Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the Hecuba; and the model of friendship which the writer holds up in the characters of Pylades and Orestes, is defaced by the circumstance of their being bad men. But with all its defects it was a wonderful production for a man in his sixty-eighth year. The Hecuba abounds in passages of touching interest; I indulged my fancy, the other day, in what I suppose I must call a paraphrase of that tender scene, in which the captive queen bewails her degraded condition, and anticipates fresh misfortunes to her children. Although not strictly literal, the tone and manner are, I hope, retained.

Lead me, damsels, to the door,

A captive now, a queen no more!
With you linked in the bond of shame;
Uplift, support, my tottering frame!

Maiden, link thy hand in mine,

Let

my weak arm lean on thine!
And I with staff of age will guide
My trembling footsteps at your side.
Fire of heaven; sable Night!
Wherefore in the shadowy light,
Do visions, like the stormy gleams
Of Horror, break upon my dreams!
It was, it was, my daughter fair,-
I knew her face, her golden hair—
Ah, me! whose shriek rings on the air?
Powers of Earth! be reconciled!

The mother prayeth for her child!

For him the apple of her eye-
Who dwelleth 'neath the Thracian sky,
The anchor of his family!

Ah me! a weeping voice to-morrow
Will come unto the child of sorrow;
My heart with boding fears doth swell,
It knows the voice of grief too well!
Oh, that my heavy eyes could trace
The future on Cassandra's face.
I saw a white fawn dappled o'er,
But its breast was stained with gore;
It flew for shelter unto me-

The red-wolf tore it from

my knee!

The Phantom-warrior on his tomb*

Hath cried aloud. Oh, voice of doom!
Terrible the whisper ran,

From lip to lip, from man to man.

The cry of blood comes deep and wild-
Father of Heaven! my child! my child!

MOULTRIE.

Scaliger was willing to surrender for Ennius alone, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, et tous ces garçons-là t. I should be very happy to exchange them all for the lost works of Simonides, who seems to have carried Elegiac poetry to perfection. In simplicity, pathos, and purity of style, his remains testify that he was admirable. Take his affecting poem on the Vanity of Life,—which, following your + Prima Scaligerana.

* Achilles.

example, I have thus overturned into English, with

great freedom.

Nothing long with man abideth,—-
Thus the Chian prophet sung;
Like the leaves upon a tree,

Green and faded, so is he,

Withered soon as he hath sprung.

Who hath said unto his spirit,
I will take this lowly seat?
Hope sings to him, and his eye
Looketh to a brighter sky,

A fairer garden for his feet.

In the pleasant light of morn,

Man riseth like a tender flower,
Perfuming some woodland spot;
The evening comes, and finds him not-
Blooming, dying in an hour!

Doth the young heart, chaunting gaily
In the Summer's orient light,
Think its song will ere grow old,
Or its sunny face be rolled

In the garment of the night!

Treasure these things in thy bosom,
Pilgrim-child of joy and tears;
Waiting for a home more blest,
Where thy weary feet shall rest

At the boundary-stone of years!

There is one circumstance in the history of Simonides deserving particular notice; he is said to have been the first poet who received money for his writings. The reason he assigned for his conduct is at once satisfactory and conclusive. "I had rather,' were his words, leave something to my enemies after my death, than need any assistance from my friends while living,' How well he must have known the world!

[ocr errors]

WALKER.

The charms you admire in Simonides, flourish with equal vigour in the poems of Homer. Pope, was one day reading to an old lady a canto of Spenser, and she remarked upon his concluding, that he had been showing her a gallery of pictures. There is something, added the poet, in Spenser, that pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it did in one's youth. I read the Fairy Queen when I was about twelve, with infinite delight, and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago. This criticism is not less true of the Homeric Poems; you are delighted in both with the same freshness and sincerity; the same dignity and simplicity of character. Homer's gallery of pictures differs, indeed, from Spenser's in subject; but we continue to gaze upon them

with the same pleasure through every succeeding year. Time, that destroys so many works of art, only seems to mellow their colouring. Perhaps the Odyssey is, on the whole, though far inferior to the Iliad in fire of imagination, the more delightful composition; its moral is of a more domestic and touching character. The picture of a man tossed about in numberless trials, and subjected to so many and various temptations, yet in all preserving undecayed and unblemished, the love of home and of his family, to which his heart unceasingly yearns, is full of interest of the deepest order*.

MOULTRIE.

Whoever was the author of the Iliad, his imagination was imbued with the grandeur of eastern song. His Impersonations often breathe all the ardour of the Bible Poetry. How magnificent is the advance of Apollo to the battle. The shield, as Cowper happily renders it, is tempestuous. By the Greeks and all the Oriental nations, the brightness of the eyes and of the features was regarded as a supernatural sign. The emerald eyes of their gods shone with mysterious splendour through the gloom of the Adytum. Availing themselves of this prevalent belief, im

* De Jove Homeri Dissertatio, by Dr. C. G. Eckenbrecher.

« AnteriorContinuar »