
 
 His form, his step, his noble head full-haired, 
 
 And how she loved him, as a thousand might. 
 
 And yet he earned her still thus night by night. 
 
 That the shai-p pleasure moved her like a grief. 
 
 And tears came dropping with their meek relief. 
 
 Meantime the si^n had sunk ; the hilly mark, 
 
 Across the straits, mixed with the mightier dark. 
 
 And night came on. All noises by degrees ^ 
 
 Were hushed, — the fisher's call, the birds, the trees* } 
 
 I 
 All but the washing of the eternal seas. J 
 
 Hero looked out, and trembling augured ill, 
 The darkness held its breath so very still. 
 But yet she hoped he might arrive before 
 The storm began, or not be far from shore ; 
 
134 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 And crying, as she stretched forth in the air, "| 
 
 " Bless him !" she turned, and said a tearful prayer, 
 And mounted to the tower, and shook the torch's 
 flare. 
 
 But he, Leander, almost half across, 
 Threw his blithe locks behind him with a toss, 
 And hailed the light victoriously, secure 
 Of clasping his kind love, so sweet and sure ; 
 When suddenly, a blast, as if in wrath. 
 Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path ; 
 Then started off; and driving round the sea. 
 Dashed up the panting waters roaringly. 
 The youth at once was thrust beneath the main 
 With blinded eyes, but quickly rose again, 
 And with a smile at heart, and stouter pride, 
 Surmounted, like a god, the rearing tide. 
 But what ? The torch gone out ! So long too ! See, 
 He thinks it comes! Ah, yes, — 'tis she! "tis she! 
 Again he springs ; and though the winds arise 
 Fiercer and fiercer, swims with ardent eyes ; 
 
IIEKO AM) LEAXDKR. \o5 
 
 Ami always, tliough with riifHan waves (lashed hard, 
 Tunis thither with o'hid groan his stout rep;ar(l ; 
 And always, though his sense seems washed away, 
 I^nerges, fighting tow'rds the cordial ray. 
 
 But driven about at last, and drenched the while, 
 The noble boy loses that inward smile. 
 For now, from one l)lack atmosphere, the rain 
 Sweeps into stubborn mixture with the main ; 
 And the brute wind, unmuff^ng all its roar, 
 Storms ; — and the light, gone out, is seen no more. 
 Then dreadful thoughts of death, of waves heaped on 
 
 him, 
 And friends, and parting daylight, rush upon him. 
 He thinks of prayers to Neptune and his daughters, 
 And Venus, Hero's (pieen, sprung from the waters ; 
 And then of Hero only, — how she fares. 
 And what she'll feel, when the blank morn appears ; 
 And at that thought he stiffens once again 
 His limbs, and pants, and strains, and climbs, — in 
 vain. 
 
136 
 
 HERO AND LEANDER. 
 
 Fierce drauojhts he swallows of the wilful wave, 
 
 o 
 
 His tossing hands are lax, his blind look grave, 
 
 Till the poor youth (and yet no coward he) ^ 
 
 Spoke once her name, and yielding wearily, Y 
 
 Wept in the middle of the scornful sea. J 
 
 I need not tell how Hero, when her light 
 Would burn no longer, passed that dreadful night ; 
 How she exclaimed, and wept, and could not sit 
 One instant in one place ; nor how she lit 
 The torch a hundred times, and when she found 
 *Twas all in vain, her gentle head turned round 
 Almost with rage ; and in her fond despair 
 She tried to call him through the deafening air. 
 
 But when he came not, — when from hour to hour 
 He came not, — though the storm had spent its power, 
 And when the casement, at the dawn of light. 
 Began to shew a square of ghastly white. 
 She went up to the tower, and straining out 
 To search the seas, downwards, and round about, 
 
HERO AND LEANDEU. 137 
 
 Slic saw, at last, — she saw her lord indeed 
 Floating, and washed about, like a vile weed ; — 
 On which such strength of passion and dismay 
 Seized her, and such an impotence to stay, 
 That from the turret, like a stricken dove, 
 With fluttering arms she leaped, and joined her 
 drowned love. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 To the names of the celebrated writers, whom the author, in a fit of 
 youthful gaiety, here undertook to seat at Apollo's table, might have 
 been added some which have arisen of late years, both male and female, 
 and which would have done credit to the host. 
 
 The chronology of the poem, however, with two exceptions, is the same 
 as in former editions, containing the names of those only who were in 
 possession of poetical repute at the time it was written. The exceptions 
 are his beloved friends, Mr. Shelley and Mr. Keats, who have amply 
 obtained the repute since, and whom he has indulged himself with 
 introducing, not because any thing he can do is necessary to their fame, 
 but because they are dead, and their fame acknowledged. 
 
 It would have been a gratification to him to extend his list ; but, 
 to confess the truth, he was imwilling to open a new ground of hostility 
 against him, for his sins of" omission." 
 
 Some further remarks on this subject, if the reader wishes to see them, 
 may be found in the preface. They would be as much out of place here, 
 as a solemn introduction to a dance. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 T'other day, as Apollo sat pitching his darts 
 Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts. 
 He began to consider how long it had been, 
 Since the bards of Old England a session had seen. 
 " I think," said the God, recollecting, (and then 
 He fell twiddling a sunbeam, as I may my pen,) 
 " I think — let me see — yes, it is, I declare, 
 As long ago now as that Buckingham there : * 
 And yet I can't see why I've been so remiss, 
 Unless it may be — and it certainly is, 
 
 * Sheffield, Duke of Buckingliam, wrote the last Session of 
 the Poets. The others were written }>y Siuklinf^ and Rochester. 
 
144 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 That since Dryden*s fine verses, and Milton's sublime, 
 I have fairly been sick of their sing-song and rhyme. 
 There was Collins, 'tis true, had a good deal to say ; 
 But the dog had no industry, — neither had Gray : 
 And Thomson, though dear to my heart, was too florid 
 To make the world see that their own taste was horrid. 
 So ever since Pope, my pet bard of the town, 
 Set a tune with his verses, half up and half down. 
 There has been such a doling and sameness — by Jove, 
 I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love. 
 However, of late as they've rous'd them anew, 
 I'll e'en go and give them a lesson or two. 
 And as nothing's done there now-a-days without 
 
 eating, 
 See what kind of set I can muster worth treating.'' 
 So saying, the God bade his horses walk for'ard. 
 And leaving them, took a long dive to the nor'ard : 
 For Gordon's he made ; and as Gods who drop in do. 
 Came smack on his legs through the drawing-room 
 
 window. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 145 
 
 And here I could tell, were I given to spin it, 
 How all the town shook, as the godhead came in it ; 
 How bright look'd the poets, and brisk blew the airs, 
 And the laurels shot up in the gardens and squares ; — 
 But fancies like these, though I've stores to supply me, 
 I*d better keep back for a poem I've by me, 
 And merely observe that the girls look'd divine, 
 And the old folks in-doors exclaimed " Bless us how fine !" 
 
 If you'd fancy, however, what Phoebus might be. 
 Imagine a shape above mortal degree, 
 His limbs the perfection of elegant strength, — 
 A fine flowing roundness inclining to length, — 
 A presence that spoke, — an expansion of chest, 
 (For the God, you'll observe, like his statues was drest). 
 His throat like a pillar for smoothness and grace. 
 His curls in a cluster, — and then such a face. 
 As marked him at once the true offspring of Jove, 
 The brow all of wisdom, and lips all of love ; 
 For though he was blooming, and oval of cheek. 
 And youth down his shoulders went smoothing and sleek, 
 
 L 
 
14f6 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 Yet his look with the reach of past ages was wise, 
 And the soul of eternity thought through his eyes. 
 
 I would'nt say more, lest my climax should lose ; — 
 Yet now I have mentioned those lamps of the Muse, 
 I can't but observe what a splendour they shed, 
 When a thought more than common came into his 
 
 head : 
 Then they leaped in their frankness, deliciously bright, 
 And shot round about them an arrowy light ; 
 And if, as he shook back his hair in its cluster, 
 A curl fell athwart them and darken'd their lustre, 
 A sprinkle of gold through the duskiness came. 
 Like the sun through a tree, when he's setting in flame. 
 
 The God then no sooner had taken a chair. 
 And rung for the landlord to order the fare. 
 Than he heard a strange noise and a knock from 
 
 without, — 
 And scraping and bowing, came in such a rout ! 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 14»7 
 
 There were all the worst pltiy-wriglits from Dibdin to 
 
 Terry, 
 All grinning, as who should say, "Shan't we be merry ? " 
 A\'ith men of light comedy lumbering like bears up. 
 And men of deep tragedy patting their hairs up. 
 The God, for an instant, sat fix'd as a stone, 
 Till recov'ring, he said in a good-natur'd tone, 
 *' Oh, the waiters, I see ; — ah, it's all very well, — 
 Only one of you'll do just to answer the bell." 
 But lord ! to see all the great dramatists' faces ! 
 They look'd at each other, and made such grimaces ! 
 Then turning about, left the room in vexation. 
 And Colman, they say, fairly mutter*d " Damnation ! " 
 
 The God fell a laughing to see his mistake. 
 But stopp'd with a sigh for poor Comedy's sake ; 
 Then gave mine host orders, who bow'd to the floor. 
 And had scarcely back'd out, and shut gently the door, 
 When a hemming was heard, consequential and snapping. 
 And a sour little gentleman walk'd with a rap in : 
 L '2 
 
148 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 He bow'd, look'd about him, seem'd cold, and sat down, 
 And said, " Tm sui-jDrised that you'll visit this town: — 
 To be sure, there are one or two of us who know you, 
 But as for the rest, they are all much below you. 
 So stupid, in general, the natives are grown, 
 They really prefer Scotch reviews to their own ; 
 So that what with their taste, their reformers, and stuff. 
 They have sicken*d myself and my friends long enough." 
 *' Yourself and your friends ! " cried the God in high 
 
 glee; 
 ** And pray, my frank visitor, who may you be ? " 
 ** Who be ?" cried the other ; *' why really— this tone — 
 William GifFord*s a name, I think, pretty well known ! *' 
 *' Oh — now I remember," said Phoebus ; — " ah true — 
 The Anti-La Cruscan that writes the review : — 
 The rod, though 'twas no such vast matter, that fell 
 On that plague of the butterflies, — did very well ; * 
 
 * Mr. Gifford, in a satire called the Baviad and Maeviad, killed 
 before their time an ephemeral race of poetasters, generated by 
 
THE FEAST OF THE FOETS. 149 
 
 And tliere's something, which even distaste must respect, 
 
 In the self-taught example, that conquer'd neglect : 
 
 But not to insist on the recommendations 
 
 Of modesty, wit, and a small stock of patience, 
 
 My visit just now is to poets alone. 
 
 And not to small critics, however well known." 
 
 So saying he rang, to leave nothing in doubt, 
 
 And the sour little gentleman bless'd himself out. 
 
 But glad look'd the God at the next who appear'd. 
 For *twas Campbell, by Poland's pale blessing endear'd j 
 And Montgom*ry was with him, a freeman as true, 
 (Heav'n loves the ideal, which practises too) ; 
 
 the aifected fancy of Mr. Merry, a gentleman who. signed himself 
 Delia Crusca, from the academy of that name, of which he was a 
 member. Mr. Giiford, whose perceptions were all of the common- 
 place order, had a good common-place judgment, which served him 
 well enough to expose errors discernible by most people. lie only 
 betrayed his own ignorance and presumption, when he came to speak 
 of such a poet as Mr. Keats. 
 
150 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 And him follow'd Rogers, whose laurel tree shows 
 Thicker leaves, and more sunny, the older it grows ; 
 Rejoicing he came in the god-send of weather ; 
 Then Scott (for the famous ones all came together) ; 
 His host overwhelm*d him with thanks for his novels ; 
 Then Crabbe, asking questions concerning Greek 
 
 hovels ; 
 And Byron, with eager indifference ; and Moore 
 With admiring glad eyes, that came leaping before ; 
 And Keats, with young tresses and thoughts, like the 
 
 god's ; 
 And Shelley, a sprite from his farthest abodes ; 
 Phoebus gave him commissions from Marlowe and 
 
 Plato ; 
 And Landor, whom two Latin poets sent bay to, 
 (Catullus, they tell me, and Ovid) ; and with him 
 Came Southey, who rightly thinks court-odes beneath 
 
 him ; 
 And Coleridge, fine dreamer, with lutes in his rhyme ; 
 And Wordsworth, the Prince of the Bards of his Time. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 151 
 
 "And now,"said the God,— but he scarcely had spoken, 
 When bang went the door — you'd have thought it was 
 
 broken ; 
 And in rush'd a mob with a scuffle and squeeze. 
 Exclaiming, *'What! Wordsworth, and fellows like 
 
 these ! 
 Nay then, we may all take our seats as we please ! *' 
 I can't, if I would, tell you who they all were ; 
 But a whole shoal of fops and of pedants were there. 
 All the *' heart and impart" men, and such as suppose 
 They write like the Virgils, and Popes, and Boileaus ! 
 The God smiled at first with a turn tow'rds the fire. 
 And whisper'd " There, tell 'em they'd better retire ; " 
 But lord ! this was only to set all their quills up ; 
 The rogues did but bustle ; and pulling their frills up. 
 Stood fixing their faces, and stirr'd not an inch ; 
 Nay, some took their snuff out, and join'd in a pinch. 
 
 Then wrath seiz'd Apollo ; and turning again, 
 " Ye rabble,'' he cried, *' common-minded and vain, 
 
1.52 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 AVhate'er be the faults which true bards may commit, 
 (And most of 'em lie in your own want of wit,) 
 Ye shall try, wretched creatures, how well ye can bear 
 What such only witness, unsmote with despair." 
 
 He said ; and the place all seem*d swelling with light. 
 While his locks and his visage grew awfully bright ; 
 And clouds, burning inward, roll'd round on each 
 
 side. 
 To encircle his state, as he stood in his pride ; 
 Till at last the full Deity put on his rays. 
 And bvu'st on the sight in the pomp of his blaze ! 
 Then a glory beam'd round, as of fiery rods. 
 With the sound of deep organs and chorister gods ; 
 And the faces of bards, glowing fresh from their skies, 
 Came thronging about with intentness of eyes, — 
 And the Nine were all heard, as the harmony swell'd, — 
 And the spheres, pealing in, the long rapture upheld, — 
 And all things, above, and beneath, and around, 
 Seem'd a world of bright vision, set floating in sound. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 1.53 
 
 That sight and that music might not be sustain'd, 
 But by those who in wonder's great school had been 
 
 train'd ; 
 And even the bards who had graciousness found, 
 After gazing awhile, bow'd them down to the ground. 
 AMiat then could remain for that feeble-eyed crew ? ' 
 Through the door in an instant they rush'd and they 
 
 flew; 
 They rush'd, and they dash'd, and they scrambled, and 
 
 stumbled. 
 And down the hall staircase distractedly tumbled, 
 And never once thought which was head or was feet. 
 And slid through the hall, and fell plump in the street. 
 So great was the panic that smote them to flight, 
 That of all who had come to be feasted that night. 
 Not one ventured back, or would stay near the place ; 
 Even Croker declin'd, notwithstanding his face. 
 
 But Phoebus no sooner had gain'd his good ends, 
 Than he put off his terrors, and raisM up his friends, 
 
154 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 Who stood for a moment, entranc'd to behold 
 
 The glories subside and the dim-rolling gold, 
 
 And listen'd to sounds, that with extasy burning 
 
 Seem'd dying far upward, like heaven returning. 
 
 Then " Come," cried the God in his elegant mirth, 
 
 *' Let us make us a heav*n of our own upon earth, 
 
 And wake with the lips, that we dip in our bowls. 
 
 That divinest of music, — congenial souls." 
 
 So saying, he led through the door in his state, 
 
 Each bard, as he follow'd him, blessing his fate ; 
 
 And by some charm or other, as each took his chair, 
 
 There burst a most beautiful wreath in his hair. 
 
 I can't tell 'em all, but the groundwork was bay. 
 
 And Campbell, in his, had some oak-leaves and May ; 
 
 And Forget-me-not, Rogers ; and Moore had a vine ; 
 
 And Shelley, besides most magnificent pine. 
 
 Had the plant which thy least touch, Humanity, knows ; 
 
 And Keats's had forest-tree, ivy, and rose ; 
 
 And Southey some buds of the tall Eastern palm ; 
 
 And Coleridge mandragoras, mingled with balm ; 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 155 
 
 And Wordsworth, with all which the field-walk endears, 
 The blossom that counts by its hundreds of years. 
 Then Apollo put his on, that sparkled with beams. 
 And rich rose the feast as an epicure's dreams, — 
 Not an epicure civic, or grossly inclined. 
 But such as a poet might dream ere he din'd ; 
 For the God had no sooner determined the fare. 
 Than it turned to whatever was racy and rare : 
 The fish and the flesh, for example, were done. 
 On account of their fineness, in flame from the sun ; 
 The wines were all nectar of different smack, 
 To which Muskat was nothing, nor Virginis Lac, 
 No, nor even Johannisberg, soul of the Rhine, 
 Nor Montepulciano, though King of all Wine.* 
 Then as for the fruits, you might garden for ages. 
 Before you could raise me such apples and gages ; 
 And all on the table no sooner were spread. 
 Than their cheeks next the God blushed a beautiful red. 
 
 * " Montepulciano d'ogni vino ^ il Re." 
 
 liacco in Toscana. 
 
156 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 'Twas magic, in short, and deliciousness all ; — 
 The very men servants grew handsome and tall ; 
 To velvet-hung ivory the furniture turn'd. 
 The service with opal and adamant burn'd ; 
 Each candlestick chang'd to a pillar of gold. 
 While a bundle of beams took the place of the mould ; 
 The decanters and glasses pure diamond became. 
 And the corkscrew ran solidly round into flame : — 
 In a word, so completely forestall'd were the wishes, 
 E'en harmony struck from the noise of the dishes. 
 
 It can't be supposed I should think of repeating 
 The fancies that flow'd at this laureat meeting ; 
 I haven't the brains, and besides, was not there j 
 But the wit may be easily guess'd, by the chair. 
 
 I must mention, however, that during the wine, 
 Our four great old poets were toasted with nine. 
 Then others with six, or with three, as it fitted. 
 Nor were those who translate with a gusto, omitted. 
 
THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 157 
 
 At this, Soutliey begging the Deity's ear — 
 '* / know," interrupted Apollo, " 'tis Frere :"* 
 And Scott put a word in, and begg'd to propose — 
 '* I'll drink him with pleasure," said Phoebus, " 'tis 
 
 Rose.'Vt 
 Then talking of lyrics, he call'd upon Moore, 
 Who sung such a song, that they shouted " Encore !'* 
 And the God was so pleas'd with his taste and his tone. 
 He obey'd the next call, and gave one of his own, — 
 At which you'd have thought, — ('twas so witching a 
 
 warble,) 
 The guests had all turn'd into listening marble j 
 The wreaths on their temples grew brighter of bloom, 
 As the breath of the Deity circled the room ; 
 And the wine in the glasses went rippling in rounds. 
 As if follow'd and fann'd by the soft-winged sounds. 
 
 * See the admirable version from the Spanish, at the end of Mr. 
 Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. 
 
 f The abridger of Casti's Animali Parlanti, and imitator of Berni. 
 
158 THE FEAST OF THE POETS. 
 
 Thus chatting and singmg they sat till eleven, 
 When Phoebus shook hands, and departed for heaven ; 
 " For poets," he said, "who would cherish their powers, 
 And hop*d to be deathless, must keep to good hours." 
 So off he betook him the way that he came. 
 And shot up the north, like an arrow of flame; 
 For the Bear was his inn ; and the comet, they say, 
 AVas his tandem in waiting to fetch him away. 
 
 The others then parted, all highly delighted ; 
 And so shall I be, when you find me invited. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 MAHMOUD.* 
 
 There came a man, making his hasty moan 
 Before the Sultan Mahmoud on his throne, 
 And crying out — " My sorrow is my right, 
 And I will see the Sultan, and to-night." 
 *' Sorrow," said Mahmoud, " is a reverend thing : 
 I recognize its right, as king with king ; 
 
 * This is Mahmoud the Gaznevide, whose history has been told 
 by Gibbon. The version of the noble and affecting adventure, here 
 repeated, was suggested by a perusal of it in Gibbon's authority, the 
 Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, a book to which the author 
 takes this opportunity of expressing his gratitude for many an hour 
 of comfort. 
 
l62 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Speak on.*' " A fiend has got into my house," 
 Exclaimed the staring man, " and tortures us : 
 One of thine officers ; — he comes, the abhorr'd, 
 And takes possession of my house, my board. 
 My bed : — I have two daughters and a wife, 
 And the wild villain comes and makes me mad with life.'' 
 " Is he there now ? " said Mahmoud : — " No ; — he left 
 The house when I did, of my wits bereft ; 
 And laugh 'd me down the street, because I vowed 
 I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud. 
 I'm mad with want — I'm mad with misery, 
 And oh thou Sultan Mahmoud, God cries out for 
 thee ! " 
 
 The Sultan comforted the man, and said, 
 " Go home, and I will send thee wine and bread," 
 (For he was poor) " and other comforts. Go ; 
 And, should the wretch return, let Sultan Mahmoud 
 know." 
 
MAiii\roi'i). ICS 
 
 111 tliree clays' time, witli liaggard eyes and beard, 
 And shaken voice, tlie suitor re-appeared, 
 And said " He's come." — Mahmoud said not a word, 
 But rose and took four slaves, each with a sword, 
 And went with the vexed man. They reach the place, 
 And hear a voice, and see a female face, 
 That to the window fluttered in affright : 
 *' Go in," said Mahmoud, " and put out the liglit ; 
 But tell the females first to leave the room ; 
 And when the drunkard follows them, we come." 
 
 The man went in. There was a cry, and hark ! 
 A table falls, the window is struck dark : 
 Forth rush the breathless women ; and behind 
 AVlth curses comes the fiend in desperate mind. 
 In vain : the sabres soon cut short the strife. 
 And chop the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody 
 life. 
 
 " Now liglit the light," the Sultan cried aloud. 
 'Twas done ; he took it in his hand, and liowed 
 
164 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Over the corpse, and looked upon the face ; 
 Then turned and knelt beside it in the place, 
 And said a prayer, and from his lips there crept 
 Some gentle words of pleasure, and he wept. 
 
 In reverend silence the spectators wait. 
 Then bring him at his call both wine and meat ; 
 And when he had refreshed his noble heart. 
 He bade his host be blest, and rose up to depart. 
 
 The man amazed, all mildness now, and tears, 
 Fell at the Sultan's feet, with many prayers. 
 And begged him to vouchsafe to tell his slave, 
 The reason first of that command he gave 
 About the light ; then, when he saw the ftice,' 
 Why he knelt down ; and lastly, how it was, 
 That fare so poor as his detained him in the place. 
 
 The Sultan said, with much humanity, 
 " Since first I saw thee come, and heard thy cry. 
 
:\IAIIMOUD. 
 
 165 
 
 I could not lid nic of a dread, tliat one ^ 
 
 By wlioni such daring villainies were done, )- 
 
 Must be some lord of mine, perhaps a lawless son. j 
 AA hoe'er he was, I knew my task, but feared 
 A father's heart, in case the worst appeared : 
 For this I had the light put out ; but when 
 I saw the face, and found a stranger slain, 
 I knelt and thanked the sovereign arbiter. 
 Whose work I had performed through pain and fear ; 
 And then I rose, and was refreshed with food, 
 The first time since thou cam'st, and marr'dst my 
 solitude." 
 
166 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 LINES 
 
 WRITTEN ON A SUDDEN ARRIVAL OF FINE WEATHER IN MAY. 
 
 Header ! what soul that loves a verse, can see 
 The spring return, nor glow like you and me ? 
 Hear the rich birds, and see the landscape fill, 
 Nor long to utter his melodious will ? 
 
 This, more than ever, leaps into the veins, 
 \Vlien spring has been delay'd by winds and rains, 
 And coming with a burst, comes like a show. 
 Blue all above, and basking green below. 
 And all the people culling the sweet prime : 
 Then issues forth the bee, to clutch the thyme, 
 And the bee poet rushes into rhyme. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN MAY. iGj 
 
 For lo ! 110 sooner have the chills withdrawn, 
 Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn ; 
 'J'he merry sap has run up in the bowers, 
 And burst the windows of the buds in flowers ; 
 AVitli song the bosoms of the birds run o'er ; 
 The cuckoo calls ; the swallow's at the door ; 
 And apple-trees at noon, with bees alive. 
 Burn with the golden chorus of the hive. 
 Now all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze. 
 Is but one joy, express'd a thousand ways ; 
 And honey from the flow'rs, and song from birds. 
 Are from the poet's pen his overflowing words. 
 
 Ah friends ! methinks it were a pleasant sphere, 
 If, like the trees, we blossom'd every year ; 
 If locks grew thick again, and rosy dyes 
 Return'd in cheeks, and raciness in eyes. 
 And all around us, vital to the tips. 
 The human orchard laugh'd with cherry lips ! 
 
168 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Lord I what a burst of merriment and play, 
 Fair dames, were that ! and what a first of May ! 
 
 So natural is the wish, that bards gone by 
 Have left it, all, in some immortal sigh ! 
 
 And yet the winter months were not so well : 
 Who would like changing, as the seasons fell ? 
 Fade every year ; and stare, midst ghastly friends, 
 With falling hairs, and stuck-out fingers' ends ? 
 Besides, this tale, of youth that comes again, 
 Is no more true of apple-trees than men. 
 The Swedish sage, the Newton of the flow'rs, 
 Who first found out those worlds of paramours. 
 Tells us, that every blossom that we see 
 Boasts in its walls a separate family ; 
 So that a tree is but a sort of stand, 
 That holds those filial fairies in its hand ; 
 Just as Swift's giant might have held a bevy 
 Of Lilliputian ladies, or a levee. 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN MAY. l69 
 
 It is not he that blooms : it is his race, 
 
 Who honour his ohl arms, and liide his rugged face. 
 
 Ye wits and bards tlien, pr'ythee know your duty, 
 And learn the lastingness of human beauty. 
 Your finest fruit to some two months may reach : 
 I've known a cheek atjbrfj/ like a peach. 
 
 But see ! the weather calls me. Here's a bee 
 Comes bounding in my room imperiously, 
 And talking to himself, hastily burns 
 About mine ear, and so in heat returns. 
 
 little brethren of the fervid soul, 
 Kissers of flow'rs, lords of the golden bowl, 
 
 1 follow to your fields and tufted brooks : ^ 
 
 Winter's the time to which the i)oet looks ' 
 
 Lor hiving his sweet thoughts, and making honied | 
 
 I 
 books. j 
 
170 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 ALTER ET IDEM. 
 
 A CHEMICO-POETICAL THOUGHT. 
 
 O LOVERS, ye that poorly love, and ye 
 
 That think ye love beyond sobriety, 
 
 Twine me a wreath, if but for only this, — 
 
 ril prove the roses in the poet's kiss. 
 
 Not metaphors alone are lips and roses, 
 
 Whate'er the gallant or the churl supposes : 
 
 Ask what compounds them both, and science tells 
 
 Of marvellous results in crucibles, — 
 
 Of common elements, — say two in five, — 
 
 By which their touch is soft, their bloom's alive ; 
 
 So that the lip and leaf do really, both, 
 
 Hold a shrewd cut of the same velvet cloth. 
 
 The maxim holds, where'er the compounds fall, — ] 
 
 In birds, in brooks, in wall-flowers, and the wall : J> 
 
 The beauty shares them with her very shawl. J 
 
ALTER ET IDEM. I?! 
 
 'Tis true, the same things go to harden rocks ; 
 There's iron in the shade of Julia's locks ; 
 And when we kiss Amanda's tears away, 
 A briny pity melts in what we say : 
 But read these common properties aright, 
 And shame in love is quench'd, and wise delight. 
 The very coarsest clay, the meanest shard 
 That hides the beetle in the public yard, 
 Shares with the stars, and all that rolls them on ; 
 Much more the face we love to look upon ; 
 And be the drops compounded as they may. 
 That bring sweet sorrows from sweet eyes away, 
 Where's the mean soul shall honour not the tears 
 Shed for a lover's hope, a mother's fears ? 
 Rise, truth and love, and vindicate my rhyme ! 
 The crabbed Scot, that once upon a time 
 Asked what a poem proved, and just had wit 
 To prove himself a fool, by asking it. 
 E'en he had blood, as Burns or Wallace had. 
 Or as the lip that makes a painter mad. 
 
172 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 POWER AND GENTLENESS. 
 
 I've thought, at gentle and ungentle hour, 
 
 Of many an act and giant shape of power ; 
 
 Of the old kings with high exacting looks. 
 
 Sceptred and globed ; of eagles on their rocks, 
 
 With straining feet, and that fierce mouth and drear. 
 
 Answering the strain with downward drag austere j 
 
 Of the rich-headed lion, whose huge frown, 
 
 AH his great nature, gathering, seems to crown ; 
 
 Then of cathedral with its priestly height. 
 
 Seen from below at superstitious night ; 
 
 Of ghastly castle, that eternally 
 
 Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea ; 
 
 And of all sunless, subterranean deeps 
 
 The creature makes, who listens while he sleeps, 
 
POWER AND GENTLENESS. 173 
 
 Avarice ; and then of tliosc old eartlily cones, 
 
 Tluit stride, tliey say, over heroic bones ; 
 
 And those stone lieaps Egyptian, whose small doors 
 
 Look like low dens under precipitous shores ; 
 
 And him, great Memnon, that long sitting by, 
 
 In seeming idleness, with stony eye, 
 
 Sang at the morning's touch, like poetry ; 
 
 And then of all the fierce and bitter fruit 
 
 Of the proud planting of a tyrannous foot, — 
 
 Of bruised rights, and flourishing bad men, 
 
 And virtue wasting heavenwards from a den ; 
 
 Brute force, and fury ; and the devilish drouth 
 
 Of the fool cannon's ever-gaping mouth ; 
 
 And the bride-widowing sword ; and the harsh bray 
 
 The sneering trumpet sends across the fray ; 
 
 And all which lights the people-thinning star 
 
 That selfishness invokes, — the horsed war. 
 
 Panting along with many a bloody mane. — 
 
 I've thought of all this pride, and all this pain. 
 
174^ MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 And all the insolent plenitudes of power, 
 
 And I declare, by this most quiet hour, 
 
 Which holds in different tasks by the fire-light 1 
 
 Me and my friends here, this delightful night, 1* 
 
 That Power itself has not one half the might ^ 
 
 Of Gentleness. 'Tis want to all true wealth ; 
 
 The uneasy madman's force, to the wise health ; 
 
 Blind downward beating, to the eyes that see ; 
 
 Noise to persuasion, doubt to certainty ; 
 
 The consciousness of strength in enemies. 
 
 Who must be strain'd upon, or else they rise ; 
 
 The battle to the moon, who all the while. 
 
 High out of hearing, passes with her smile ; 
 
 The tempest, trampling in his scanty run, 
 
 To the whole globe, that basks about the sun ; 
 
 Or as all shrieks and clangs, with which a sphere, 
 
 Undone and fired, could rake the midnight ear. 
 
 Compared with that vast dumbness nature keeps 
 
 Throughout her starry deeps, 
 Most old, and mild, and awful, and unbroken. 
 Which tells a tale of peace beyond whate'er was spoken. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 175 
 
 THE PANTHER. 
 
 The panther leaped to the front of his lair. 
 And stood with a foot up, and snuffed the air ; 
 He quivered his tongue from his panting mouth, 
 And looked with a yearning towards the south ; 
 For he scented afar in the coming breeze, 
 News of the gums and their blossoming trees ; 
 And out of Armenia that same day, 
 He and his race come bounding away. 
 Over the mountains and down to the plains -) 
 
 Like Bacchus's panthers with wine in their veins, [► 
 They came where the woods wept odorous rains ; J 
 And there, with a quivering, every beast 
 Fell to his old Pamphylian feast. 
 
176 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 The people who lived not far away, 
 Heard the roaring on that same day ; 
 And they said, as they lay in their carpeted rooms, 
 The panthers are come, and are drinking the gums ; 
 And some of them going with swords and spears, 
 To gather their share of the rich round tears, 
 The panther I spoke of followed them back ; 
 And dumbly they let him tread close in the track, 
 And lured him after them into the town ; 
 And then they let the portcullis down 
 And took the panther, which happened to be 
 The largest was seen in all Pamphily. 
 
 By every one there was the panther admired, 
 So fine was his shape and so sleekly attired. 
 And such an air, both princely and swift. 
 He had, when giving a sudden lift 
 To his mighty paw, he'd turn at a sound. 
 And so stand panting and looking around. 
 As if he attended a monarch crowned. 
 
THE PANTHER. 177 
 
 And truly, they wondered the more to behold 
 About his neck a collar of gold, 
 On which was written, in characters broad, 
 " Arsaces the king to the Nysian God." 
 So they tied to the collar a golden chain, 
 Which made the panther a captive again. 
 And by degrees he grew fearful and still, 
 As if he had lost his lordly will. 
 
 But now came the spring, when free-born love 
 Calls up nature in forest and grove. 
 And makes each thing leap forth, and be 
 Loving, and lovely, and blithe as he. 
 The panther he felt the thrill of the air. 
 And he gave a leap up, like that at his lair; 
 He felt the sharp sweetness more strengthen his' 
 
 veins. 
 Ten times than ever the spicy rains. 
 And ere they're aware, he has burst his chains : 
 He has burst his chains, and ah, ha ! he's gone, 
 And the links and the gazers are left alone. 
 And off to the mountains the panther's flown. 
 
178 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Now what made the panther a prisoner be ? 
 Lo ! 'twas the spices and luxury. 
 And what set that lordly panther free ? 
 'Twas Love ! — 'twas Love ! — 'twas no one but he.* 
 
 * " What is said of that Taurus which is so called by us, extend- 
 ing- beyond Armenia, (though this has been called in question), is 
 now made apparent from the panthers, which I know have been 
 taken in the spice-bearing part of Pamphylia ; for they, delighting 
 in odours, which they scent at a great distance, quit Armenia, and 
 cross the mountains in search of the tears of the storax, at the time 
 when the wind blows from that quarter, and the trees distil their 
 gums. It is said a panther was once taken in Pamphylia, with a 
 gold chain about its neck, on which was inscribed, in Armenian 
 letters, " Arsaces the king, to the Nysaean God." Arsaces was then 
 king of Armenia, who is supposed to have given it its liberty on 
 account of its magnitude, and in honour of Bacchus, who, amongst 
 the Indians, is called Nysius, from Nysa, one of their towns : this, 
 however, is an appellation which he bears among all the oriental 
 nations. This panther became subject to man, and grew so tame, 
 that it was patted and caressed by every one. But on the approach 
 of spring, a season when panthers become susceptible of love, it felt 
 the general passion, and rushed with fury into the mountains in 
 quest of a mate, with the gold chain about its neck." — Life of 
 Apollonius of Ti/ana, p. G8. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS TIECES. 179 
 
 TO T. L. H., 
 
 SIX YEARS OLD, DURING A SICKNESS. 
 
 Sleep breathes at last from out thee, 
 
 My little, patient boy ; 
 And balmy rest about thee 
 Smooths off the day's annoy. 
 I sit me down, and think 
 Of all thy winning ways ; 
 Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink. 
 That [ had less to praise. 
 
 Thy sidelong pillowed meekness, 
 Thy thanks to all that aid. 
 
 Thy heart, in pain and weakness, 
 Of fancied faults afraid ; 
 N 2 
 
180 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 The little trembling hand 
 That wipes thy quiet tears, 
 These, these are things that may demand 
 Dread memories for years. 
 
 Sorrows I've had, severe ones, 
 
 I will not think of now ; 
 And calmly, midst my dear ones, 
 Have wasted with dry brow ; 
 But when thy fingers press 
 And pat my stooping head, 
 I cannot bear the gentleness, — 
 The tears are in their bed. 
 
 Ah, first-born of thy mother, 
 When life and hope were new. 
 
 Kind playmate of thy brother. 
 Thy sister, father too ; 
 
 My light, where'er I go. 
 My bird, when prison-bound. 
 
TO T. L. H. 
 
 My hand in hand companion, — no, 
 
 My prayers shall hold thee round. 
 
 To say " He has departed" — 
 
 " His voice" — "his face" — is gone; 
 To feel impatient-hearted, 
 Yet feel we must bear on ; 
 Ah, I could not endure 
 To whisper of such woe, 
 Unless I felt this sleep ensure 
 That it will not be so. 
 
 Yes, still he's fixed, and sleeping ! 
 
 This silence too the while — 
 It's very luish and creeping 
 Seem whispering us a smile : 
 Something divine and dim 
 Seems going by one's ear, 
 Like parting wings of Cherubim, 
 
 Who say, " We've finished liere." 
 
 181 
 
182 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES, 
 
 TO J. H., 
 
 FOUR YEARS OLD ;— A NURSERY SONG. 
 
 Pien d' ainori, 
 
 Pien Ji canti, e pien di liori. 
 
 FUUGONI 
 
 Full of little loves for ours, 
 
 Full of songs, and full of flowers. 
 
 Ah little ranting Johnny, 
 For ever blithe and bonny, 
 And singing nonny, nonny. 
 With hat just thrown upon ye 5 
 Or whistling like the thrushes 
 With voice in silver gushes ; 
 Or twisting random posies 
 With daisies, weeds, and roses j 
 
TO J. II., A NUllSERY SONG. 
 
 And strutting in and out so, 
 
 Or dancing all about so, 
 
 M'itli cock-up nose so lightsome, 
 
 And sidelong eyes so briglitsome. 
 
 And cheeks as ripe as apples, 
 
 And head as rough as Dapple's, 
 
 And arms as sunny shining 
 
 As if their veins they'd wine in ; 
 
 And mouth that smiles so truly, 
 
 Heav'n seems to have made it newly. 
 
 It breaks into such sweetness 
 
 With merry-lipped completeness ; — 
 
 Ah Jack, ah Gianni mio. 
 
 As blithe as Laughing Trio, 
 
 — Sir Richard, too, you rattler, 
 
 So christened from the Tatler, — 
 
 My Bacchus in his glory. 
 
 My little Cor-di-fiori, 
 
 My tricksome Puck, my Robin, 
 
 Who in and out come bobbing. 
 
 183 
 
184 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 As full of feints and frolic as 
 That fibbing rogue Autolycus, 
 And play the graceless robber on 
 Your grave-eyed brother Oberon, — 
 Ah ! Dick, ah Dolce-riso, 
 How can you, can you be so ? 
 
 One cannot turn a minute, 
 But mischief — there you're in it, 
 A getting at my books, John, 
 With mighty bustling looks, John ; 
 Or poking at the roses, 
 In midst of which your nose is ; 
 Or climbing on a table, 
 No matter how unstable. 
 And turning up your quaint eye 
 And half-shut teeth with " Mayn't I?" 
 Or else you're off at play, John, 
 Just as you'd be all day, John, 
 With hat or not, as happens, 
 And there you dance, and clap hands, 
 
TO J. II., A NURSERY SONG. 185 
 
 Or on the grass go rolling, 
 
 Or plucking flow'rs, or bowling. 
 
 And getting me expenses 
 
 A\ ith losing balls o'er fences ; 
 
 Or, as the constant trade is, 
 
 Are fondled by the ladies, 
 
 AVith " What a young rogue this is ! " 
 
 Reforming him with kisses ; 
 
 Till suddenly you cry out. 
 
 As if you had an eye out. 
 
 So desperately tearful, 
 
 The sound is really fearful ; 
 
 When lo ! directly after. 
 
 It bubbles into laughter. 
 
 Ah rogue ! and do you know, John, 
 Why 'tis we love you so, John ? 
 And how it is they let ye 
 Do what you like, and pet ye. 
 Though all who look upon ye 
 Exclaim " Ah, Johnny, Johnny ! " 
 
186 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 It is because you please *em 
 
 Still more, John, than you teaze 'em ; 
 
 Because, too, when not present, 
 
 The thought of you is pleasant ; 
 
 Because, though such an elf, John, 
 
 They think that if yourself, John, 
 
 Had something to condemn too. 
 
 You'd be as kind to them too : 
 
 In short, because you're very 
 
 Good-temper 'd. Jack, and merry ; 
 
 And are as quick at giving, 
 
 As easy at receiving ; 
 
 And in the midst of pleasure 
 
 Are certain to find leisure 
 
 To think, my boy, of ours, 
 
 And bring us lumps of flowers. 
 
 But see, the sun shines brightly. 
 Come, put your hat on rightly. 
 And we'll among the bushes, 
 And hear your friends the thrushes j 
 
TO J. H., A NUKSEUY SONG. 187 
 
 And see what How'rs the weather 
 Has render'd fit to gather ; 
 And, when we home nuist jog, you 
 Shall ride my back, you rogue you, 
 Your hat adorned with fine leaves. 
 Horse-chestnut, oak, and vine-leaves ; 
 And so, with green o'erhead, John, 
 Shall whistle home to bed, John. 
 
188 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 THE NUN. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY PART OF THE ITALIAN SONG, BEGINNING 
 "SE MONECA TI FAI." 
 
 I. 
 
 If you become a nun, dear, 
 
 A friar I will be ; 
 In any cell you run, dear, 
 
 Pray look behind for me. 
 The roses all turn pale, too ; 
 
 The doves all take the veil, too ; 
 The blind will see the show : 
 What ! you become a nun, my dear ! 
 I'll not believe it, no. 
 
THE NUN. 
 II. 
 
 If yo\i become a nun, dear, 
 
 The bishop Love will be ; 
 The Cupids every one, dear, 
 
 Will chaunt " We trust in thee : " 
 The incense will go sighing, 
 The candles fall a dying, 
 
 The water turn to wine : 
 What ! you go take the vows, my dear ! 
 
 You may — but they'll be mine. 
 
 189 
 
190 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 ARIADNE WAKING. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 The moist and quiet morn was scarcely breakmg, 
 
 When Ariadne in her bower was waking ; 
 
 Her eyelids still were closing, and she heard 
 
 But indistinctly yet a little bird, 
 
 That in the leaves o'erhead, waiting the sun, 
 
 Seemed answering another distant one. 
 
 She waked, but stirred not, only just to please 
 
 Her pillow-nestling cheek ; while the full seas. 
 
 The birds, the leaves, the lulling love o'ernight, 
 
 The happy thought of the returning light. 
 
 The sweet, self-willed content, conspired to keep 
 
 Her senses lingering in the feel of sleep ; 
 
 And with a little smile she seemed to say, 
 
 " I know my love is near me, and 'tis day." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 191 
 
 ON POMFRET\S "CHOICE.' 
 
 I HAVE been reading Pomfret's " Choice " this spring, 
 
 A pretty kind of sort of kind of tiling, 
 
 Not much a verse, and poem none at all, 
 
 Yet, as they say, extremely natural. 
 
 And yet I know not. There's a skill in pies, 
 
 In raising crusts as well as galleries ; 
 
 And he's the poet, more or less, who knows 1 
 
 The charm that hallows the least truth from prose, }> 
 
 And dresses it in its mild singing clothes. 
 
 Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers ; 
 
 ]\Iuch humble wealth makes rich this world of ours. 
 
 Nature from some sweet energy throws up 
 
 Alike the pine-mount and the buttercuj). 
 
192 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 And truth she makes so precious, that to paint 
 Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint, 
 And bring him in his turn the crowds that press 
 Round Guido's saints, or Titian's goddesses. 
 
 Our trivial poet hit upon a theme 
 Which all men love, an old, sweet household dream. 
 Such as comes true with some, and might with all, 1 
 Were liberty to build her wisest hall, |> 
 
 Though to the loss of, here and there, a wall : J 
 
 For call the building by some handsome name. 
 College, or square, not parallelogram. 
 And who would scorn to pass consummate hours, 
 Bless'd against care and want, in reverend bowers, 
 With just enough of toil to sweeten ease. 
 And music, ringing through their evening trees ? 
 I own I shouldn't : I could even bear -| 
 
 To some majestic table to repair, }► 
 
 And dine for three-pence on luxurious fare. J 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 19'^ 
 
 A HOUSE AND GROUNDS. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Were this impossible, I know full well 
 What sort of house should grace my garden-bell, — 
 A good, old country lodge, half hid with blooms 
 Of honied green, and quaint with straggling rooms, 
 A few of which, white-bedded and well swept, 
 For friends, whose names endear'd them, should be kept. 
 Of brick I'd have it, far more broad than high, 1 
 
 With green up to the door, and elm trees nigh ; y 
 
 And the warm sun should have it in his eye. J 
 
 The tiptoe traveller, peeping through the boughs 
 O'er my low wall, should bless the pleasant house, 
 o 
 
194 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 And tliat my luck might not seem ill-bestow'd, 
 A bench and spring should greet him on the road. 
 
 My grounds should not be large ; I like to go 
 To Nature for a range, and prospect too, 
 And cannot fancy she'll comprise for me. 
 Even in a park, her all-sufficiency. 
 Besides, my thoughts fly far ; and when at rest. 
 Love, not a watch-tower, but a lulling nest. 
 But all the ground I had should keep a look 
 Of Nature still, have birds'-nests and a brook ; 
 One spot for flowers, the rest all turf and trees ; 
 For I'd not grow my own bad lettuces. 
 I'd build a walk, however, against rain, 
 Long, peradventure, as my whole domain. 
 And so be sure of generous exercise. 
 The youth of age, and med'cine of the wise. 
 And this reminds me, that behind some screen 
 About my grounds, I'd have a bowling-green ; 
 Such as in wits' and merry women's days 
 Suckling preferred before his walk of bays. 
 
A HOUSE AND GROUNDS. 19-5 
 
 You may still see them, dead as haunts of fairies, 
 By the old seats of Killigrews and Careys, 
 AVliere all, alas, is vanished from the ring, 
 Wits and black eyes, the skittles and the king!* 
 
 * Bowls are now thought vulgar : that is to say, a certain num- 
 ber of tine vulgar people agree to call them so. The fashion was 
 once otherwise. Suckling prefers 
 
 A pair of black eyes, or a lucky hit 
 At bowls, above all the trophies of wit. 
 
 Piccadilly, in Clarendon's time, " was a fair house of entertain- 
 ment and gaming, with handsome gravel walks for shade, and where 
 were an upper and a lower bowling-green, whither very many of the 
 nobility and gentry of the best quality resorted, both for exercise and 
 conversation." — Hist, of the Rebellion, vol. ii. It was to the mem- 
 bers of Parliament what the merely indoor club-houses are now, 
 and was a much better place for them to refresh their faculties in. 
 The robust intellects of the Commonwealth grew there, and the airy 
 wits that succeeded them. 
 
 O 2 
 
IQf) MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 A PICTURE OF NAIADS. 
 
 They, towards the amorous noon, when some young 
 
 poet, 
 Strips him to bathe, and yet half thrills to do it, 
 Hovering with his ripe locks, and fair light limbs, 
 And trying with cold foot the banks and brims. 
 Win him into the water with sweet fancies. 
 Till in the girdling stream he pants and dances. 
 There's a whole bevy there, in that recess, 
 Rounding from the main stream : some sleep, some 
 
 dress 
 Each other's locks, some swim about, some sit 
 Parting their own moist hair, or fingering it 
 Lightly to let the curling air go through : 
 Some make them green and lilied coronets new ; 
 And one there from her tender instep shakes 
 
A PICTURE OF NAIADS. 197 
 
 The matted sedge ; a seeond, as she swims, 
 Looks round with pride upon her easy limbs ; 
 A third, just holding by a bough, lets float 
 Her slumberous body like an anchored boat, 
 Looking with level eye at the smooth flakes 
 And the strange crooked quivering which it makes, 
 Seen through the weltering of the watery glass : 
 Others (which make the rest look at them) pass. 
 Nodding and smiling in the middle tide. 
 And luring swans on, which like fondled things 
 Eye poutingly their hands ; yet following, glide 
 With unsuperfluous lift of their proud wings. 
 
198 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 THE DRYADS. 
 
 These are the tawny Dryads, who love nooks 
 
 In the dry depth of oaks ; 
 
 Or feel the air in groves, or pull green dresses 
 
 For their glad heads in rooty wildernesses ; 
 
 Or on the golden turf, o'er the dark lines, ^ 
 
 Which the sun makes when he declines, )■ 
 
 Bend their link'd dances in and out the pines. j 
 
 They tend all forests old, and meeting trees. 
 Wood, copse, or queach, or slippery dell o'erhung 
 With firs, and with their dusty apples strewn ; 
 And let the visiting beams the boughs among, 
 And bless the trunks from clingings of disease 
 And wasted hearts that to the night-wind groan. 
 
THE DRYADS. 199 
 
 They screen tlie cuckoo wlieii lie sinp;s ; and teach 
 
 The mother bhickhird how to lead astray 
 
 The unt'ornied spirit of the foolish boy 
 
 From thick to thick, from hedg'e to hiyery beech, 
 
 When he would steal the huddled nest away 
 
 Of yellow bills, up-gaping for their food, 
 
 And spoil the song of the free solitude. 
 
 And theyi at sound of the brute, insolent horn. 
 
 Hurry the deer out of the dewy morn ; 
 
 And take into their sudden laps with joy 
 
 The startled hare that did but peep abroad ; 
 
 And from the trodden road 
 
 Help the bruised hedgehog. And at rest, they love 
 
 The back-turned pheasant, hanging from the tree 
 
 His sunny drapery ; 
 
 And handy squirrel, nibbling hastily ; 
 
 And fragrant-living bee. 
 
 So happy, tliat he will not move, not he. 
 
 Without a song ; and hidden, amorous dove. 
 
 With his deep breath ; and bird of wakeful glow. 
 
200 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Whose louder song is like the voice of life, 
 
 Triumphant o'er death's image ; but whose deep, 
 
 Low, lovelier note is like a gentle wife, 
 
 A poor, a pensive, yet a happy one, 
 
 Stealing, when day-light's common tasks are done, 
 
 An hour for mother's work ; and singing low, 
 
 While her tired husband and her children sleep.* 
 
 * This passage respecting- the nightingale is not altogether " in 
 keeping, " (to use a painter's phrase), nor, indeed, are some others 
 of this fragment ; but the author retained them partly to introduce 
 the passage itself; and in behalf of the latter he bespeaks the 
 reader's indulgence, for a reason which the sensibility of true taste 
 will allow him ; namely, that the image is a copy from life, and 
 from his mother. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 201 
 
 THE EPHYDRIADS, 
 
 NYxMPHS OF THE FOUNTAINS.— A SKETCH. 
 
 'Tis there the Ephydriads haunt ; — there, where a gap 
 
 Betwixt a heap of tree-tops, hollow and dun, 
 
 Shews where the waters run. 
 
 And whence the fountain's tongue begins to lap. 
 
 There lie they, lulled by little whiffling tones 
 
 Of rills among the stones, 
 
 Or by the rounder murmur, fast and Hush, 
 
 Of the escaping gush, 
 
 That laughs and tumbles, like a conscious thing. 
 
 For joy of all its future travelling. 
 
 The lizard circuits them ; and his grave will 
 
202 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 The frog, with reckoning leap, enjoys apart, 
 
 Till now and then the woodcock frights his heart 
 
 With brushing down to dip his dainty bill. 
 
 Close by, from bank to bank, 
 
 A little bridge there is, a one-railed plank ; 
 
 And all is woody, mossy, and watery. 
 
 Sometimes a poet from that bridge might see 
 
 A Nymph reach downwards, holding by a bough 
 
 With tresses o'er her brow. 
 
 And with her white back stoop 
 
 The pushing stream to scoop 
 
 In a green gourd cup, shining sunnily. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 203 
 
 THE CLOUa 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 As I stood thus, a neiglibouriiig wood of elms 
 Was moved, and stirred and whispered loftily, 
 Much like a pomp of warriors with plumed helms. 
 When some great general whom they long to see 
 Is heard behind them, coming in swift dignity ; 
 And then there fled by me a rush of air 
 That stirred up all the other foliage there. 
 Filling the solitude with panting tongues j 
 At which the pines woke up into their songs, 
 Shaking their choral locks ; and on the place 
 There fell a shade as on an awe-struck face j 
 
204 THE CLOUD. 
 
 And overhead, like a portentous rim 1 
 
 Pulled over the wide world, to make all dim, )- 
 
 A grave gigantic cloud came hugely uplifting him. j 
 
 It passed with it*s slow shadow ; and I saw 
 A\liere it went down beyond me on a plain, 
 Sloping it's dusky ladders of thick rain ; 
 And on the mist it made, and blinding awe. 
 The sun, re-issuing in the opposite sky. 
 Struck the all-coloured arch of his great eye. 
 And the disburthened country laughed again : 
 The leaves were amber ; the sunshine 
 Scored on the ground it's conquering line ; 
 And the quick birds, for scorn of the great cloud, 
 Like children after fear, were merry and loud. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
^07 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 TO THOMAS BARNES, ESQ. 
 
 WRITTEN FROM HAMPSTEAD. 
 
 Dear Barnes, whose native taste, solid and clear. 
 The throng of life has strengthened without harm, 
 You know the rural feeling, and the charm 
 That stillness has for a world-fretted ear : — 
 'Tis now deep whispering all about me here 
 WitJi thousand tiny hushings, like a swarm 
 Of atom bees, or fairies in alarm, 
 Or noise of numerous bliss from distant sphere. 
 
 This charm our evening hours duly restore, — 
 Nought lieard tin-ough all our little, lull'd abode. 
 Save the crisp fire, or leaf of book turn'd o'er. 
 Or watch-dog, or the ring of frosty road. 
 Wants there no other sound then ? — Yes, oiu' more,- 
 The voice of friendly visiting, hnig owed. 
 
208 SONNETS. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. 
 
 Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 
 Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 
 Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon. 
 When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass ; 
 And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 
 With those who think the candles come too soon. 
 Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 
 Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ; 
 
 Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong. 
 
 One to the fields, the other to the hearth. 
 
 Both have your sunshine ; both, though small, are strong 
 
 At your clear hearts ; and both seem giv'n to earth 
 
 To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song — 
 
 In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. 
 
SONNETS. 209 
 
 TO KOSCIUSKO 
 
 WHO NEVER FOUGHT EITHER FOR BONAPARTE OR THE ALLIES. 
 
 'Tis like thy patient valour thus to keep, 
 
 Great Kosciusko, to the rural shade. 
 
 While Freedom's ill-found amulet still is made 
 
 Pretence for old aggression, and a heap 
 
 Of selfish mockeries. There, as in the sweep 
 
 Of stormier fields, thou earnest with thy blade. 
 
 Transformed, not inly altered, to the spade, 
 
 Thy never-yielding right to a calm sleep. 
 
 There came a wanderer, borne from land to land 
 Upon a couch, pale, many-wounded, mild, 
 His brow with patient pain dulcetly sour. 
 Men stoop'd, with awful sweetness, on his hand, 
 And kissed it ; and collected Virtue smiled, 
 To think how sovereign her enduring hour. 
 
210 SONNETS. 
 
 TO STOTHARD. 
 
 Thy fancy lives in a delightful sphere, 
 Stothard, — fit haunt for spirit so benign ; 
 For never since those southern masters fine, 
 In whose blest shapes, unforcd, unfaultering, clear, 
 Manifest truth and sweet-eyed soul appear. 
 Has the true woman's gentle mien divine 
 Looked so, as in those breathing heads of thine, 
 With parted locks, and simple cheek sincere. 
 
 Therefore, against our climate's chilly hold. 
 Thou hast a nest in sunny glades and bowers ; 
 And there, about thee, never growing old. 
 Are these fair things, clear as the lily flowers. 
 Such as great Petrarch loved, — only less cold. 
 More truly virtuous, and of gladdening powers. 
 
SONNETS. '211 
 
 A THOUGHT OF THE NILE. 
 
 It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands, 
 Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream, 
 And times and things, as in that vision, seem 
 Keeping along it their eternal stands, — 
 Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands 
 That roamed through the young earth, the glory 
 
 extreme 
 Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam. 
 The laughing queen that caught the world*s great hands. 
 
 Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong. 
 As of a world left empty of its throng. 
 And the void weighs on us ; and then we wake, 
 And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 
 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take 
 Our own calm journey on for human sake. 
 
212 SONNETS. 
 
 TO , M. D. 
 
 WHO GAVE THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR. 
 
 A LIBERAL taste, and a wise gentleness, 
 Have ever been the true physician's dower, 
 As still is visible in the placid power 
 Of those old Grecian busts ; and helps to bless 
 Cullen's dear memory, with his heart's address. 
 And flowing Garth ; and him in Cowley's bower, 
 Harvey j and Milton's own exotic flower. 
 Young Deodati, plucked from his caress. 
 
 To add to these an ear for the sweet hold 
 
 Of music, and an eye, aye and a hand 
 
 For forms which the smooth Graces tend and follow. 
 
 Shews thee indeed true offspring of the bland 
 
 And vital god, whom she of happy mould, 
 
 The Larissasan beauty, bore Apollo. 
 
ON A LOCK or MILTONS HAIR. li 1 3 
 
 ON A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR. 
 
 It lies before me there, and my own breatli 
 
 Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside 
 
 The living head I stood in lionoured pride, 
 
 Talking of lovely things that conc^uer death. 
 
 Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath 
 
 Ran his fine fingers, when he leant, blank-eyed, 
 
 And saw, in fancy, Adam and his bride 
 
 With their heaped locks, or his own Delpliic wreath 
 
 There seems a love in hair, though it be dead. 
 It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread 
 Of our frail plant, — a blossom from the tree 
 Surviving the proud trunk ; — as though it said 
 Patience and Gentleness is Power. In me 
 Pehold affectionate etcrnitv. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 THE 
 
 INFANT HERCULES AND THE SERPENTS. 
 
 FROM THEOCRITUS. 
 
 Juno, jealous of the child which Jupiter has had by Alcmena, sends two dreadful 
 serpents to devour the boy. The serpents come upon him, while he and his half-brother 
 Iphiclus, the son of Amphitryon, are sleeping together. Iphiclus, the child of the mortal 
 father, is terrified : Hercules, the infant demi-god, seizes and destroys them, as if they 
 were living play-things. His mother consults the prophet Tiresias on the occasion, and is 
 told of her son's future renown. 
 
 Young Hercules had now beheld the light 
 Only ten months, when once upon a night, 
 Alcmena, having washed, and given the breast 
 To both her heavy boys, laid them to rest. 
 
 HpuKXia diKa/xr}vov luvra rrox a Mi^tarif; 
 
 'AAk/u'/ya, Ktii vvktI vtiortpov I</)tk-Af/u, 
 
 ' Afi<l>OTtpovq \i)vauaa ku\ tftTrXi'iaatra yaXuKToc, 
 
218 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Their cradle was a noble shield of brass, 
 Won by her lord from slaughtered Pterelas. 
 Gently she laid them down, and gently laid 
 Her hand on both their heads, and yearned, and said, 
 " Sleep, sleep, my boys, a light and pleasant sleep ; 
 My little souls, my twins, my guard and keep ! 
 Sleep happy, and wake happy ! '* And she kept 
 Rocking the mighty buckler, and they slept. 
 
 At midnight, when the Bear went down, and broad 
 Orion's shoulder lit the starry road, 
 
 Xa\Kiiav KaTe^r]Kiv ett' (t(nrica, rav HTtf}i\uov 
 ' Ajucpirpviov KoXov ottXov aTTEO-ici'Xfucrt mauvTog' 
 ' AiTToiiiiva El yvva k:£<^oX«c uu^Z/aaro ttiuSmv' 
 Ewoet' ifia j5pi(pea yXvKipov kol lyipaif^niv vttvov' 
 EuStr' Ifxa 4'^xa, Sv' aSeX^tw, £ucroa TtKvu' 
 0X/3(0f ivva^ota^i, kiu oA/Stoi aw iKOiG^i-. 
 
 '^£2e <j)apiva Eivam aciKog fxi-ya' tovq S' fXa/3' vttvo^. 
 ^Af.iOQ de. '^piipeTcu p.taovvKTtov Iq dvcriv lipKTog, 
 ilpiiova Kar' avTov, b 8' af.i^aivu fxiyav wfxov, 
 
TIIK INFANT HERCULES AND THE SERPENTS. 219 
 
 Tliere came, careeriiiii; through the opening halls, 
 On livid spires, two dreadful animals — 
 Serpents ; whom Juno, threatening as she drove. 
 Had sent there to devour the boy of Jove. 
 Orbing their l)lood-fed bellies in and out. 
 They towered along ; and as they look'd about. 
 An evil fire out of their eyes came lamping ; 
 A heavy poison dropt about their champing. 
 
 And now they have arrivM, and think to fall 
 To their dread meal, when lo! (for Jove sees all). 
 
 Kvuvtaig (PpiaaovTag viro (nrtif)uiai dfiUKOvrag 
 ^Q,f)aiv im TrXtiTvv ouSoi', lici ra^jua KolXa ^vpawv 
 
 A</Lto/3o/3WC" ifCvXlOV' «Tr' rK/>CnX/(t.)i; Sf KUKOV TTVtt 
 
 'Ep\(>fjiivoir Xa/nrKTKi, j^apvv r' tt,iTrTV()v lov' 
 'A/W oTi S») TratSwi/ \i\iii(vfiivoi tjyv^^iv iiX^uv, 
 Km tot' (if) i^lypovTo (Atoc voiovroc I'liravTa) 
 
220 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The house is lit, as with the morning's break, 
 
 And the dear children of Alcmena wake. 
 
 The younger one, as soon as he beheld 
 
 The evil creatures coming on the shield, 
 
 And saw their loathsome teeth, began to cry 
 
 And shriek, and kick away the clothes, and try 
 
 All his poor little instincts of escape ; 
 
 The other, grappling, seized them by the nape 
 
 Of either poisonous neck, for all their twists. 
 
 And held, like iron, in his little fists. 
 
 Buckled and bound he held them, struggling wild 
 
 And so they wound about the boy, the child, 
 
 'AXKfxr'ivag (f»iXa TiKva' <paog ^' ava oiKOV Irv^^ri. 
 "H rot 07' eif^vg iiixTiv, oTTOjg kukq S'rjjOt' aviyvw 
 KoiXov vTrep auKiog, koL avaidmg eldev oSovrag, 
 'l^tKXtrjc- ovXav St iromv BieXaKTirre -xXaivav, 
 ^ivytfiiv opjaaivMV. o o IvavTiog a^^ero -^^tpalv 
 'lip'aKXir]g' afx^u) Se fiapel ivi^ijaaro decTfiio, 
 Apa^dfxevog (papvyog, to^l (jtapfiuKa Xvypa TiTVKTcu 
 OvXofiivoig o^iiaai, tu koi ^ioi i^^aipovTi. 
 Tw S' avre airtipi^criv kXiaaia^ifiv iripX iratBa 
 
THE INFANT HERCULES AND THE SERPENTS. 2^1 
 
 The long-begetting boy, the suckling dear, 
 That never teazed his nurses with a tear. 
 
 Tired out at length, they trail their spires and gasp, 
 Locked in that young indissoluble grasp. 
 
 Alcmena heard the noise, and " Wake," she cried, 
 *' Amphitryon, wake ; for terror holds me tied ! 
 Up ; stay not for the sandals : hark ! the child. 
 The youngest — how he shrieks ! The babe is wild : 
 And see, the walls and windows ! 'Tis as light 
 As if 'twere day, and yet 'tis surely night. 
 
 'Oxpiyovov, yaXa^rivov, virb Tpo(^i[i aWv aSaKpvv. 
 ^A\p St iraXiv ciiXvov, liru fioyioitv aKav^ac;, 
 Aea/xov avajKaiov Treipu>n£voi fKXvaiv Evptlv. 
 'AXK/ij)va ^' lauKOvae /3oac, koX tiriypeTO irpu-a. 
 
 AvcaS^' AfKpiTpvuiv' ifxe "/«? oiog ttr^ci oKvr^pov' 
 "Av^a, firi^l irodeaai teoTc ^tto cravBaXa ^tirtg. 
 Oi/K aUig iraidojv 6 vewrcpoc oacrov avrel ; 
 Oil voieig art vvKTog atopi ttov otSf re toi\oi 
 
 Havng api<f>padieg, KU^apac anp i)piytvtiag ; 
 
222 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 There's something dreadful in the house ; there is 
 Indeed, dear husband ! " He arose at this ; 
 And seized his noble sword, which overhead 
 Was always hanging at the cedar-bed : 
 The hilt he grasped in one hand, and the sheath 
 In t'other ; and drew forth the blade of death. 
 
 All in an instant, like a stroke of doom. 
 Returning midnight smote upon the room. 
 
 Amphitryon called ; and woke from heavy sleep 
 His household, who lay breathing hard and deep ; 
 
 "Es't Ti fxoi Kara Swjua veionpov, t'^i, (piX" avcpijjv. 
 Q,g ^aS"'. 6 ^' i^ evvag aXo^uj Karipaivs Tri^yaag' 
 Acu^uXeov 8' Mpfxr\ai. fjiera %i(j)og, opp oi vir^p^t 
 K\ivT7]pog Kedpivo) irepi iraaaaXio alhv aiopro. 
 "Htoi oy' lopiyvuTO veokAw^w TeXafXiovog, 
 Kov^i^wv trepn koXeov, fiija Xwtivov tpyov. 
 'A/u^tXa^j)c S' apa TTw^tig IveirXyi^n waXiv opc^tv^g. 
 ApCjag ^i) tot' aiiatv lyTn^oi' (Saphv iK(l)V(TU)VTag' 
 
THE INFANT HERCULES AND THE SERPENTS. ^'23 
 
 ** Bring liglits here from the hearth! lights, lights; 
 
 ami guard 
 The doorways ; rise, ye ready labourers hard ! " 
 
 He said ; and lights came pouring in, and all 
 The busy house was up, in bower and hall ; 
 But when they saw the little suckler, how 
 He grasped the monsters, and with earnest brow 
 Kept beating them together, plaything-wise, 
 They shrieked aloud ; but he, with laughing eyes. 
 
 0'((T£r£ TTVp OTL ^(l(T(TOV OTt' i(T\ap£U)VOQ iXoVTECJ, 
 
 A/iKoeQ f/uoi, '^ipapd)^ ci ^vpav uvaKutpar' o^j^f/a^' 
 
 "Av^are dfiweg raXamippoveg. uvTog avrei. 
 
 01 8' aixpa irpoyivovTO \v)(yoig ufxa ZcuopivoiaL 
 
 Ajjiioeg' IvtTrAiifT^}] cl oo^oc (nriv^ovTog Iku'^ov. 
 
 "Hrot lip 6>g iicovT kTriTiT^ioif 'llpaK\i}a 
 
 QripE cvh) yji'iptGaiv (nrp}^ (nruXatrnv t\^ovT(i, 
 
 '^vpTrX{iybi]V ia\i}(Tav' o o' tr irartp ' A/KJiiTpviovu 
 
224 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Soon as he saw Amphitryon, leaped and sprung 
 Childlike, and at his feet the dead disturbers flung. 
 
 Then did Alcmena to her bosom take 
 Her feebler boy, who could not cease to shake. 
 The other son Amphitryon took and laid 
 Beneath a fleece ; and so returned to bed. 
 
 Soon as the cock, with his thrice-echoing cheer. 
 Told that the gladness of the day was near, 
 
 'EjOTTETa CHKavaecFKev' eiraXXiTO S' vipo^i ^aipwv 
 Kwpoavva' yeXaaag Se, irapog KarcS^jjKE ttoSouv 
 Tlarpog tov ^avaT(jf} ictKopw/xeva deiva iriXwpa. 
 'AXkjutjvo fjilv tTreira ttotX a(l»iT£pov (daXs koXttov 
 ISrjpov viral odovg aKpa\oXov 'I^tKAija* 
 'AfKpirpvwv St TOV aiWov vir afiveiav S'lro \\aivav 
 HaXda' iraXiv h^ Ig XeKxpov Iwv efivacraTO koitov. 
 
 "Opvi^^g Tp'iTOv (ipri tov i<T\aTOv op^pov uu^ov. 
 
TIIK IXFAiVT HEru:ULKS AND THE SKllPENTS. '22.5 
 
 Alcmoiia sent for old, triitli-uttcring 
 
 Tiresias ; and she told him all this thin<»;, 
 
 And bade him say what she might think and do ; 
 
 '• Nor do thou fear,'' said she, " to let me know, 
 
 Although the mighty gods should meditate 
 
 Aught ill ; for man can never fly from Fate. 
 
 And thus thou seest " (and here her smiling eyes 
 
 Looked through a blush) ''how well I teach the wise/' 
 
 So spoke the queen. Then he, with glad old tone ; 
 " Be of good heart, thou blessed bearing one, 
 
 Teipeaiav roica fxdvTiv, aXa^ia iravTa Xtyovra, 
 'AXic/x/yra KoXtfracra, \pioQ KartXe^s veo\iiibv, 
 Kdi inv vTTOKpivBcT^at, ottwc rtXftaS'at tjiieWtv, 
 'llvioyei' MrjS', ii ti c^foi voiovri TToinipov, 
 
 At8o/i8VOC ^jUf KpVTTTi. KOI (OQ Ol»IC tVtr CtXv^Ul 
 
 ' Av^ptJTToig o, Ti poipa kutu kAws-^/ooc iTrdyei, 
 MdvTi EwjjpttSa, puXa at <l>poviovTa diSdaKui. 
 
 Tw(j iXiyiv ftaeriXiin' o S' uvTafuifttTO rnitor' 
 OapfTii upiTOTUKtia ytivai, llipnt'iioi' u'tpu. 
 
226 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 True blood of Perseus ; for by my sweet sight, 
 Which once divided these poor lids with light, 
 Many Greek women, as they sit and weave 
 The gentle thread across their knees at eve, 
 Shall sing of thee and thy beloved name ; 
 Thou shalt be blest by every Argive dame : 
 For unto this thy son it shall be given, 
 With his broad heart to win his way to heaven ; 
 Twelve labours shall he work ; and all accurst 
 And brutal things o'erthrow, brute men the worst 
 
 Nfu ■yop tfiov yAuKrw (j)iyyoQ (nTOi\6fiivov irakai oacriov, 
 TloWaV A\^aiiac<ov fiaXoKov irepi yovvari vafia 
 Xtipl KaraTpixpovTi, a.Kpi(nrepov cmSoKraL 
 'AXKju/jvav ovofxa'^i' ai^aq 8' tm^ 'Apjdaim. 
 ToToc avi7jO ode fxiXXei eg ovpavov a-^pa (jtipovra 
 'Appaiveiv, reog viog, cltto '^ipvwv TrXarvg rjpiog' 
 Ov Kcd 3'rjpta irdvTa Km avipeg i](7(TOV£g (iXXoi. 
 AwofKct ot TiXeaavTi Tmrpiopkvov Iv Aibg oIk^v 
 M6\^ovg' ^vr}Ta ol wavTa Trvpa Tpa\iviog t^el. 
 
THE INFANT HERCULEvS AM) THE SEUPENTS. ^27 
 
 And in Tracliinia sliall tlic funeral pyre 
 
 Pur<Tje his mortalities away with fire ; 
 
 And he shall mount amid the stars, and be i 
 
 Acknowledged kin to those who envied thee, }> 
 
 And sent these den-born shapes to crush his destiny." J 
 
 
228 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 CATULLUS 'S RETURN HOME 
 
 TO THE PENINSULA OF SIRMIO. 
 
 O BEST of all the scatter'd spots that lie 
 
 Li sea or lake,— apple of landscape's eye, — 
 
 How gladly do I drop within thy nest. 
 
 With what a sight of full, contented rest, 
 
 Scarce able to believe my journey o'er. 
 
 And that these eyes behold thee safe once more ! 
 
 Peninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque 
 Ocelle, quascunque in liquentibus stagnis 
 Marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus, 
 Quam te libenter, quamque laetus inviso, 
 Vix mi ipse credens Thyniam atque Bithynos 
 Liquisse campos, et videre te in tuto ! 
 
CATULLUS'S HETUKN HOME. 229 
 
 Oil wnere's the luxury like the smile at heart, 
 When the mind, breathing, lays its load apart,— 
 When we come home again, tir'd out, and spread 
 The loosen'd limbs o'er all the wish'd-for bed ! 
 This, this alone is worth an age of toil. 
 Hail, lovely Sirmio ! Hail, paternal soil ! 
 Joy, my bright waters, joy ; your master's come ■ 
 Laugh, every dimple on the cheek of home ! 
 
 O quid solutis est beatius curis, 
 Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino 
 Lahore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum, 
 Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto ! 
 Hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis. 
 Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque hero gaude ! 
 Gaudete, vosque Lydiae lacus undai ! 
 Ilidete, quidquid est domi cachinnorum ! 
 
530 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 THE 
 
 STORY OF CYLLARUS AND HYLONOME. 
 
 AN EPISODE FROM OVID'S BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS AND LAPlTHiE. 
 
 " PiRiTHOus having invited " the half-horsie people" to liis wedding-feast, when he mar- 
 ried Hippodamia, one of them was so inflamed with the beauty of the bride, that he started 
 up in the midst of the drinking and carousing, and attempted to carry her off. Theseus, 
 the friend of Pirithous, seized a great antique goblet, craggy with sculpture, and dashed liis 
 face to shatters with. it, so that he died. The other Centaurs, seeing their brother killed, 
 grew frantic for revenge, and a tremendous battle ensued. The whole account fills the 
 ear and the imagination, like an enormous uproar. It is a gigantic hubbub, full of huge 
 fists, hoofs, weapons, and fl)-ing furniture, chandeliers torn down, and tables snatched up, 
 shrieks of females, and roarings and tramplings of men and half men. One of the Lapithae 
 makes nothing of rending away a door post that would load a waggon ; and a Centaur tears 
 up an altar mth fire upon it, and sends it blazing among the enemy. The different modes 
 in which the deaths are inflicted are as various as any in Homer ; and the poet, with admir- 
 able propriety, has given his battle all the additional interest, which the novelty of the figures 
 engaged in it could suggest. 
 
 " The episode of the two lovers comes out of all this turbulence, like the dropping of 
 rain from the eaves after a thunder-storm. The measure in which the version is written, 
 has been chosen as the most capable of expressing the alternate laxity and compression for 
 which Grid's srjle is remarkable. The translator found the heroic couplet hamper him, 
 tending either to too great length or the reverse. With the old ballad measure before 
 US, one may do as one pleases : and there is something in it that suits the^simplicity of the 
 affections." — Indicator, No. 26. 
 
 Nor could thy beauty, Cyllarus, 
 
 Protect thee in the fray ; 
 If we may speak of shapes like thine 
 
 After a human way. 
 
 Nec te pugnantem tua, Cyllare, forma redemit. 
 Si modo nature formam concedimus illi. 
 
CYLLAKUS AND HYLONOMP:. 231 
 
 His beard was in the Hovvery bud, 
 Touched, like his hair, with gold ; 
 
 And down beneatli his shoulder-blades 
 His tresses ran, and rolled. 
 
 An earnest cheer was in his look ; 
 
 And every human part, 
 His neck, his shoulders, hands, and breast, 
 
 Matched with the proudest art. 
 
 Such was his look and shape, to where 
 
 The nether form began ; 
 Nor where he put the courser on. 
 
 Dishonoured he the man. 
 
 Barba erat incipiens ; barbae color aureus ; aurea 
 Ex humeris medios coma dependebat in armos : 
 Gratus in ore vigor ; cervix, humerique, manusque, 
 Pectoraque artificum laudatis proxima signis, 
 Et qua parte vir est ; nee equi mendosa sub illo 
 Deteriorque viro facies : da colla, caput(|ue, — 
 
232 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 E'en Castor might have ridden him. 
 
 But for his double make ; 
 So built with muscle was his chest. 
 
 So rideable his back. 
 
 And blacker was his noble hue 
 
 Than is the pitchy night ; 
 Only a snowy tail and feet 
 
 Finished his look with light. 
 
 Many fair creatures of his kind 
 
 Besought his love ; but he 
 Was borne away by only one, 
 
 The sole Hylon(mie. 
 
 Castore dignus erit : sic tergum sessile, sic sunt 
 Pectora celsa toris. Totus pice nigrior atra, 
 Candida cauda tamen ; color est quoque cruribus albus. 
 Multae ilium petiere sua de gente : sed una 
 Abstulit Hylonome : qua nulla decentior inter 
 
CYLLARUS AND IIYLONOME. 233 
 
 No gentle woman-hearted tiling 
 
 Of all the half-human race, 
 Carried about the shady woods 
 
 A more becoming grace. 
 
 With pretty natural blandishments, 
 
 And loving, and at last 
 Owning her love with rosy talk, 
 
 She bound the conqueror fast. 
 
 Her limbs, as much as in her lay, 
 
 She kept adorned with care, 
 And took especial pride to sleek 
 
 Her lightsome locks of hair. 
 
 Semiferas altis habitavit foemina sylvis. 
 Ha?c et blanditiis, et amando, et amore fatendo, 
 Cyllaron una tenet : cultus quoque quantus in illis 
 Esse potest membris ; ut sit coma pcctine lacvis : 
 
234 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 With rosemary she wreathed them now 
 With violets and the rose ; 
 
 And now betwixt their glossy black, 
 Sparkled the lily snows. 
 
 No vest, but of the choicest skin. 
 And suiting her, she wore 
 
 About her shoulder, or would cross 
 Beside her and before. 
 
 And twice a day, in lapsing wells 
 That from the woods came down, 
 
 She bathed her face ; and twice a day. 
 She bathed from sole to crown. 
 
 Ut modo rore maris, modo se violave, rosave 
 Implicet : interdum candentia lilia gestet : 
 Bisque die lapsis Pagasaeae vertice sylv£e 
 Fontibus ora lavet : bis flumine corpora tingat : 
 Nee nisi qua? deceant electarumque ferarum 
 Aut humero, aiit lateri pra^tendat vellera la;vo. 
 
CYLL Alius AND HYLONOMK. Q35 
 
 Equal alike the beauty was, 
 
 Equal the love in either ; 
 They roamed the mountains hand-in-hand, 
 
 And sheltered close together. 
 
 And thus did they attend that day 
 
 The Lapithean bride ; 
 Thus came together, and thus fought. 
 
 Together, side by side. 
 
 A javelin, from an unknown hand. 
 
 Came with too sure a dart. 
 And pierced in thee, poor Cyllarus, 
 
 Right to the very heart. 
 
 l^ir amor est illis ; errant in montibus una ; 
 Antra simul subeunt ; et tum Lapitheia tecta 
 Intrarant pariter ; paritcr fera bella gerebant. 
 Autor in incerto : jaculum de parte sinistra 
 Venit, et inferius, quam collo pectora subsunt, 
 Cyllare, te fixit : parvo cor vulnere husum 
 
236 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 He drew the bitter weapon out, 
 
 And shuddering all over, 
 "Fell against pale Hylonome, 
 
 Whose arms received her lover. 
 
 And with her hand she nurs'd the wound, 
 Of which he fast was dying. 
 
 And hurried mouth to mouth, and tried 
 To stop his soul from flying. 
 
 But when she found it all in vain. 
 And that her lord was dead. 
 
 She uttered something, which the noise 
 Deafened about her head ; 
 
 Corpore cum toto post tela educta refrixit. 
 Protinus Hylonome morientes suscipit artus ; 
 Impositaque manu vulnus fovet ; oraque ad ora 
 Admovet ; atque animae fugienti obsistere tentat. 
 Ut videt exstiuctum, dictis, qua3 clamor ad aures 
 
CYLLAKUS AND HYLONOME. 237 
 
 And f'allin<i: witli lier wedded lie;irt 
 
 On wliat had nmidered his, 
 (fathered him blindly in her arms, 
 
 And smiled a dying kiss. 
 
 Arciiit ire meas, telo quod inha?serat illi 
 
 Incubuit ; moriensque suiim complexa maritum est. 
 
238 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 EPITAPH ON EROTION. 
 
 FROM MARTIAL. 
 
 Underneath this greedy stone 
 Lies little sweet Erotion ; 
 Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold, 
 Nipp'd away at six years old. 
 Thou, whoever thou may'st be, 
 That hast this small field after me, 
 Let the yearly rites be paid 
 To her little slender shade; 
 
 Hie festinata requiescit Erotion umbra, 
 Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems. 
 
 Quisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli, 
 Manibus exiguis annua justa dato. 
 
KPITAPII ON EliOTION. 239 
 
 So sliall no disease or jar 
 Hurt thy house, or chill thy Lar ; 
 But this tomb here be alone, 
 The only melancholy stone. 
 
 Sic Lare perpetuo, sic turba sospite, solus 
 Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua. 
 
«240 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 JOVIAL PRIEST'S CONFESSION. 
 
 There is already an imitation by Mr. Huddesford of the foUow-ing reverend piece of wit ; 
 and one of the passages in it beats any thing in the present version. It is the beginning of 
 the last stanza,— 
 
 Mysterious and prophetic truths 
 
 I never could unfold 'em. 
 Without a flagon of good wine, 
 
 And a slice of cold ham. 
 
 The translation here offered to the reader is intended to be a more literal picture of the 
 original, and to retain more of its intemiLxture of a grave and churchman-like style. The 
 original itself is subjoined, as a thing too good not to be repeated, and not common enough 
 to be easily found. It is preserved in the Remains of the learned Camden, who says, in his 
 pleasant way, that " Walter de Mapes, Archdeacon of Oxford, who, in the time of King 
 Henry the Second, filled England with his] merriments, confessed his love to good liquor 
 in this manner ;" — 
 
 I DEVISE to end my days — in a tavern drinking, 
 May some Christian hold for me — the glass when I 
 am shrinking ; 
 
 Mihi est propositum in taberna mori, 
 Vinum sit appositum morientis ori : 
 
THE JOVIAL PKIKST's CONFESSION. 'Mi 
 
 Tlicat the Cherubim may cry — when they see me sinkiii<^, 
 God be merciful to a soul — of this gentleman's way of 
 thinking. 
 
 A glass of wine amazingly — enlighteneth one's inter- 
 nals ; 
 
 'Tis wings bedewed with nectar— that Hy up to su- 
 pernals ; 
 
 Bottles cracked in taverns — have much the sweeter 
 kernels, 
 
 Than the sups allowed to us — in the college journals. 
 
 Ut dicant, cum venerint, Angelorum chori, 
 Deus sit propitius huic potatori. 
 
 Poculis accenditur animi lucerna ; 
 
 Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna ; 
 Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, 
 Quam quod aqua miscuit prajsulis pincerna. 
 
242 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Every one by nature hath — a mould which he was cast in ; 
 I happen to be one of those — who never could write 
 
 fasting ; 
 By a single little boy — I should be surpass'd in 
 Writing so : Id just as lief — be buried, tomb'd and 
 
 grass'd in. 
 
 Every one by nature hath — a gift too, a dotation : 
 I, when I make verses, — do get the inspiration 
 Of the very best of wine — that comes into the nation : 
 It maketh sermons to abound — for edification. 
 
 Suum cuique proprium dat natura munus. 
 Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus : 
 Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus : 
 Sitim et jejunium odi tanquam funus. 
 
 Uni cuique proprium dat natura donum, 
 Ego versus faciens, vinum bibo bonum, 
 Et quod habent melius dolia cauponum ; 
 Tale vinum generat copiam sermonum. 
 
THE JOVIAL rUIESX's CONFESSION. '213 
 
 Just as liquor floweth good — flowetli fortli my lay so ; 
 But I must moreover eat — or I could not say so ; 
 Nought it availeth inwardly — should I write all day so ; 
 But with God's grace after meat — I beat Ovidius Naso. 
 
 Neither is there given to me — prophetic animation, 
 Unless when I have eat and drank — yea, ev'n to satu- 
 ration ; 
 Then in my upper story — hath Bacchus domination. 
 And Pha3bus rusheth into me, and beggareth all 
 relation. 
 
 Tales versus facio, quale vinum bibo ; 
 Nihil possum scribere, nisi sumpto cibo ; 
 Nihil valet penitus, quod jejunus scribo ; 
 Nasonem post calices carmine praeibo. 
 
 Mihi nunquam spiritus prophetia? datur. 
 
 Nisi tunc cum fucrit venter bene satur ; 
 
 Cum in arce cerebri l^acchus dominatur. 
 
 In me Phoebus irruit, ac mirnn(hi fatur. 
 R 2 
 
244 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 SONG OF FAIRIES ROBBING AN ORCHARD. 
 
 FROM SOME LATIN VERSES IN THE OLD ENGLISH DRAMA OF " AMYNTAS, 
 OR THE IMPOSSIBLE DOWRY." 
 
 We the Fairies, blithe and antic, 
 Of dimensions not gigantic, 
 Though the moonshine mostly keep us. 
 Oft in orchards frisk and peep us. 
 
 Nos beata Fauni proles, 
 Quibus non est magna moles, 
 Quamvis Lunam incolamus, 
 Hortos saepe frequentamus. 
 
SONG OF FAIRIES ROBBING AN ORCHARD. Q4>5 
 
 Stolen sweets are always sweeter, 
 Stolen kisses much completer, 
 Stolen looks are nice in chapels, 
 Stolen, stolen be your apples. 
 
 When to bed the world are bobbin*^, 
 Then's the time for orchard robbing- ; 
 Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling, 
 Were it not for stealing, stealing. 
 
 Furto cuncta magis bella, 
 Furto dulcior puella, 
 Furto omnia decora, 
 Furto poma dulciora. 
 
 Cum mortales lecto jacent, 
 Nobis poma noctu placent ; 
 Ilia tamen sunt ingrata, 
 Nisi furto sint parata. 
 
246 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 PLATO'S ARCHETYPAL MAN. 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE IDEA OF IT ENTERTAINED BY ARISTOTLE. 
 
 FROM THE LATIN OF MILTON. 
 
 Say, guardian goddesses of woods, 
 Aspects, felt in solitudes ; 
 And Memory, at whose blessed knee 
 The Nine, which thy dear daughters be. 
 Learnt of the majestic past ; 
 And thou, that in some autre vast 
 Leaning afar off dost lie. 
 Otiose Eternity, 
 
 DiciTE, sacrorum praesides nemorum deve ; 
 Tuque, O noveni perbeata numinis 
 Memoria mater, quseque in immense procul 
 Antro recumbis, otiosa iEternitas,* 
 
 * *' This," says Warton, " is a sublime personification of Eternity, 
 
Plato's aiu-iii:typal man. 247 
 
 Keepiiio' the tablets and decrees 
 Of Jove, and the ephemerides 
 Of the gods, and calendars, 
 Of the ever festal stars ; 
 Say, who was he, the sunless shade, 
 After whose pattern man was made; 
 He first, the full of ages, born 
 With the old pale polar morn. 
 
 Monumenta servans, et ratas leges Jovis, 
 Coelique fastos, atque ephemeridas Deum ! 
 Quis ille primus, cujus ex imagine 
 Natura solers finxit humanum genus, 
 .^ternus, incorruptus, aequaevus polo, 
 
 and there is a great reach of imagination in one of the conceptions 
 which follows, that the original archetype of man may be a huge 
 giant, stalking in some remote, unknown region of the earth, and 
 lifting his head so high as to be dreaded by the gods, &c." — Pray let 
 the learned reader also admire the line beginning " Tamen seorsus " 
 — the word "stringitur" — the passage about sitting among the 
 unborn souls I)y the river Lethe — the " alto sinu " and " pr.nepes " — 
 and indeed the whole, from beginning to end. 
 
248 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Sole, yet all ; first visible thought. 
 After which the Deity wrought ? 
 Twin-birth with Pallas, not remain 
 Doth he in Jove's o'ershadow'd brain ; 
 But though of wide communion. 
 Dwells apart, like one alone ; 
 And fills the wondering embrace, 
 (Doubt it not) of size and place. 
 Whether, companion of the stars, 
 With their ten-fold round he errs : 
 
 Unusque et universus, exemplar Dei ? 
 Haud ille Palladis gemellus innubag 
 Interna proles insidet menti Jovis ; 
 Sed quamlibet natura sit communior, 
 Tamen seorsiis extat ad morem unius, 
 Et, mira, certo stringitur spatio loci : 
 Sen sempiternus ille siderinn comes 
 Coeli pererrat ordines deceniplicis ; 
 
ei-o 
 
 Or inhabits with his lone 
 
 Nature in the neighbouring moon ; 
 
 Or sits with body-waiting souls, 
 
 Dozing by the Letha^an pools : — 
 
 Or whether, haply, placed afar 
 
 In some blank region of our star. 
 
 He stalks, an unsubstantial heap. 
 
 Humanity's giant archetype ; 
 
 Where a loftier bulk he rears 
 
 Than Atlas, grappler of the stars. 
 
 And through their shadow-touched abodes 
 
 Brings a terror to the gods. 
 
 Citimumve terris incolit lunag globum ; 
 Sive, inter animas corpus adituras sedens, 
 Obliviosas torpet ad Lethes aquas : 
 Sive in remota forte terrarum plaga 
 Incedit ingens hominis archetypus gigas, 
 Et diis tremendus erigit celsum caput, 
 Atlante major portitorc siderum. 
 
250 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Not the seer of him had sight, 
 
 Who found in darkness depths of light;* 
 
 His travelled eyeballs saw him not 
 
 In all his mighty gulphs of thought : — 
 
 Him the farthest-footed god, 
 
 Pleiad Mercury, never shewed 
 
 To any poet's wisest sight 
 
 In the silence of the night : — 
 
 News of him the Assyrian priest t 
 
 Found not in his sacred list, 
 
 Non, cui profundum caecitas lumen dedit, 
 Dircaeus augur vidit hunc alto sinu ; 
 Non hunc silente nocte Pleiones nepos 
 Vatum sagaci praepes ostendit choro ; 
 Non hunc sacerdos novit Assyrius, licet 
 
 * Tiresias, who was blind. f Sanchoniathon. 
 
Plato's akchetypal man. 251 
 
 Thougli he traced back old king Nine, 
 And Belus, elder name divine. 
 And Osiris, endless famed. 
 Not the glory, triple-named. 
 Thrice great Hermes, though his eyes 
 Read the shapes of all the skies, 
 Left him in his sacred verse 
 Revealed to Nature's worshippers. 
 
 O Plato ! and was this a dream 
 Of thine in bowery Academe "^ 
 
 Longos vetusti commeinoret atavos Nini, 
 Priscumque Belon, inclytumque Osiridem ; 
 Non ille, trino gloriosus nomine, 
 Ter magnus Hermes, ut sit arcani sciens, 
 Talem reliquit Isidis cultoribus. 
 
 At tu, perenne ruris Acadcmi decus. 
 
252 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Wert thou the golden tongue to tell 
 First of this high miracle, 
 And charm him to thy schools below? 
 O call thy poets back, if so :* 
 Back to the state thine exiles call. 
 Thou greatest fabler of them all ; 
 Or follow through the self-same gate. 
 Thou, the founder of the state. 
 
 (Haec monstra si tu primus induxti scholis,) 
 Jam jam poetas, urbis exules tuae, 
 Revocabis, ipse fabulator maximus ; 
 Aut institutor ipse migrabis foras. 
 
 * Whom Plato banished from his imaginary repubhc. 
 
TKANSLATIONS. 253 
 
 PETRARCH'S CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH 
 
 IN THE BOWER OF LAURA. 
 
 Clear, fresh, and dulcet streams, 
 
 Which the fair shape, who seems 
 
 To me sole woman, haunted at noon-tide ; 
 
 Fair bough, so gently fit, 
 
 (I sigh to think of it) 
 
 Which lent a pillar to her lovely side ; 
 
 And turf, and flowers bright-eyed, 
 
 Chiare, fresche, e dolce acque, 
 
 Ove le belle membra 
 
 Pose colei, che sola a me par donna ; 
 
 Gentil ramo, ove piacque 
 
 (Con sospir mi rimembra) 
 
 A lei di fare al bel fianco colonna ; 
 
 Erba e fior, che la jxoiuia 
 
254 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 O'er which her folded gown 
 
 Flowed like an angePs down ; 
 
 And you, O holy air and hush'd, 
 
 Where first my heart at her sweet glances gush'd ; 
 
 Give ear, give ear, with one consenting, 
 
 To my last words, my last and my lamenting. 
 
 If His my fate below. 
 And heaven will have it so. 
 
 Leggiadra ricoverse 
 
 Con Tangelico seno ; 
 
 Aer sacro sereno, 
 
 Ove amor co' begli occhi il cor m'aperse ; 
 
 Date udienza insieme 
 
 A le dolenti mie parole estreme. 
 
 S*egli e pur mio destino, 
 E'l cielo in cid s*adopra, 
 
pethakch's contemplations of death. 255 
 
 That love must close these dying eyes in tears, 
 
 May my poor dust be laid 
 
 In middle of your shade, 
 
 AMiile my soul, naked, mounts to it's own spheres. 
 
 The thought would calm my fears, 
 
 When taking, out of breath. 
 
 The doubtful step of death ; 
 
 For never could my spirit find 
 
 A stiller port after the stormy wind ; 
 
 Ch' amor quest' occhi lagrimando chiuda 
 
 Qualche grazia il meschino 
 
 Corpo fra voi ricopra ; 
 
 E torni I'alma al proprio albergo ignuda. 
 
 La morte fia men cruda, 
 
 Se questa speme porto 
 
 A quel dubbioso passo : 
 
 Che lo spirit© lasso 
 
 Non poria mai "n piu riposato porto. 
 
^56 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Nor in more calm, abstracted bourne, 
 Slip from my travailled flesh, and from my bones 
 outworn. 
 
 Perhaps, some future hour, 
 
 To her accustomed bower 
 
 Might come the untamed, and yet the gentle she ; 
 
 And where she saw me first, 
 
 Might turn with eyes athirst 
 
 Ne 'n piu tranquilla fossa 
 
 Fuggir la carne travagliata e 1' ossa. 
 
 Tempo verra ancor forse, 
 Ch* a 1' usato soo:o;iorno 
 Torni la fera bella e mansueta ; 
 E la Vella mi scorse 
 Nel benedetto giorno 
 
Petrarch's coNXEiMPLATiONs of death. 257 
 
 And kinder joy to look again for me ; 
 
 Then, Oli the charity ! 
 
 Seeing amidst tlie stones 
 
 The earth tliat held my bones, 
 
 A sigh for very love at last 
 
 Might ask of heaven to pardon me the past : 
 
 And heaven itself could not say nay, 
 
 As with her gentle veil she wiped the tears away. 
 
 Volga la vista desiosa e lieta 
 
 Cercandomi : ed, oh pieta ! 
 
 Gia terra infra le pietre 
 
 Vedendo, amor I'inspiri 
 
 In giiisa che sospiri 
 
 Si dolcemente, che merce m' impetre, 
 
 E faccia forza al cielo, 
 
 Asciugandosi gli occhi col bel velo. 
 
258 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 How well I call to mind, 
 
 When from those boughs the wind 
 
 Shook down upon her bosom flower on flower ; 
 
 And there she sat, meek-eyed. 
 
 In midst of all that pride, 
 
 Sprinkled and blushing through an amorous shower. 
 
 Some to her hair paid dower, 
 
 And seemed to dress the curls, 
 
 Queenlike, with gold and pearls ; 
 
 Da be' rami scendea, 
 
 Dolce ne la memoria, 
 
 Una pioggia di fior sovra '1 suo grembo ; 
 
 Ed ella si sedea 
 
 Umile in tanta gloria, 
 
 Coverta gia de 1' amoroso nembo. 
 
 Qual fior cedea sul lembo, 
 
 Qual su le trecce bionde ; 
 
 Ch' oro fortito e perle 
 
Petrarch's contemplations of death. '259 
 
 Some, snowing, on her drapery stopp*d. 
 Some on the earth, some on the water dropp'd ; 
 While others, fluttering from above, 
 Seemed wheeling round in pomp, and saying " Here 
 reigns Love." 
 
 How often then I said, 
 
 Inward, and fill'd with dread, 
 
 " Doubtless this creature came from Paradise !" 
 
 Eran quel di a vederle : 
 
 Qual si posava in terra, e qual su Tonde 
 
 Qual con un vago errore 
 
 Girando parea dir, — Qui regna amore. 
 
 Quante volte diss' io. 
 
 All or pien di spavento, 
 
 Costei per fermo nac(|uc in paradiso 
 
 s 2 
 
^6() TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 For at her look the while, 
 
 Her voice, and her sweet smile. 
 
 And heavenly air, truth parted from mine eyes ; 
 
 So that, with long-drawn sighs, 
 
 I said, as far from men, 
 
 "How came I here, and when!'' 
 
 I had forgotten ; and alas. 
 
 Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was ; 
 
 And from that time till this, I bear 
 
 Such love for the green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere. 
 
 Cosi carco d'obblio 
 
 II divin portamento, 
 
 E*l volto, e le parole, e '1 dolce viso, 
 
 M' aveano, e si diviso 
 
 Da 1' imagine vera ; 
 
 Ch' i' dicea sospirando. 
 
 Qui come venn' io, o quando ? 
 
 Credendo esser in ciel, non la dov' era. 
 
 Da indi in qua mi place 
 
 Quest' erba si, ch' altrove non ho pace. 
 
TUANSLATIONS. 
 
 ANDRKA 1)K BASSOS 
 
 ODE TO A DEAD BODY. 
 
 FROM THE ITALIAN. 
 
 AxKRKA UK Basso was a churchmau of Ferrara, who lived in the fifteenth century. 
 The translator need not disclaim aU participation with the bigotry of his fine poem. A finer 
 rebuke might be given it, by supposing the soul of the deceased to animate her body for the 
 occasion, and to return his "railing accusation" in a spirit of gentle and final knowledge. 
 It must be owned, however, that his ferocity is of a very grand and appalling description. 
 The seeming coarseness of one or two passages (besides being reducible to nothing in the 
 eyes of a philosophy more genial, and more discerning between life and death,) is borne 
 away in the tempest of the speaker's enthusiasm, and in the sense of the great interests 
 which he thought he was advocating. 
 
 Rise from the loathsome and devouring tomb, 
 Give up thy body, woman without heart, 
 Now that its worldly part 
 Is over; and deaf, blind, and dumb, 
 
 Risorga da la tomba avara e lorda 
 La putrida tua salma, O donna cruda. 
 Or che di spirto nuda, 
 E cieca, e muta, e sorda. 
 
262 
 
 TRANSLATIONS, 
 
 Thou servest worms for food, 
 
 And from thine altitude 
 
 Fierce death has shaken thee down, and thou dost fit 
 
 Thy bed within a pit. 
 
 Night, endless night, hath got thee 
 
 To clutch, and to englut thee ; 
 
 And rottenness confounds 
 
 Thy limbs and their sleek rounds ; 
 
 And thou art stuck there, stuck there, in despite. 
 
 Like a foul animal in a trap at night. 
 
 Ai vermi dai pastura ; 
 
 E da la prima altura 
 
 Da fiera morte scossa 
 
 Fai tuo letto una fpssa. 
 
 Notte, continua notte 
 
 Ti divora ed inghiotte, 
 
 E la puzza ti smembra 
 
 Le si pastose membra, 
 
 E ti stai fitta fitta per dispetto, 
 
 Come animal immondo al laccio stretto. 
 
ODE TO A DEAD BODY. 263 
 
 Come ill the public path, and see how all 
 
 Shall fly thee, as a child goes shrieking back 
 
 From something long and black. 
 
 Which mocks along the wall. 
 
 See if the kind will stay. 
 
 To hear what thou wouldst say ; 
 
 See if thine arms can win 
 
 One soul to think of sin ; 
 
 See if the tribe of wooers 
 
 Will now become pursuers ; 
 
 Vedrai se ognun di te mettra paura, 
 
 E fuggira come garzon la sera 
 
 Da Tombra lunga e nera, 
 
 Che striscia per le mura ; 
 
 Vedrai se a la tua vose 
 
 Cedran I'alme pietose ; 
 
 Vedrai se al tuo invitare 
 
 Alcun vorra cascare ; 
 
 Vedrai se seguiranti 
 
 Le turbe dc gli amanti ; 
 
^64 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 And if where they make way, 
 
 Thou'lt carry now the day ; 
 
 Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night, 
 
 That thou thyself shalt feel the shudder and the fright. 
 
 Yes, till thou turn into the loathly hole, 
 As the least pain to thy bold-facedness. 
 There let thy foul distress 
 Turn round upon thy soul, 
 
 E se il di porterai 
 
 Per dove passerai ; 
 
 O pur se spargerai tenebre e lezzo, 
 
 Tal che a te stessa verrai in disprezzo : 
 
 E tornerai dentro I'immonde bolge 
 Per minor pena de la tua baldanza. 
 La tua disonoranza 
 Allora in te si volge. 
 
ODE TO A UEAU BODY. 2(i5 
 
 And cry, O wretch in a shroud, 
 
 That wast so headstrong proud. 
 
 This, this is the reward, 
 
 For hearts that are so hard, 
 
 That flaunt so, and adorn, 
 
 And pamper them, and scorn 
 
 To cast a thought down hither. 
 
 Where all things come to wither ; 
 
 And where no resting is, and no repentance. 
 
 Even to the day of the last awful sentence. 
 
 E grida, o sciaurata, 
 
 Che fosti si sfrenata : 
 
 Quest' e il premio che torna 
 
 A chi tanto s'adorna, 
 
 A chi nutre sue carne 
 
 Senza qua giu guardarne. 
 
 Dove tutto se volve 
 
 In cenere ed in polve, 
 
 E dove non e requie o penitenza, 
 
 Fino a (juci di dc V ultima sentenza. 
 
266 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Where is that alabaster bosom now, 
 That undulated once, like sea on shore ? 
 'Tis clay unto the core. 
 Where are those sparkling eyes, 
 That were like twins o' the skies ? 
 Alas, two caves are they, 
 Filled only with dismay. 
 W^here is the lip, that shone 
 Like painting newly done ? 
 
 Dov' e quel bianco seno d' alabastro, 
 
 Ch* ondoleggiava come al margin flutto ? 
 
 In fango s' e ridutto. 
 
 Dove gli occhi lucenti, 
 
 Due stelle risplendenti ? 
 
 Ahi che son due caverne. 
 
 Dove orror sol si scerne. 
 
 Dove il labbro si bello 
 
 Che parea di pennello ? 
 
ODE TO A DEAD I50DY. 267 
 
 Where the round cheek? and where 
 
 The sunny locks of hair ? 
 
 And where the symmetry that bore them all ? 
 
 Gone, like the broken clouds when the winds fall. 
 
 Did I not tell thee this, over and over ? 
 
 The time will come, when thou wilt not be fair ? 
 
 Nor have that conquering air ? 
 
 Nor be supplied with lover ? 
 
 Dove la guancia tonda ? 
 
 Dove la chioma bionda ? 
 
 E dove simmetria di portamento ? 
 
 Tutto e smarrito, come nebbia al vento. 
 
 Non tel diss' io, tante fiate e tante ? 
 Tempo verra che non sarai piii bella, 
 E non parrai piu quel la, 
 E non avrai piu amante ? 
 
268 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Lo! now behold the fruit 
 Of all that scorn of shame ; 
 Is there one spot the same 
 In all that fondled flesh ? 
 One limb that's not a mesh 
 Of worms, and sore offence, 
 And horrible succulence ? 
 Tell me, is there one jot, one jot remaining. 
 To shew thy lovers now the shapes which thou wast 
 vain in ? 
 
 Or ecco vedi il frutto 
 
 D' ogni tuo antico fasto. 
 
 Cos' e, che non sia guasto 
 
 Di quel tuo corpo molle ? 
 
 Cos' e, dove non bolle 
 
 E verme e putridume, 
 
 E puzza, e sucidume ? 
 
 Dimmi, cos' e, cos' e, che possa piue 
 
 Far a' tuoi proci le figure sue ? 
 
ODE TO A DEAD I50DV. 269 
 
 Love? — Ileav'n should be implored for somethin*^ else, 
 
 For power to weep, and to bow down one's soul. 
 
 Love? — 'Tis a fiery dole ; 
 
 A punishment like hell's. 
 
 Yet thou, puffed with thy power, 
 
 ^Vho wcrt but as the flower 
 
 That warns us in the psalm, 
 
 Did'st think thy veins ran balm 
 
 From an immortal fount ; 
 
 Didst take on thee to mount 
 
 Dovevi altra merc^ chieder che amore, 
 
 Chieder dovevi al cielo pentimento. 
 
 Amor cos' e ? un tormento. 
 
 Amor cos' e ? un dolore. 
 
 E tu, gonfia e superba, 
 
 Ch' eri sol fiore ed erba 
 
 Che languon nati appena, 
 
 E te credevi plena 
 
 Di balsamo immortale ; 
 
 Credevi d' aver 1' ale 
 
S70 THANSLATIONS. 
 
 Upon an angel's wings, 
 When thou wert but as things 
 Clapped, on a day, in Egypt's catalogue. 
 Under the worshipped nature of a dog. 
 
 Ill would it help thee now, were I to say, 
 Go, weep at thy confessor's feet, and cry, 
 *' Help, father, or I die : 
 See — see — he knows his prey. 
 
 Da volar su le nubi ; 
 
 E non eri che Anubi 
 
 Adorato in Egitto, oggi e domane. 
 
 In la sembianza di Molosso cane. 
 
 Poco giovo ch' io ti dicessi : vanne, 
 Vanne pentita a pie del confessore. 
 Digli : frate, io moro 
 Ne le rabbiose sanne 
 
ODE TO A DEAD UODY. 271 
 
 Even lie, tlic druij^oii old ! 
 
 Oh, be tliou a strong hold 
 
 Betwixt my foe and me ! 
 
 For I woukl fain be free. 
 
 But am so bound in ill, 
 
 That struggle as I will, 
 
 It strains me to the last, 
 
 And 1 am losing fast 
 
 My breath and my poor soul, and thou art he 
 
 Alone canst save me in thy piety." 
 
 De r infernal dragone, 
 
 Se tiia pieta non pone 
 
 Argine al mio fallire. 
 
 lo vorrei ben uscire ; 
 
 Ma si mi tiene il laccio, 
 
 Che per tirar ch' io faccio 
 
 Romper nol posso punto ; 
 
 Si che oramai consunto 
 
 Ho lo spirito e T alma, e tu puoi solo 
 
 Togliermi per ])ietii fuori di duolo. 
 
272 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 But thou didst smile perhaps, thou thing besotted, 
 
 Because, with some, death is a sleep, a word ? 
 
 Hast thou then ever heard 
 
 Of one that slept a)id rotted ? 
 
 Rare is the sleeping face 
 
 That wakes not as it was. 
 
 Thou should'st have earned high heaven. 
 
 And then thou might'st have given 
 
 Glad looks below, and seen 
 
 Thy buried bones serene 
 
 Allor si che '1 morir non saria amaro, 
 
 Che morte a' giusti e sonno, e non e morte, 
 
 Vedesti mai per sorte 
 
 Putir chi dorme ? raro, 
 
 Raro chi non s* allevi 
 
 Dai sonni anche non brevi. 
 
 Tu saresti ora in alto 
 
 Sopra il stellato smalto, 
 
 E di la ne la fossa 
 
 Vedresti le tue ossa 
 
ODE TO A DEAD BODY. 27'3 
 
 As odorous and as fair, 
 
 As evening lilies are ; 
 
 And in the day of the great trump of doom, 
 
 Happy thy soul had been to join them at the tomb. 
 
 Ode, go thou down and enter 
 
 The horrors of the centre : 
 
 Then fly amain, with news of terrible fate 
 
 To those who think they may repent them late. 
 
 E candide e odorose. 
 
 Come i gigli e le rose : 
 
 E nel di poi de Tangelica tromba, 
 
 Volentier verria V alma a la tua tomba. 
 
 Canzon, vanne la dentro 
 
 In queir orrido centre ; 
 
 Fuggi poi presto, e dille, che non spera 
 
 Pieta, chi aspetta di pentirsi a sera. 
 
 T 
 
274 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 THE LOVER'S PRISON. 
 
 FROM ARIOSTO. 
 
 O LUCKY prison, blithe captivity, 
 Where neither out of rage, nor out of spite, 
 But bound by love, and charity's sweet might, 
 She has me fast, — my lovely enemy ! 
 Others, at turning of their prison key, 
 Sadden ; I triumph ; since I have in sight 
 
 Avventuroso carcere soave. 
 Dove ne per furor, ne per dispetto. 
 Ma per amor, e per pieta distretto, 
 La bella e dolce mia nemica m' ave ! 
 Gli altri prigion, al volger de la chiave, 
 S' attristano ; io m' allegro ; che diletto 
 
THE lover's prison. 27^ 
 
 Not deatli, but life ; not suffering, but delight ; 
 Nor law severe, nor judge that hears no plea ; 
 
 But gatherings to the heart, but wilful blisses, 
 But words that in such moments are no crimes. 
 But laughs, and tricks, and winning ways ; but kisses, 
 Delicious kisses, put deliciously, 
 A thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand times ; 
 And yet how few will all those thousands be ! 
 
 E non martir, vita e non morte aspetto ; 
 Ne giudice sever, ne legge grave ; 
 
 Ma benigne accoglienze, ma complessi 
 Licenziosi, ma parole sciolte 
 Da ogni freno, ma risi, vezzi, giuochi , 
 Ma dolci baci dolcemente impressi 
 Ben mille e mille, e mille e mille volte ; 
 E se potran contarsi, anco fien pochi. 
 T 2 
 
276 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 SUNG BY A CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS IN TASSO'S AMYNTAS. 
 
 O LOVELY age of gold ! 
 
 Not that the rivers rolled 
 
 With milk, or that the woods wept honey-dew ; 
 
 Not that the ready ground 
 
 Produced without a wound, 
 
 Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew ; 
 
 O bella eta de 1' oro, 
 
 Non gia perche di latte 
 
 Sen corse il fiume, o stillo mele il bosco : 
 
 Non perche i frutti loro 
 
 Dier da 1' aratro intatte 
 
 Le terre, e i serpi errar senz' ira o tosco : 
 
ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 277 
 
 Not tliat a cloudless blue 
 
 For ever was in sight, 
 
 Or that the heaven which burns, 
 
 And now is cold by turns. 
 
 Looked out in glad and everlasting light ; 
 
 No, nor that even the insolent ships from far 
 
 Brought war to no new lands, nor riches worse than war : 
 
 But solely that that vain 
 And breath-invented pain, 
 
 Non perche nuvol fosco 
 
 Non spiego allor suo velo ; 
 
 Ma in primavera eterna, 
 
 Ch' ora s' accende, e verna, 
 
 Rise di luce e di sereno il cielo ; 
 
 Ne porto peregrine 
 
 O guerra o merce agli altrui lidi il ])in() : 
 
 Ma sol, perche quel vano 
 Nome senza soggctto, 
 
278 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 That idol of mistake, that worshipped cheat, 
 
 That Honour, — since so called 
 
 By vulgar minds appalled, 
 
 Played not the tyrant with our nature yet. 
 
 It had not come to fret 
 
 The sweet and happy fold 
 
 Of gentle human-kind ; 
 
 Nor did its hard law bind 
 
 Souls nursed in freedom ; but that law of gold. 
 
 Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d'inganno, 
 
 Quel che dal volgo insano 
 
 Onor poscia fu detto, 
 
 Che di nostra natura il feo tiranno, 
 
 Non mischiava il suo affanno 
 
 Fra le liete dolcezze 
 
 De I'amoroso gregge ; 
 
 Ne fu sua dura legge 
 
 Nota a quell' alme in libertate avvezze ; 
 
ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 279 
 
 That glad and golden law, all free, all fitted, 
 Which Nature's own hand wrote — What pleases, is 
 permitted. 
 
 Then among streams and flowers, 
 
 The little winged powers 
 
 Went singing carols without torch or bow ; 
 
 The nymphs and shepherds sat 
 
 Mingling with innocent chat 
 
 Sports and low whispers ; and with whispers low, 
 
 Kisses that would not go. 
 
 Ma legge aurea e felice, 
 
 Che natura scolpi — S* ei piace, ei lice. 
 
 Allor tra fiori e linfe 
 
 Traean dolci carole 
 
 Gli Amoretti senz' archi e senza fiici j 
 
 Sedean pastori e ninfe 
 
 Meschiando a le parole 
 
 Vezzi e susurri, ed ai susurri i baci 
 
 Strettamente tenaci : 
 
280 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The maiden, budding o*er, 
 
 Kept not her bloom uneyed, 
 
 Which now a veil must hide, 
 
 Nor the crisp apples which her bosom bore ; 
 
 And oftentimes, in river or in lake, 
 
 The lover and his love their merry bath would take. 
 
 *Twas thou, thou. Honour, first 
 
 That didst deny our thirst 
 
 Its drink, and on the fount thy covering set ; 
 
 La verginella ignuda 
 
 Scopria sue fresche rose, 
 
 Ch' or tien nel velo ascose, 
 
 E le poma del seno acerbe e crude ; 
 
 E spesso in fiume o in lago 
 
 Scherzar si vede con I'amata il vago. 
 
 Tu prima, Onor, velasti 
 
 La fonte dei diletti, 
 
 Negando 1' onde a 1' amorosa sete : 
 
ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 281 
 
 Thou bad'st kind eyes withdraw 
 
 Into constrained awe, 
 
 And keep the secret for their tears to wet ; 
 
 Thou gathered'st in a net 
 
 The tresses from the air, 
 
 And mad'st the sports and plays 
 
 Turn all to sullen ways. 
 
 And putt'st on speech a rein, in steps a care. 
 
 Thy work it is, — thou shade that wilt not move. 
 
 That what was once the gift, is now the theft of Love. 
 
 Tu a' begli occhi insegnasti 
 
 Di starne in se ristretti, 
 
 E tener le bellezze altrui secrete : 
 
 Tu raccogliesti in rete 
 
 Le chiome a 1' aura sparte : 
 
 Tu i dolci atti lascivi 
 
 Festi ritrosi e schivi ; 
 
 Ai detti il fren ponesti, ai passi 1' arte : 
 
 Opra c tua sola, o Onore, 
 
 Che furto sia quel chc fu don d'Amore. 
 
282 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Our sorrows and our pains. 
 
 These are thy noble gains. 
 
 But oh, thou Love's and Nature's masterer. 
 
 Thou conqueror of the crowned. 
 
 What dost thou on this ground. 
 
 Too small a circle for thy mighty sphere ? 
 
 Go, and make slumber dear 
 
 To +he renowned and high ; 
 
 E son tuoi fatti egregi 
 
 Le pene, e i pianti nostri. 
 
 Ma tu d'Amore e di Natura donno, 
 
 Tu domator de' regi, 
 
 Che fai tra questi chiostri, 
 
 Che la grandezza tua capir non ponno ? 
 
 Vattene, e turba il sonno 
 
 A gr illustri e potenti : 
 
ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 283 
 
 We here, a lowly race, 
 
 Can live without thy grace, 
 
 After the use of mild antiquity. 
 
 Go, let us love ; since years 
 
 No truce allow, and life soon disappears ; 
 
 Go, let us love ; the daylight dies, is born ; 
 
 But unto us the light 
 
 Dies once for all ; and sleep brings on eternal night. 
 
 Noi qui, negletta e bassa 
 
 Turba, senza te lassa 
 
 Viver ne 1' uso de 1' antiche genti. 
 
 Amiam ; che non la tregua 
 
 Con gli anni umana viva, e si dilegua. 
 
 Amiam ; che *1 sol si muore, e poi rinasce ; 
 
 A noi sua breve luce 
 
 S' asconde, e '1 sonno eterna notte adduce. 
 
284 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 PASSAGES FROM REDI'S DITHYRAMBIC POEM OF 
 
 BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 
 
 The Author has translated the whole of this popular piece of Italian pleasantry, which 
 is a criticism on the wines of the poet's country ; but even in the original it is perhaps 
 too long, especially as a monologue ; for Bacchus talks it all from beginning to end ; 
 and the local nature of the subjects and the allusions renders it, for the most part, of little 
 interest to a foreign reader. He has persuaded himself, however, that a few passages will 
 bring their recommendation with them, in the gaiety of their anunal spirits. The origiucil 
 is like a Bacchanalian dance, broken occasionally with quaint contradictions to the 
 movement, and pithy speeches addressed to tlie spectators. 
 
 BACCHUS'S OPIXION OF WINE, CHOCOLATE, TEA, BEER, AND OTHER 
 INCOMPATIBLE BEVERAGES. 
 
 Give me, give me Buriano, 
 
 Trebbiano, Colombano, 
 
 Give me bumpers, rich and clear ! 
 
 10 di Pescia il Buriano, 
 
 11 Trebbiano, il Colombano 
 Mi tracanno a piena mano : 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 285 
 
 'Tis the true old Aurum Potabile. 
 Gilding life when it wears shabbily : 
 Helenas old Nepenthe 'tis, 
 That in the drinking 
 Swallowed thinking, 
 And was the receipt for bliss. 
 Thence it is, that ever and aye, 
 "When he doth philosophize. 
 
 Egli e il vero Oro Potabile, 
 Che mandar suole in esilio 
 Ogni male irrimediabile ; 
 Egli e d' Elena il Nepente, 
 Che fa stare il mondo allegro, 
 Da' pensieri 
 Foschi e neri 
 
 Sempre sciolto, e sempre esente. 
 Quindi avvien, che sempre mai 
 Tra la sua filosofia 
 
286 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Good old glorious Rucellai 
 
 Hath it for light unto his eyes ; 
 
 He lifteth it, and by the shine 
 
 Well discerneth things divine ; 
 
 Atoms with their airy justles, 
 
 And all manner of corpuscles ; 
 
 And, as through a crystal sky-light, 
 
 How morning difFereth from evening twilight ; 
 
 And further telleth us the reason why go 
 
 Some stars with such a lazy light, and some with a 
 
 Lo teneva in compagnia 
 
 II buon vecchio Rucellai ; 
 
 Ed al chiaro di lui ben comprendea 
 
 Gli atomi tutti quanti, e ogni corpusculo, 
 
 E molto ben distinguere sapea 
 
 Dal matutino il vespertin crepusculo, 
 
 Ed additava donde avesse origine 
 
 La pigrizia degli astri, e la virtigine. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 287 
 
 Oh how widely wandercth he, 
 Wlio ill searcli of verity 
 Keeps aloof from glorious wine ! 
 Lo the knowledge it bringeth to me ! 
 For Barbarossa, this wine so bright, 
 With its rich red look and its strawberry light, 
 So inviteth me, 
 So delighteth me, 
 I should infiillibly quench my inside with it, 
 
 Quanto errando, oh quanto va 
 
 Nel cercar la verita 
 
 Chi dal vin lungi si sta ! 
 
 lo stovvi appresso, ed or godendo accorgomi, 
 
 Che in bel color di fragola matura 
 
 La Barbarossa allettami, 
 
 E cotanto dilettami, 
 
 Che temprarne amerei 1' interna arsura, 
 
288 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Had not Hippocrates, 
 
 And old Andromachus, 
 
 Strictly forbidden it, 
 
 And loudly chidden it, 
 
 So many stomachs have sicken'd and died with it. 
 
 Yet discordant as it is, 
 
 Two good biggins will not come amiss ; 
 
 Because I know, while I'm drinking them down. 
 
 What is the finish and what is the crown. 
 
 Se il Greco Ipocrate, 
 
 Se il vecchio Andromaco 
 
 Non mel vietassero, 
 
 Ne mi sgridassero, 
 
 Che suol talora infievolir lo stomaco. 
 
 Lo sconcerti quanto sa ; 
 
 Voglio berne almen due ciotole, 
 
 Perche so, mentre ch' io votole, 
 
 Alia fin quel che ne va. 
 
BACCHUS TN TUSCANY. 289 
 
 A cup of good Corsican 
 
 Does it at once ; 
 
 Or a glass of old Spanish 
 
 Is neat for the nonce : 
 
 Quackish resources are tilings for a dunce. 
 
 Talk of Chocolate ! 
 
 Talk of Tea ! 
 
 Medicines made, ye gods ! as they are, 
 
 Are no medicines made for me. 
 
 Con un sorso 
 Di buon Corso, 
 O di pretto antico Ispano, 
 A quel mal porgo un soccorso, 
 Che non e da cerrettano : 
 Non fia gia, che il Cioccolatte 
 V* adoprassi, ovvero il T^ : 
 Medicine cosi fatte 
 Non saran giammai per me. 
 u 
 
290 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 I would sooner take to poison 
 Than a single cup set eyes on 
 Of that bitter and guilty stuff ye 
 Talk of by the name of Coffee, 
 Let the Arabs and the Turks 
 Count it 'mongst their cruel works 
 Foe of mankind, black and turbid, 
 Let the throats of slaves absorb it. 
 Down in Tartarus, 
 Down in Erebus, 
 
 Beverei prima il veleno, 
 
 Che un bicchier, che fosse pieno 
 
 Deir amaro, e reo caffe : 
 
 Cola tra gli Arabi, 
 
 E tra i Giannizzeri, 
 
 Liquor si ostico, 
 
 Si nero e torbido, 
 
 Gli schiavi ingollino : 
 
 Gill nel Tartaro, 
 
 Gill neir Erebo 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 291 
 
 'Twas the detestable Fifty invented it ; 
 
 The Furies then took it 
 
 To grind and to cook it, 
 
 And to Proserpina all three presented it. 
 
 If the Mussulman in Asia 
 
 Doats on a beverage so unseemly, 
 
 I differ with the man extremely. 
 
 ■«: -^ * * * * * 
 
 There's a squalid thing, called beer : — 
 The man whose lips that thing comes near 
 
 L* empie Belidi V inventarono, 
 E Tesifone, e 1' altre Furie 
 A Proserpina il ministrarono ; 
 E se in Asia il Musulmanno 
 8e lo cionca a precipizio, 
 
 Mostra aver poco giudizio. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Chi la squallida cervogia 
 
 Alle labbra sue congiugne 
 
292 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Swiftly dies ; or falling foolish, 
 
 Grows, at forty, old and owlish. 
 
 She that in the ground would hide her. 
 
 Let her take to English cyder : 
 
 He who'd have his death come quicker, 
 
 Any other northern liquor. 
 
 Those Norwegians and those Laps 
 
 Have extraordinary taps : 
 
 Those Laps especially have strange fancies ; 
 
 Presto muore, o rado giugne 
 All eta vecchia e barbogia : 
 Beva il sidro d' Inghilterra, 
 Chi vuol gir presto sotterra ; 
 Chi vuol gir presto alia morte, 
 Le bevande usi del Norte. 
 Fanno i pazzi beveroni 
 Quel Norvegi, e quei Lapponi ; 
 Quei Lapponi son pur tangheri, 
 
HACTHUS IN TUSCANY. 293 
 
 To sec them drink, 
 
 I verily think 
 
 Would make me lose my senses. 
 
 But a truce to such vile subjects, 
 
 With tlieir impious, shocking objects. 
 
 Let me purify my mouth 
 
 In a holy cup o' the south ; 
 
 In a golden pitcher let me 
 
 Head and ears for comfort get me, 
 
 Son pur sozzi nel loro here ; 
 
 8olamente nel vedere 
 
 Mi fariano uscir de' gangheri : 
 
 Ma si restin col mal die 
 
 Si profane dicerie : 
 
 E il mio labbro profanato 
 
 Si purifichi, s' immerga, 
 
 Si sommerga 
 
 Dentro on pecchero indorato 
 
^94 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 And drink of the wine of the vine benign 
 That sparkles warm in Sansovine. 
 
 ICE NECESSARY TO WINE. 
 
 You know Lamporecchio, the castle renowned 
 
 For the gardener so dumb, whose works did abound ; 
 
 There's a topaz they make there ; pray let it go round. 
 
 Serve, serve me a dozen, 
 
 But let it be frozen ; 
 
 Colmo in giro di quel vino 
 
 Del vitigno 
 
 8i benigno 
 
 Che fiammeggia in Sansavino. 
 
 Col topazio pigiato in Lamporrechio, 
 Ch' e fiimoso Castel per quel Masetto, 
 A inghirlandar le tazze or m' apparecchio, 
 Purche gelato sia, e sia puretto, 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 295 
 
 Let it be frozen and finished with ice, 
 
 And see that the ice be as virginly nice, 
 
 As the coldest that whistles from wintery skies. 
 
 Coolers and cellarets, crystal with snows, 
 
 Should always hold bottles in ready repose. 
 
 Snow is good liquor's fifth element ; 
 
 No compound without it can give content : 
 
 For weak is the brain, and I hereby scout it, 
 
 That thinks in hot weather to drink without it. 
 
 Gelato, quale alia stagion del gielo 
 
 II pill freddo Aquilon fischia pel cielo. 
 
 Cantinette, e cantinplore 
 
 Stieno in pronto a tutte 1" ore 
 
 Con forbite bombolette 
 
 Chiuse e strette tra le brine 
 
 Delle nevi cristalline. 
 
 Son le nevi il quinto elemento, 
 
 Che compongono il vero bevere : 
 
 Ben h folic chi spera ricevere 
 
 Senza nevi nel here un contento : 
 
•296 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Bring me heaps from the Shady Valley *: 
 
 Bring me heaps 
 
 Of all that sleeps 
 
 On every village hill and alley. 
 
 Hold there, you satyrs, 
 
 Your beard-shaking chatters. 
 
 And bring me ice duly, and bring it me doubly, 
 
 Out of the grotto of Monte di Boboli. 
 
 Venga pur da Vallombrosa 
 
 Neve a josa : 
 
 Venga pur da ogni bicocca 
 
 Neve in chiocca ; 
 
 E voi, Satiri, lasciate 
 
 Tante frottole, e tanti riboboli, 
 
 E del ghiaccio mi portate 
 
 Dalla grotta del Monte di Boboli. 
 
 * Vallombrosa, — which an Englishman may call MZ/toH* Vallom- 
 brosa. The convent there is as old as the time of Ariosto, who 
 celebrates the monks for their hospitality. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. '2\)J 
 
 With axes and pickaxes, 
 Hammers and rammers, 
 Tluimp it and hit it me, 
 
 Crack it and crash it me, 
 Hew it and split it me, 
 
 Pound it and smash it me, 
 Till the whole mass (for I'm dead-dry, I think) 
 Turns to a cold, fit to freshen my drink. 
 
 Con alti picchi 
 
 De' mazzapicehi 
 
 Dirompetelo, 
 
 Sgretolatelo, 
 
 Infragnetelo, 
 
 Stritolatelo, 
 
 Finch^ tutto si possa risolvere 
 
 In minuta freddissima polvere, 
 
 Che mi renda il her piu fresco 
 
 Per rinfresco del palato. 
 
 Or ch' io son mortoassetato. 
 
298 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 If with hot wine we insack us, 
 
 Say our name's not Bacchus. 
 
 If we taste the weight of a button, 
 
 Say we're a glutton. 
 
 He who, when he first wrote verses, 
 
 Had the Graces by his side. 
 
 Then at rhymers' evil courses 
 
 Shook his thunders far and wide, 
 
 (For his great heart rose and burn'd. 
 
 Till his words to thunder turn'd) 
 
 Del vin caldo s' io n' insacco, 
 
 Dite pur ch' io non son Bacco. 
 
 Se giammai n' assaggio un gotto, 
 
 Dite pure, e vel perdono, 
 
 Ch' io mi sono un vero Arlotto : 
 
 E quei, che in prima in leggiadretti versi 
 
 Ebbe le grazie lusinghiere al fianco, 
 
 E poi pel suo gran cuore ardito e franco, 
 
 Yibro suoi detti in fulmine conversi. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 
 
 He, I say, Menzini,* he. 
 
 The marvellous and the masterly, 
 
 Wliom the leaves of Phoebus crown, 
 
 Alterable Anacreon, — 
 
 He shall give me, if I do it. 
 
 Gall of the satiric poet. 
 
 Gall from out his blackest well, 
 
 Shuddering, unescapeable. 
 
 But if still, as I ought to do, 
 
 I love any wine iced through and through, 
 
 If I will have it (and none beside) 
 
 Superultrafrostified, 
 
 II grande Anacreontico ammirabile 
 
 Menzin, che splende per Febea ghirlanda, 
 
 Di satiric© fiele atra bevanda 
 
 Mi porga ostica, acerba, e inevitabile; 
 
 Ma se vivo costantissimo 
 
 Nel volerlo arcifreddissimo, 
 
 * The poets, whose; names here follow, were contemjioruiies and 
 friends of Iledi. Filicaia is well known to the lovers ot Italian 
 literatnrc, as a fine writer of sonnets and odes. 
 
300 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 He that reigns in Pindiis then, 
 
 Visible Phoebus among men, 
 
 Filicaia, shalt exalt 
 
 Me above the starry vault ; 
 
 While the other swans divine, 
 
 Who swim with their proud hearts in wine, 
 
 And make their laurel groves resound 
 
 With the names of the laurel-crovvn'd. 
 
 All shall sing, till our goblets ring. 
 
 Long live Bacchus our glorious King ! 
 
 Quei, che in Pindo h sovrano, e in Pindo gode 
 
 Glorie immortali, e al par di Febo ha i vanti, 
 
 Quel gentil Filicaja inni di lode 
 
 Su la cetera sua sempre mi canti ; 
 
 E altri cigni ebri festosi, 
 
 Che di lauro s' incoronino 
 
 Ne' lor canti armoniosi, 
 
 II mio nome ognor risuonino, 
 
 E rintuonino, 
 
 Viva Bacco il nostra Re ! 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. <'30l 
 
 Evot' ! let tlunii roar away ! 
 
 Evoe ! 
 
 Evo^ ! 
 
 Evot^ ! let the lords of wit 
 
 Rise and echo, where they sit, 
 
 Wliere they sit enthroned each, 
 
 Arbiters of sovereign speech, 
 
 Under the great Tuscan dame. 
 
 Who sifts the flour and gives it fame.* 
 
 Evoe ! 
 
 Evoe ! 
 
 Evo^ ! replichi a gara 
 
 Quella turba si preclara 
 
 Anzi ((uel regio senato, 
 
 Che decide in trono assiso 
 
 Ogni saggio e dotto piato. 
 
 La' ve I' Etrusche voci, e crihra, e afTina 
 
 La gran Maestra, e del parlar liegina ; 
 
 * The Delia Cruscan academy, professed sifters of words. Hence 
 their name, from the word Crusca (bran), and their device of flo\ir 
 and a mill. 
 
302 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Let the shout by Segni be 
 Registered immortally, 
 And dispatched by a courier 
 A monsieur V Abhe Regnier.* 
 
 BACCHUS GROWS MUSICAL IX HIS CUPS. 
 
 The ruby dew that stills 
 Upon Valdarno's hills, 
 
 Ed il Segni Segretario 
 Scriva gli atti al calendario, 
 E spediscane courier 
 A Monsieur VAhhe Regnier. 
 
 La rugiada di rubino, 
 
 Che in Valdarno i colli onora, 
 
 * Regnier Desmai'ais, Secretai'v of the French Academy, himself 
 writer of Italian verses. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 303 
 
 Touches the sense with odour so diviuc, 
 
 Tliat not tlie violet, 
 
 With lips with morning wet, 
 
 Utters such sweetness from her little shrine. 
 
 When I drink of it, I rise 
 
 Far o'er the hill that makes poets wise, 
 
 And in my voice and in my song, 
 
 Grow so sweet and grow so strong, 
 
 I challenge Phoebus with his Delphic eyes. 
 
 Tanto odora, 
 
 Che per lei suo pregio perde 
 
 La brunetta 
 
 Mammoletta, 
 
 Quando spunta dal suo verde. 
 
 S' io ne bevo. 
 
 Mi sollevo 
 
 Sovra i gioghi di Permesso, 
 
 E nel canto si m' accendo, 
 
 Che pretendo, e mi do vanto 
 
 Gareggiar con Fcbo istesso. 
 
304 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Give me then, from a galden measure, 
 
 The ruby that is my treasure, my treasure ; 
 
 And like to the lark that goes maddening above, 
 
 I'll sing songs of love ! 
 
 Songs will I sing more moving and fine. 
 
 Than the bubbling and quaffing of Gersole wine. 
 
 Then the rote shall go round. 
 
 And the cymbals kiss, 
 
 And I'll praise Ariadne, 
 
 My beauty, my bliss ; 
 
 Dammi dunque dal boceal d' oro 
 Quel rubino, ch' e '1 mio tesoro ; 
 Tutto pien d' alto furore, 
 Cantero versi d' am ore, 
 Che faran viapiu soavi, 
 E pill grati di quel che h 
 II buon vin di Gersole. 
 Quindi al suon d'una ghironda, 
 O d' un aurea cennamella, 
 Arianna idolo mio, 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 305 
 
 I'll sing of her tresses, 
 
 I'll sing of her kisses ; 
 
 Now, now it increases, 
 
 The fervour increases, 
 
 The fervour, the boiling, and venomous bliss. 
 
 The grim god of war and the arrowy boy 
 
 Double-gallant me with desperate joy : 
 
 Love, love, and a fight ! 
 
 I must make me a knight ; 
 
 Lodero tua chioma bionda, 
 Lodero tua bocca bella : 
 Gia 8' avanza in me 1' ardore, 
 Gia mi bolle dentro '1 seno 
 Un veleno, 
 
 Ch' e velen d' almo liquore : 
 Gia Gradivo egidarmato 
 Col fanciuUo faretrato 
 Infernifoca il mio core : 
 Gia nel bagno d wn bicchiere, 
 Arianna, idolo amato, 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 I must make me thy knight of the bath, fair friend, 
 A knight of the bathing that knows no end. 
 
 GOOD WINE A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Oh boys, this Tuscan land divine 
 
 Hath such a natural talent for wine. 
 
 We'll fall, we'll fall 
 
 On the barrels and all ; 
 
 We'll fall on the must, we'll fall on the presses, 
 
 We'll make the boards groan with our grievous caresses 
 
 Mi vo' far tuo Cavaliere, 
 Cavalier sempre bagnato. 
 
 Su trinchiam di si buon paese 
 Mezzograppolo, e alia Franzese ; 
 Su trinchiam rincappellato 
 Con granella, e solleggiato ; 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 307 
 
 No measure, I say ; no order, but riot ; 
 
 No waiting, nor cheating ; we'll drink like a Sciot : 
 
 Drink, drink, and drink when you've done ; 
 
 Pledge it, and frisk it, every one ; 
 
 Chirp it and challenge it, swallow it down ; 
 
 He that's afraid, is a thief and a clown. 
 
 Good wine's a gentleman ; 
 
 He speedeth digestion all he can : 
 
 Tracanniamo a guerra rotta 
 Vin rullato, e alia Sciotta ; 
 E tra noi gozzovigliando, 
 Gavazzando, 
 
 Gareggiamo a chi piii imbotta. 
 Imbottiam senza paura, 
 Senza regola, o misura : 
 Quando il vino e gentilissimo, 
 Digeriscesi prestissimo, 
 
 X 2 
 
308 THANSLATIONS. 
 
 No headache hath he, no headache, I say, 
 For those who talked with him yesterday. 
 If Signor Bellini, besides his apes. 
 Would anatomise vines, and anatomise grapes, 
 He'd see that the heart that makes good wine, 
 Is made to do good, and very benign. 
 
 THE PRAISE OF CHIANTI WINE, AND DENOUNCEMENT OF WATER. 
 
 Tkue son of the earth is Chianti wine. 
 Born on the ground of a gypsy vine ; 
 
 E per lui mai non molesta 
 La spranghetta nella testa ; 
 E far fede ne potria 
 L* anatomico Bellini, 
 Se deir uve, e se de' vini, 
 Far volesse notomia. 
 
 Gusta un po*, gusta quest* altro 
 
 Vin robusto, che si vanti 
 
 D' esser nato in mezzo al Chianti, 
 
IIACCIIUS IN TUSCANY. 309 
 
 Horn on the ground for sturdy souls, 
 
 And not the lank race of one of your poles : 
 
 I should like to see a snake 
 
 Ciet up in August out of a brake, 
 
 And fasten with all his teeth and caustic 
 
 Upon that sordid villain of a rustic, 
 
 Who, to load my Chianti's haunches 
 
 With a parcel of feeble bunches. 
 
 E tra sassi 
 
 Lo produsse 
 
 Per le genti piu bevone 
 
 A'ite bassa, e non broncone : 
 
 Bramerei veder trafitto 
 
 Da una serpe in mezzo al petto 
 
 Quell' avaro villanzone, 
 
 Che per render la sua vite 
 
 Di pill grappoli feconda, 
 
 La ne' nionti del buon ('hianti, 
 
310 THANSLATIONS. 
 
 Went and tied her to one of these poles,— 
 Sapless sticky without any souls ! 
 
 Like a king, 
 
 In his conquering, 
 
 Chianti wine with his red flag goes 
 
 Down to my heart, and down to my toes 
 
 He makes no noise, he beats no drums ; 
 
 Yet pain and trouble fly as he comes. 
 
 Veramente villanzone, 
 Maritolla ad un broncone. 
 
 Del buon Chianti il vin decrepito. 
 
 Maestoso, 
 
 Imperioso, 
 
 Mi passeggia dentro il core, 
 
 E ne scaccia senza strepito 
 
 Ogni afFanno, e ogni dolore ; 
 
KACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 311 
 
 And yet a good bottle of Carmignan, 
 
 He of the two is the merrier man ; 
 
 He brings from heav'n such a rain of joy, 
 
 I envy not Jove his cups, old boy. 
 
 Drink, Ariadne ; the grapery 
 
 Was the warmest and brownest in Tuscany : 
 
 Drink, and whatever they have to say, 
 
 Still to the Naiads answer nay ; 
 
 Ma se giara io prendo in mano 
 
 Di brillante Carmignano, 
 
 Cosi grato in sen mi piove, 
 
 Ch* ambrosia, e nettar non invidio a Giove. 
 
 Or questo, che stillo dalF uve brune 
 
 Di vigne sassosissime Toscane 
 
 Bevi, Arianna, e tien da lui lontane 
 
 Le chiomazzurre Najadi importune; 
 
312 
 
 TUANSLATIOXS. 
 
 For mighty folly it were, and a sin, 
 To drink Carmignano with water in. 
 
 '&* 
 
 He who drinks water, 
 
 I wish to observe, 
 
 Gets nothing from me ; 
 
 He may eat it and starve. 
 
 WTiether it's well, or whether it's fountain, 
 
 Or whether it comes foaming white from the mountain, 
 
 Che saria 
 
 Gran follia, 
 
 E bruttissimo peccato, 
 
 Bevere il Carmignan, quando e innacquato. 
 
 Chi 1' acqua beve 
 
 Mai non riceve 
 
 Grazie da me : 
 
 Sia pur 1' acqua o bianca, o fresca, 
 
 O ne' tonfani sia bruna ; 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 313 
 
 I cannot admire it, 
 
 Nor ever desire it ; 
 
 'Tis a fool, and a madman, and impudent wretch, 
 
 Who now will live in a nasty ditch, 
 
 And then grown proud, and full of his whims, 
 
 Comes playing the devil and cursing his brims, 
 
 And swells and tumbles, and bothers his margins, 
 
 And ruins the flowers, although they be virgins. 
 
 Nel suo amor me non invesca 
 Questa sciocca, ed importuna, 
 Questa sciocca, che sovente 
 Fatta altiera, e capricciosa, 
 Riottosa, ed insolente, 
 Con furor perfido e ladro, 
 Terra e ciel mette a soqquadro : 
 Ella rompe i ponti, e gli argini, 
 E con sue nembose aspergini 
 Su i fioriti e verdi margini 
 Porta oltraggio a' fior ])iu vergini . 
 
314 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Moles and piers, were it not for him, 
 
 Would last for ever, 
 
 If they're built clever ; 
 
 But no — it's all one with him — sink or swim. 
 
 Let the people yclept Mameluke 
 
 Praise the Nile without any rebuke ; 
 
 Let the Spaniards praise the Tagus ; 
 
 I cannot like either, even for negus. 
 
 E 1' ondose scaturigini 
 Alle moli stabillissime, 
 Che sarian perpetuissime, 
 Di rovina soro origini. 
 Lodi pur V acque del Nilo 
 II Soldan de' Mammalucchi, 
 Ne r Ispano mai si stucchi 
 D' innalzar quelle del Tago ; 
 Ch' io per me non ne son vago. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 315 
 
 Away with all water. 
 Wherever I come ; 
 I forbid it ye, gentlemen, 
 All and some ; 
 Lemonade water, 
 Jessamine water. 
 Our tavern knows none of *em. 
 Water's a hum. 
 
 Da mia masnada 
 Lungi sen vada 
 Ogni bigoncia 
 Che d' acqua acconcia 
 Colma si sta : 
 L' acqua cedrata 
 Di limoncello 
 Sia sbandeggiata 
 Dal nostro ostello : 
 
316 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Jessamine makes a pretty crown ; 
 But as a drink, 'twill never go down. 
 All your hydromels and flips 
 Come not near these prudent lips. 
 All your sippings and sherbets, 
 And a thousand such pretty sweets, 
 Let your mincing ladies take 'em. 
 And fops whose little fingers ache 'em. 
 
 De' gelsomini 
 Non faccio bevande, 
 Ma tesso ghirlande 
 Su questi miei crini : 
 Dell' aloscia, e del candiero 
 Non ne bramo, e non ne chero : 
 I sorbetti ancorche ambrati, 
 E mille altre acque odorose, 
 Son bevande da svogliati, 
 E da femmine leziose ; 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 317 
 
 Wine ! Wine ! is your only drink ; 
 Grief never dares to look at the brink : 
 Six times a year to be mad with wine, 
 I hold it no shame, but a very good sign. 
 
 A TUNE ON THE WATER. 
 
 Oh what a thing 
 'Tis for you and for me. 
 On an evening in spring, 
 To sail in the sea ! 
 
 Vino ! Vino ! a ciascun bever bisogna, 
 
 Se fuggir vuole ogni danno, 
 
 E non par mica vergogna 
 
 Tra i bicchier impazzir sei volte 1* anno. 
 
 Oh bell' andare 
 Per barca in mare 
 Verso la sera 
 Di primavera ! 
 
318 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The little fresh airs 
 
 Spread their silver wings, 
 
 And o'er the blue pavement 
 
 Dance love-makings. 
 
 To the tune of the waters, and tremulous glee. 
 
 They strike up a dance to people at sea. 
 
 MONTEPULCIANO INAUGURATED. 
 
 A small glass, and thirsty ! Be sure never ask it 
 Man might as well serve up soup in a basket. 
 
 Venticelli e fresche aurette 
 Dispiegando ali d* argento 
 Suir azzurro pavimento 
 Tesson danze amorosette ; 
 E al mormorio de' tremuli cristalli 
 Sfidano ognora i naviganti a' balli. 
 
 Chi s' arrisica di here 
 Ad un piccolo bicchiere 
 Fa la zuppa nel paniere : 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 319 
 
 This my broad, and this my hi^h 
 Bacchanalian butlery 
 Lodo'eth not, nor dotli admit 
 Glasses made with little wit ; 
 Little bits of would-be bottles 
 Run to seed in strangled throttles. 
 Such things are for invalids, 
 Sipping dogs that keep their beds. 
 As for shallow cups like plates, 
 Break them upon shallower pates. 
 
 Questa altiera, questa mia 
 Dionea bottiglieria 
 Non raccetta, non alloggia, 
 Bicchieretti fatti a foggia : 
 Quel bicchieri arrovesciati, 
 E quel gozzi strangolati, 
 Sono arnesi da ammalati : 
 Quelle tazze spase e piane 
 Son da genti poco sane : 
 
320 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Such glassicles, 
 
 And vesicles, 
 
 And bits of things like icicles, 
 
 Are toys and curiosities 
 
 For babies and their gaping eyes ; 
 
 Things which ladies put in caskets. 
 
 Or beside 'em in work-baskets ; 
 
 I don't mean those who keep their coaches, 
 
 But those who make grand foot approaches. 
 
 With flower'd gowns, and fine huge broaches. 
 
 Caraffini, 
 Buffoncini, 
 
 Zampilletti, e borbottini, 
 Son trastulli da bambini : 
 Son minuzie, che raccattole 
 Per fregiarne in gran dovizia 
 Le moderne scarabattole 
 Delle donne Florentine ; 
 Voglio dir non delle dame. 
 Ma bense delle pedine. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. ^^i 
 
 'Tis in a magnum's world alone 
 
 The Graces have room to sport and be known. 
 
 Fill, fill, let us all have our will : 
 
 But with what, with whaty boys, shall we fill ? 
 
 Sweet Ariadne— no, not that one, — ah no ; 
 
 Fill me the manna of Montepulciano : 
 
 Fill me a magnum, and reach it me. — Gods ! 
 
 How it slides to my heart by the sweetest of roads ! 
 
 Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me ! 
 
 Oh how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears ! 
 
 In quel vetro, che chiamasi il tonfano 
 Scherzan le Grazie, e vi trionfano ; 
 Ognun colmilo, ognun votilo. 
 Ma di che si colmera ? 
 Bella Arianna, con bianca mano 
 Versa la manna di Montepulciano ; 
 Colmane il tonfano, e porgilo a me. 
 Questo liquore, che sdrucciola al core, 
 O come 1' ugola e baciami, e mordemi ! 
 O come in lacrime ii\\ occhi disciof^liemi ! 
 
322 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 I'm ravished ! I'm rapt ■ Heaven finds me admissible ! 
 Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible ! 
 
 Hearken, all earth! 
 
 We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth, 
 
 To all who reverence us, and are right thinkers ; — 
 
 Hear, all ye drinkers ! 
 
 Give ear, and give faith, to our edict divine — 
 
 MONTEPULCIANO'S THE KiNG OF ALL WiNE. 
 
 Me ne strasecolo ! me ne strabilio ! 
 E fatto estatico vo in visibilio ! 
 
 Onde ognun, che di Lieo 
 Riverente il nome adora, 
 Ascolti questo altissimo decreto, 
 Che Bassareo pronunzia, e gli dia fe, 
 
 MONTEPULCIANO d' OGNI VinO E IL Re. 
 
BACCHUS IN TUSCANY. 323 
 
 At these glad soinuls, 
 The Nymphs, in giddy rounds, 
 Shaking their ivy diadems and grapes, 
 Echoed the triumph in a thousand shapes. 
 The Satyrs would have joined them ; but alas ! 
 They couldn't ; for they lay about the grass. 
 As drunk as apes. 
 
 A cosi lieti accenti, 
 D' edere e di corimbi il crine adorne 
 Alternavano i canti 
 Le festose Baccanti ; 
 Ma i Satiri, che avean bevuto a isonne, 
 Si sdrajaron sulT erbetta 
 Tutti cotti come monne. 
 
.'324 THANSLATIONS. 
 
 A BLESSED SPOT. 
 
 FROM AN EPIGRAM OF ABULFADHEL AHMED, SURNAMED AL HAMADANI, 
 RECORDED IN D'HERBELOT. 
 
 Hamadan is my native place ; 
 
 And I must say, in praise of it, 
 It merits, for its ugly face, 
 
 What every body says of it. 
 
 Its children equal its old men 
 
 In vices and avidity ; 
 And they reflect the babes again 
 
 In exquisite stupidity. 
 
 Hamadan est mon pays, et je dirai a sa louange, qu' elle 
 surpasse en laideur toutes les autres villes du monde ^ 
 
 Que ses enfans ont autant des vices que ses vieillards, 
 et que ses vieillards ont autant de jugement et de sa- 
 gesse que ses enfans. 
 
 Sibliotheque Orientale, ed. 1788, torn, iii., p. 110. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 825 
 
 ON THE LAUGH OF MADAME D'ALBRET. 
 
 KIK^M (I.K.MEVT MAIUvr 
 
 Yes, that fair neck, too beautiful by half, 
 
 Those eyes, that voice, that bloom, all do her honour 
 
 Yet after all, that little giddy laugh 
 
 Is what, in my mind, sits the best upon her. 
 
 Good God ! 'twould make the very streets and ways 
 Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure ! 
 
 Elle ha tresbien ceste gorge d*albastre, 
 
 Ce doux parler, ce cler taint, ces beaux yeux ; 
 
 Mais, en efFet, ce petit ris follastre, 
 
 C'est, a mon gre, ce qui luy sied le mieux. 
 
 Elle en pourroit les chemins et les lieux, 
 Oij elle passe, a plaisir inciter : 
 
326 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Did melancholy come to mar my days, 
 
 And kill me in the lap of too much leisure, 
 No spell were wanting, from the dead to raise me. 
 But only that sweet laugh, wherewith she slays me. 
 
 Et si ennuy me venoit contrister, 
 
 Tant que par mort fust ma vie abbattue, 
 
 II ne faudroit pour me ressusciter. 
 Que ce ris la, duquel elle me tue. 
 
TUANSLATIONS. 327 
 
 A COURT LOVE-LESSON. 
 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 A SWEET " No, no " — with a sweet smile beneath, 
 Becomes an honest girl : I'd have you learn it :- 
 
 As for plain " Yes," it may be said, 'ifaith, 
 
 Too plainly and too oft : — pray, well discern it. 
 
 Not that I'd have my pleasure incomplete. 
 Or lose the kiss for which my lips beset you ; 
 
 Un doux Nenny, avec un doux souzrire, 
 Est tant honneste, il le vous faut appreudre 
 
 Quant est d'Ouy, si veniez a le dire, 
 
 D'avoir trop dit je voudrois vous repreiidre 
 
 Non (|ue je sois ennuyc d' entreprendre 
 D'avoir le fruit, doiit le desir me poinct ; 
 
328 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 But that in suffering me to take it, sweet, 
 
 Vd have you say, *' No, no, I will not let you.' 
 
 EPITAPH ON AN ENGLISHMAN. 
 
 FROM DESTOUCHES. 
 
 Here lies Sir John Plumpudding, of the Grange, 
 Who hung himself one morning, for a change. 
 
 Mais je voudrois, qu' en le me laissant prendre, 
 Vous me dissiez,— Non, vous ne I'aurez point. 
 
 Cy git Jean Rosbif, ecuyer, 
 Qui se pendit pour se dessenuyer 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 3^9 
 
 LOVE AND WAR. 
 
 FROM THE CHEVALIER DE BOUFFLERS. 
 
 If war were an evil not to be done away, it would oe right to construe its necessity as 
 handsomely as possible; and, among others, the argument implied in thisjeu d'esprit would 
 not be one of the least satisfactory. Had Uncle Toby married the Widow Wadman, and 
 l.ft us a son, the young gentleman might have sung the song, going to the wars, to the 
 dance of the band of music and his own feather. 
 
 Let us make love, let us make war, 
 
 This is your motto, boys, these are your courses ; 
 War may appear to cost people too dear, 
 
 But love re-imburses, but love re-imburses. 
 
 Faisoxs I'amour, faisons la guerre, 
 Ces deux metiers sont pleins d' attraits ; 
 La guerre au monde est un peu chere, 
 L'amour en rembourse les f'rais. 
 
330 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The foe and the fair, let 'em see what we are, 
 
 For the good of the nation, the good of the nation ; 
 
 What possible debtor can pay his debts better, 
 Than 2>e-population with J?e-population ? 
 
 Que r ennemi, que la bergere, 
 Soient tour-a-tour serres de pres. 
 Eh ! mes amis, peut-on mieux faire, 
 Quand on a depeuple la terre. 
 Que de la repeupler apres ? 
 
TKANSLATIONS. 331 
 
 LOVE AND REASON. 
 
 A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PHILOSOPHER AND HIS MISTRESS 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 Phil. Think of reason, 
 Love's a poison 
 Tender hearts should fear to touch. 
 
 Mist. From this poison 
 There's no reason, 
 I conceive, to fear so much. 
 
 P. Pour la raison, 
 Cest un poison 
 Que d'avoir Tame teiuhe. 
 
 M. De ce poison 
 N'a pas raison 
 Qui chcrche a sc defendrc. 
 
33^ TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Phil. Dreadful poison ! 
 Beauteous reason ! 
 
 Mist. Horrid reason ! 
 
 Charming poison ! 
 
 Phil. Farewell, poison ; 
 'Tis to reason 
 I direct my placid view : 
 
 P. Douce raison ! 
 Triste poison ! 
 
 M. Charmant poison ! 
 Triste raison ! 
 
 P. Point de poison ; 
 A la raison 
 II faut bien qu'on se rende. 
 
LOVE AND WAI{. 333 
 
 Mist. Nonsense, reason ! 
 'Tis the poison, 
 Sir, I must expect of you. 
 
 M. Point de raison ; 
 C'est du poison, 
 Monsieur, qu'on vous deniande. 
 
334 TKANSLATION'S. 
 
 THE ESSENCE OF OPERA 
 
 OR, ALMANZOR AND IMOGEN. 
 
 AN OPERA IN THREE ACTS. 
 
 FROM AN ANONYMOUS FRENCH AUTHOR. 
 
 SUBJECT OF THE OPERA. 
 
 A brave young Prince a young Princess adores ; 
 A combat kills him, but a God restores. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 A Musician. People, appear, approach, advance. 
 
 SUJET DE CET OPERA. 
 
 Un jeune Prince Amerciain 
 
 Adore une jeune Princesse ; 
 Cet amant, qui perit au milieu de la piece, 
 Par le secours d'un Dieu ressuscite a la fin. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Un Musicien. Peuple, entrez — que Ton s'avance. 
 
THE ESSENCE OF OPKRA. 335 
 
 To Singers. 
 You that can sing, the chorus bear : 
 
 To Dancers. 
 You that can turn your toes out, dance : 
 Let's celebrate this faithful pair. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Imogen. My love ! 
 Almanzok. My soul ! 
 
 Au.v Chanteurs. 
 Vous, tachez de prendre le terns : 
 Aux Danseurs. 
 Vous, le jambe tendu, partez bien en cadence : 
 Celebrons le bonheur des fideles amans ! 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Imogene. Cher Prince, on nous unit ! 
 Almanzor. J'en suis ravi, Priucesse ! 
 
336 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Both. At length then we unite ! 
 
 People, sing, dance, and shew us your delight. 
 Chorus. Let's sing, and dance, and shew 'em our 
 delight. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Imogen'. O love ! 
 
 [^ noise of war. The Prince ap- 
 pearSf pursued hy his enemies. 
 Comhat. The Princess faints. 
 The Prince is mortally wounded.'] 
 
 Les Deux. Peuples, chantez, dansez, montrez votre 
 
 allegresse ! 
 Le Chceuk. Chantons, dansons, montrons notre alle- 
 gresse ! 
 
 ACTE II. 
 
 Imogene. Amour ! 
 
 ( Tumulte de guerre. Le Prince parait, 
 poursuivi par ses ennemis. Combat. Le 
 Princesse s*evanouit. Le Prince est tue.) 
 
Tin: ESSENCE OF OPERA. 3.^7 
 
 Almaxzou. 
 
 Alas 
 
 
 
 hlOGEN. 
 
 
 Ah, 
 
 what ! 
 
 Almanzor. 
 
 
 
 I die ! 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 
 
 Ah me ! 
 
 People, sing, dance, and shew your misery. 
 Chorus. Let's sing, and dance, and shew our misery. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Pallas descends in a cloud to Almanzor^ and speaks. 
 Pallas. Almanzor, live! 
 
 Almanzor. Helas ! 
 Imogene. Quoi ! 
 
 Almanzor. J*expire ! 
 
 Imogene. O malheur I 
 
 Peuple, chantez, dansez, montrez votre douleur ! 
 
 Le Choeur. Chantons, dansons, montrons notre 
 
 douleur ! 
 
 acte III. 
 
 Pallas dans un nuage, a Almanzor. 
 
 Pallas. Pallas te rend le jour ! 
 
 z 
 
338 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Imogen. Oh bliss ! 
 
 Almaxzor. What do I see? 
 
 Trio. People, sing, dance, and hail this prodig-y. 
 Chorus. Let's sing, and dance, and hail this prodigy. 
 
 Imogene. Ah ! quel moment ! 
 
 Almanzor. Oiisuis-je? 
 
 Les Trois. Peuples, chantez, dansez, celebrez ce pro- 
 
 dige ! 
 La Ch(EUR. Chantons, dansons, celebrons ce prodige ! 
 
I'U.VXSLATIONS. 339 
 
 ELVES IN A MONASTERY. 
 
 A FRAGMENT, FROM THE I, T T R I N OK BOILEAU. 
 
 Discord beheld, and with eiiraptur'd eyes 
 Shriek'd a delight which tore into the skies : 
 The dark air, <T^roanin<>; with the dreadful blow, 
 Rolls a deep thunder to the far Citeaux, 
 AVHiere midst fat Elves and Pleasures nonchalant, 
 The soft Indulgence keeps her favourite haunt : 
 
 La Discorde en sourit, et, les suivant des yeux, 
 De joie, en les voyant, pousse un cri dans les cieux. 
 L'air, ([ui gemit du cri de I'horrible deesse, 
 ^'a jusques dans Citeaux reveiller la Mollesse. 
 Cest la qu'en un dortoir elle fait son sejour ; 
 Les Plaisirs nonchalants fohitrent a I'entour; 
 
 z 'Z 
 
340 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Some, laughing, paint a monk's cheek red as wine 
 Some in a corner feed an embonpoint ; 
 Low bends Voluptuousness with Magd'len hairs ; 
 And Sleep sheds poppies in the shape of prayers. 
 
 L*un paitrit dans un coin I'embonpoint des chanoines j 
 L*autre broie en riant le vermilion des moines : 
 La Volupte la sert avec des yeux devots, 
 Et toujours le Sommeil lui verse des pavots. 
 
TRANSLATIONS. 3^1 
 
 THE OLD KINGS OF FRANCE. 
 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 Where are the goldeu times, when kings, who sat 
 Illustrious with the names of Fool, and Fat, 
 Still sat, and doz'd, and left the vulgar cares 
 Of public government to counts and mayors ? 
 Their happy hours in softness slipt away, 
 All night in boozing, and in bed all day : 
 
 Helas ! qu'est devenu ce temps, cet heureux temps, 
 Ou les rois s'honoroient du nom de faineants, 
 S*endormoient sur le trone, et, me servant sans honte, 
 Laissoient leur sceptre aux mains ou d'un maire ou 
 
 d'un comte ! 
 Aucun soin napprochoit de leur paisible cour ; 
 On reposoit la nuit, on dormoit tout le jour : 
 
342 TRANSLATIOxMS. 
 
 Only ill spring, when cruel storms have done, 
 And the new air is tender with the sun, 
 Four gentle oxen, moving in a string, 
 Paraded in his town the skmo-ard kiim-. 
 
 Oh times admired and mourned ! — 
 
 Seulement au printemps, quand Flore dans les plaines 
 Faisoit taire des vents les bruyantes haleines, 
 Quatre boeufs atteles, d'un pas tranquille et lent, 
 Promenoient dans Paris le monarque indolent. 
 
 Ce doux siecle n'est phu 
 
TKANSLATIONS. 343 
 
 THE BATTLE OE THE BOOKS. 
 
 FROM THE SAME. 
 
 Tub subject of the Lutrin is a dispute between the Chanter and Treasurer (or Dean) of 
 a Cathedral Chapel in Paris, respecting the right of having a reading-desk in the Choir, 
 and of gi viug the benediction. If the Chanter can succeed in publicly giving tlie benediction 
 to the Dean himself, he thinks he shall establish that privilege without further trouble: on 
 the other hand, if the Dean can get the start of him, and bless the Chanter, his predominance 
 is secured for ever. 
 
 Luckily for the Dean, whenever he and the Chanter are together, and a multitude 
 assembled, he enjoys, from prescription, tlie greater influence; and how he gains his end 
 accordingly, is set forth in the ensuing Battle of the Hooks, which is the original of Swift's 
 prose satire. Boileau is quite at home in it. It gives him an opportunity, as Warton eb- 
 serves, of indulging in his favourite pastime of ridiculing bad authors. This perhaps is the 
 liveliest and most inventive passage in all the Lutrin ; and it may be fairly pitted against the 
 Battle of the Beaux and Ladies in the Rape of the Lock, being at once more satirical, pro- 
 bable, and full of life. If Pope's mock-heroic excels in delicacy and fancy (which we cannot 
 but think it does, out and out,) Boileau's may lay claim to a jollier and robustcr spirit of 
 ridicule, and to a greater portion of what the French call movement. 
 
 Meanwhile the canons, far fioiii all tliis noise, 
 Witli rapid moiithfuls urge tlie hungry joys : 
 
 Loin <hi hriiit cependant les chanoines a table 
 Iniuiok'iit trente niets a leur f'aim indomtable : 
 
344 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 With flowing cups and irritating salt, 
 
 Their thirst by turns they lay and they exalt. 
 
 Fervent they feed, with palate and with eye ; 
 
 Through all its caverns gapes a monstrous ven'son pie. 
 
 To these Fame comes, and hastens to relate 
 
 The law consulted and the threaten'd fate ; 
 
 Up starts the chief, and cries " Consult we too !" 
 
 With bile and claret strove his sudden hue. 
 
 Groans Everard from the board untimely torn. 
 
 But far away among the rest is borne. 
 
 Leur appetit fougueux, par V objet excite, 
 Parcourt tous les recoins d'un monstrueux pate ; 
 Par le sel irritant la soif est allumee : 
 Lorsque d'un pie leger la prompte Renomm^e, 
 Semant par-tout Peffroi, vient au chantre eperdu 
 Conter I'affreux detail de I'oracle rendu. 
 II se leve, enflamme de muscat et de bile, 
 Et pretend a son tour consulter la Sibylle. 
 Evrard a beau gemir du repas d^sert^, 
 Lui-meme est au barreau par le nombre eniporte. 
 
RATTLE or I'lIE HOOKS. 
 
 345 
 
 A sliort and secret passage knew the band ; 
 Through this tliey ruffle, and soon reacli the stand, 
 "Where Barbin, bookseller of equal eye, 
 Sells good and bad to all who choose to buy. 
 Proud up the platform mount the valiant train 
 Making loud way, when lo ! so fates ordain. 
 As proud and loud, and close at hand are seen. 
 The fervid squadron, headed by the Dean. 
 The chiefs approaching, shew a turbid grace ; 
 They measure with their eyes, they fume, they face ; 
 And had they hoofs, had paw'd upon tlie place. 
 
 Par les detours etroits d*une barriere oblique, 
 lis gagnent les degrcs, et le perron antique 
 Oi^i sans cesse, etalant bons et mechants ecrits, 
 Barbin vend aux passants des auteurs a tout prix. 
 La le Chantre a grand bruit arrive et se fait place, 
 Dans le fatal instant que, d'une 6gale audace, 
 Le Prc'Iat et sa troupe, a pas tumultueux, 
 Descendoient du Palais I'escalier tortueux. 
 L'un et I'autre rival, s'arretant au passage, 
 8e mesure des yeux, s'observe, s'envisage ; 
 
34^6 
 
 TRANSLATION! 
 
 Thus two proud bulls, whom equal flames surprise 
 For some iair heifer with her Juno's eyes, 
 Forget their pasture, meet with horrid bows, 
 And stooping, threaten with their stormy brows. 
 
 But the sad Everard, elbow'd as he pass'd. 
 No longer could endure his demi-fast. 
 Plung*d in the shop, he seizes on a book, 
 A " Cyrus"* (lucky in the first he took,) 
 
 Une egale fureur anime leurs esprits : 
 Tels deux fougueux taureaux, de jalousie epris, 
 Aupres d'une genisse au front large et superbe 
 Oubliant tous les jours le paturage et Fherbe, 
 A Paspect Pun de I'autre embrases, furieux, 
 D6)a, le front baisse, se menacent des yeux. 
 Mais Evrard, en passant coudoyc par Boirude, 
 Ne sait point contenir son aigre inquietude : 
 
 * " Artamenes, or the Grand Cyrus,'' written by Mademoiselle 
 Scuderi. The books mentioned in this battle are either obsolete 
 French romances, or sorry productions of the author's contemporaries. 
 
nATTLK Ol" THK HOOKS. 3i7 
 
 And aiiuinji; at the man (Hoirude was he) 
 LauiK'h'd at liis licad the chaste enormity. 
 Boirude evaded, graz'd in clieek alone, 
 But Sidrac's stomach felt it with a groan. 
 Pnncli d by the dire " Artamenes, ' he fell 
 At the Dean's feet, and lay incapable. 
 His troop believe him dead, and with a start 
 Feel their own stomachs for the wounded part. 
 
 II entre chez Barbin, et, d'un pas irrite, 
 
 Saisissant du Cyrus un volume ecarte, 
 
 II lance au sacristain le tome epouvantable. 
 
 Boirude fuit le coup : le volume effroyable 
 
 Lui rase le visage, et, droit dans I'estomac, 
 
 Va frapper en sifflant I'infortune Sidrac. 
 
 Le vieillard, accablc de I'horrible Artamene, 
 
 Tombe aux pieds du Prelat, sans pouls et sans haleine. 
 
 Sa troupe le croit morte, et chacun empress^ 
 
 Se croit fra])p('^ du couj), dout il le voit bless(^'. 
 
o48 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 But rage and fear alike now rouse their gall, 
 And twenty champions on the murd'rer fall. 
 The canons, to support the shock, advance : 
 On every side ferments the direful dance ; 
 Then Discord gives a roar, loud as when meet 
 Two herds of rival graziers in a street. 
 The bookseller was out, the troops rush in. 
 Fast fly his quartos ; his octavos spin. 
 On Everard most they fall as thick as hail, "] 
 
 As when in spring the stony showers prevail, >- 
 
 And beat the blossoms till the season fail. J 
 
 Aussitot contre Evrard vingt champions s'elancent ; 
 Pour soutenir leur choc, les chanoines s'avancent. 
 La Discorde tviomphe, et du combat fatal 
 Par un cri donne en Pair PefFroyable signal. 
 
 Chez le libraire absent tout entre, tout se mele : 
 Les livres sur Evrard fondent comme la grele 
 Qui, dans un grand jardin, a coups imp^tueux, 
 Abbat I'honneur naissant des rameaux fructueux. 
 
BATTLE OF TIIF, UOOKS, SI!) 
 
 All arm them as they can : one gives a scotch 
 
 Mltli " Love's Decree ;" another, with the " Watcli :" 
 
 This a French Tasso flings, a harmless wound, 
 
 And that the only " Jonas " ever bound. 
 
 The boy of Barbin vainly interferes. 
 
 And thrusts amidst the fay his generous ears : 
 
 Within, without, the books fly o'er and o'er, "i 
 
 Seek the dipp'd heads, and thump the dusty floor, ^ 
 
 And strew the wondering platform at the door. J 
 
 Chacun s'arme au hasard du livre qu'il rencontre : 
 L'un tient I'Edit d' Amour, I'autre en saisit la Montre; 
 L'un prend le seul Jonas qu'on ait vu relie ; 
 L'autre un Tasse Francois, en naissant oublic. 
 L'eleve de Barbin, commis a la boutique, 
 Veut en vain s'opposer a leur fureur gothi(jue ; 
 Les volumes, sans choix a la tete jettes, 
 Sur le perron poudreux volent de tous c6t(/s : 
 
350 TRANSLATIOXS. 
 
 Here, with Guarini, Terence lies ; and there 
 
 Jostles with Xenophon the fop La Serre. 
 
 Oh what unheard-of books, what great unknowns, 
 
 Quitted that day their dusty garrisons ! 
 
 You, " Almerinde and Simander," mighty twins, 
 
 Were there, tremendous in your ancient skins : 
 
 And you, most hidden " Caloander," saw 
 
 The light for once, drawn forth by Gaillerbois. 
 
 Doubtful of blood, each handles his brain-pan : 
 
 On every chair there lies a clergyman. 
 
 La, pres d'un Guarini, Terence tombe a terre ; 
 La, Xenophon dans Pair heurte contre un la Serre. 
 Oh ! que d'ecrits obscurs, de livres ignores, 
 Furent en ce grand jour de la poudre tires ! 
 Vous en futes tires, Almerinde et Simandre : 
 Et toi, rebut du peuple, inconnu Caloandre, 
 Dans ton repos, dit on, saisi par Gaillerbois, 
 Tu vis le jour alors pour la premiere fois. 
 Chaque coup sur la chair laisse une meurtrissure : 
 Deja plus d'un guerrier se plaint d'une blessure. 
 
MATTLE OV Tin; 1U)0KS. S5\ 
 
 A critical " Le Vayer" Iiits Giraut 
 
 Just wlierc a reader yawns, and lays liini low. 
 
 Marin, who thou<2;ht himself translator pi-oof, 
 
 On his right shoulder feels a dire Brebeuf ; 
 
 The weary pang pervades his arm ; he frowns, 
 
 And damns the Lucan dear to country towns. 
 
 Poor Dodillon, with senses render'd thick 
 
 By a " Pinchene " in quarto, rises sick ; 
 
 Then walks away. Him scorn'd in vain Garagne, 
 
 Smitten in forehead by a Charlemagne : 
 
 D'un le Vayer cpais Giraut est renverse : 
 Marineau, d'un Brebeuf a I'cpaule blesse, 
 En sent par tout le bras une douleur amere, 
 Et maudit la Pharsale aux provinces si chere. 
 D'un Pinchene in-quarto Dodillon etourdi 
 A long-temps le teint pale et le coeur afFadi. 
 Au plus fort du combat le ehapelain Garagne, 
 Vers le sommet du front atteint d'un Charlemagne, 
 
35^ 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 O wonderful effect of sacred verse ! 
 The warrior slumbers where he meant to curse. 
 Great glory with a " Clelia," Bloc obtain'd ; 
 Ten times he threw it, and ten times regained. 
 
 But nought, Fabri, withstood thy bulky Mars, 
 Thou canon, nurs'd in all the church's wars. 
 Big was Fabri, big bon'd, a large divine ; 
 No water knew his elemental wine. 
 By him both Gronde and Gourme were overthrown. 
 And tenor Gras, and Gros the bary-tone, 
 
 (Des vers de ce poeme effet prodigieux !) 
 Tout pret a s'endormir, bailie, et ferme les yeux. 
 A plus d'un combattant la Clelie est fatale : 
 Girou dix fois par elle delate, et se signale. 
 Mais tout cede aux efforts du chanoine Fabri. 
 Ce guerrier, dans I'eglise aux querelles nourri, 
 Est robuste de corps, terrible de visage, 
 Et de I'eau dans son vin n'a jamais su I'usage. 
 II terrasse lui seul et Guibert et Grasset, 
 
HATTLE OF THIC HOOKS. 353 
 
 And Gervis, bad except in easy parts, 
 
 And Gigue, whose alto touched tlie ladies' hearts. 
 
 At last the Singers, turning one and all, 
 Fly to regain the loop-holes of the Hall : 
 So fly from a grey wolf, with sudden sweep. 
 The bleating terrors of a flock of sheep ; 
 Or thus, o'erborne by the Pelidean powers. 
 The Trojans turning sought their windy towers, 
 
 Et Gorillon la basse, et Grandin le ftiusset, 
 Et Gerbais I'agreable, et Guerin I'insipide. 
 
 Des chantres desormais la brigade timide 
 S'ecarte, et du Palais regagne les chemins. 
 Telle, u I'aspect d'un loup, terreur des champs voisins, 
 Fuit d'agneaux eflfray6s une troupe belante : 
 Ou tels devant Achille, aux campagnes du Xanthe, 
 Les Troyens se sauvoient a I'abri de leurs tours. 
 Quand Hrontin a Boirudc adressc ce discours : 
 ^Z A 
 
,354 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 Brontin beheld, and thus addressed Boirude : 
 " Illustrious carrier of the sacred wood, 
 Thou, who one step did'st never yet give way. 
 Huge as the burthen was, and hot the day ; 
 Say shall we look on this inglorious scene, 
 And bear a Canon conquering a Dean ? 
 And shall our children's children have it said. 
 We stain'd the glory of the rochet's red ? 
 Ah, no ; disabled though I thus recline, 
 A carcase still, and a Quinaut, are mine ; 
 
 Illustre porte-croix, par qui notre banniere 
 N'a jamais en marchant fait un pas en arriere, 
 Un chanoine lui seul, triomphant du Prelat, 
 Du rochet a nos yeux ternira-t-il I'eclat ? 
 Non, non : pour te couvrir de sa main redoutable, 
 Accepte de mon corps I'epaisseur favorable. 
 Viens, et, sous ce rempart, a ce guerrier hautain 
 pais voler ce Quinault, qui me reste a la main. 
 
HATTLE OF THE BOOKS. S55 
 
 Accept tlie covert of my bulk, and aim ; 
 
 A blow may crown thee with a David's fame." 
 
 He said, — and tended him the gentle book ; 
 
 With ardour in his eyes the Sexton took, 
 
 Then lurk'd, then aim'd, and right between the eyes, 
 
 Hit the great athlete, to his dumb surprise. 
 
 O feeble storm ! O bullet, not of lead ! 
 
 The book, like butter, dumps against his head. 
 
 With scorn the Canon chafed : " Now mark," said he, 
 
 " Ye secret couple, base and cowardly, 
 
 A ces mots, il lui tend le doux et tendre ouvrage. 
 
 Le sacristain, bouillant de zele et de courage, 
 
 Le prend, se cache, approche, et, droit entre les yeux, 
 
 Frappe du noble ecrit Tathlete audacieux. 
 
 Mais c'est pour IVbranler une foible temp^te, 
 
 Le livre sans vigueur mollit contre sa tete. 
 
 Le chanoine les voit, de colere embrase : 
 
 Attendez, Icur dit-il, couple lache et ruse. 
 
356 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 See if this arm consents against the foe 
 
 To launch a book, that softens in the blow." 
 
 He said, and on an old Infortiat seiz'd, 
 In distant ages, much by lawyers greas'd, 
 A huge black-letter mass, whose mighty hoards 
 More mighty look'd bound in two ponderous boards. 
 Half sides of old black parchment wooed the grasp, 
 And from three nails there hung the remnant of a 
 clasp. 
 
 Et jugez si ma main, aux grands exploits novice, 
 Lance a mes ennemis un livre qui moUisse. 
 
 A ces mots il saisit un vieil Infortiat, 
 Grossi des visions d'Accurse et d'Alciat, 
 Inutile ramas de gothique Venture, 
 Dont quatre ais mal unis formoient la couverture, 
 Entour^e a demi d'un vieux parchemin noir, 
 Ou pendoit a trois clous un reste de fermoir. 
 
hattlp: of the hooks. 357 
 
 To lieave it on its shelf, among tlie I's, 
 \\'oiil(l take three students of the common size. 
 The Canon, nathless, rais'd it to his head, 
 And on the pair, now crouching and half dead, 
 Sent with both hands the wooden thunder down : 
 Groan the two warriors, clashing in the crown. 
 And murdered, and undone, with oak and nails. 
 Forth from the platform roll, and seek the guttery 
 vales. 
 
 Sur Tais i\m le soutient aupres d'un Avicenne, 
 Deux des plus forts mortels I'ebranleroient a peine : 
 Le chanoine pourtaut I'enleve sans effort, 
 Et sur le couple pale, et deja demi-mort, 
 Fait tomber a deux mains leffroyable tonnerre. 
 Les guerriers de ce coup vont mesurer la terre, 
 Et, du bois et des clous meurtris et dechircs, 
 Long-temps, loin du perron, roulent sur les degrcs. 
 
358 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 The Dean, astonish'd at a fall so dire. 
 Utters a cry as when the punched expire. 
 He curses in his heart all devilish broils, 
 And making awful room, six steps recoils. 
 Not long : — for now all eyes encountering his, 
 To see how Deans endure calamities. 
 Like a great chief he makes no further stand. 
 But drawing from his cloak his good right hand, 
 And stretching meek the sacred fingers twain. 
 Goes blessing all around him, might and main. 
 
 Au spectacle ^tonnant de leur chute imprevue, 
 Le Prelat pousse un cri qui penetre la nue. 
 II maudit dans son coeur le demon des combats, 
 Et de Thorreur du coup il recule six pas. 
 Mais bientot rappelant son antique prouesse, 
 II tire du manteau sa dextre vengeresse ; 
 II part, et, de ses doigts saintement along6s, 
 Benit tons les passants, en deux files ranges. 
 II sait que I'ennemi, que ce coup va surprendre, 
 Desormais sur ses pieds ne I'oseroit attendre. 
 
15ATTLK OF TIIK HOOKS. 359 
 
 He knows full well, not only that the foe 
 
 Once smitten thus, can neither stand nor go, 
 
 But that the public sense of their defeat 
 
 Must leave him lord, in church as well as street. 
 
 The crowd already on his side he sees ; 
 
 The cry is fierce, *' Profane ones, on your knees :" 
 
 The Chanter, who beheld the stroke from far, 
 
 In vain seeks courage for a sacred war : 
 
 His heart abandons him : he yields, he flies ; 
 
 His soldiers follow with bewilder'd eyes : 
 
 Et dcja voit pour lui tout le peuple en courroux 
 Crier aux combattants : Profanes, a genoux ! 
 Le Chantre, qui de loin voit approcher I'orage, 
 Dans son coeur eperdu cherche en vain du courage : 
 Sa fierte I'abandonne, il tremble, il cede, il fuit. 
 Le long des sacr^s murs sa brigade le suit : 
 Tout s'^carte a Tinstant ; mais aucun nen rechappe ; 
 Par-tout le doigt vain(|ueur Ics suit et les rattrape. 
 
360 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 All fly, all fear, but none escape the pain ; 
 The conq'ring fingers follow and detain. 
 Everard alone, upon a book employ'd. 
 Had hoped the sacred insult to avoid ; 
 But the wise chief, keeping a side-long eye, 
 And feigning to the right to pass him by, 
 Suddenly turn'd, and facing him in van. 
 Beyond redemption blessed th' unhappy man. 
 The man, confounded with the mortal stroke. 
 From his lono; vision of rebellion woke. 
 
 Evrard seul, en un coin prudemment retire, 
 
 Se croyoit a convert de I'insulte sacre ; 
 
 Mais le Pr^lat vers lui fait une marche adroite ; 
 
 II I'observe de I'oeil ; et, tirant vers la droite, 
 
 Tout-d'un-coup tourne a gauche, et d'un bras fortun^ 
 
 Benit subitement le guerrier consterne. 
 
 Le chanoine, surpris de lafoudre mortelle, 
 
 Se dresse, et leve en vain une tete rebelle ; 
 
HATTLE OF TIIK 1U)()KS. 86l 
 
 Fell Oil his knees in penitential wise, 
 
 And gave decorum what he owed the skies. 
 
 Home trod the Dean victorious, and ordain'd 
 The resurrection of the Desk regained : 
 While the vain Chapter, with its ftdlen crest. 
 Slunk to its several musings, lost and blessed. 
 
 Sur ses genoux tremblants il tombe a cet aspect, 
 Et donne a la frayeur ce qu'il doit au respect. 
 
 Dans le temple aussitot le Pr^lat, plain de gloire, 
 Va jjouter les doux fruits de sa sainte victoire : 
 Et de leur vain projet les chanoines punis 
 S*en retournent chez eux, eperdus, et benis. 
 
 ■JIIE END. 
 
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