I MET a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
YE hasten to the dead! What seek ye there, Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear? O thou quick Heart, which pantest to possess All that anticipation feigneth fair!
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go, And that which never yet was known would know Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, Seeking alike from happiness and woe A refuge in the cavern of gray death?
O heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do ye Hope to inherit in the grave below?
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate. O conquer what you cannot satiate! For to your passion I am far more coy Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy In winter noon. Of your antipathy If I am the Narcissus, you are free To pine into a sound with hating me.
LIFT not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be painted there, And it but mimic all we would believe
With colors idly spread :-behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin destinies; who ever weave
The shadows, which the world calls substance, there.
I knew one who lifted it-he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love, But found them not, alas! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendor among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove For truth, and like the Preacher found it not,
POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return! Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine. Which thou too feel'st; yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude. In honor'd poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,— Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame; Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, History is but the shadow of their shame, Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts, As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit By force or custom? Man who man would be, Must rule the empire of himself; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquish'd will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see In hating such a hateless thing as me? There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side. In vain would you assuage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile
FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
I HATED thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most ambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer A frail and bloody pomp, which time has swept In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre, For this I pray'd, would on thy sleep have crept, Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, And stifled thee, their minister. I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than force or fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of time.
DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI.
From the Italian of Dante.
GUIDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I, Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly, With winds at will, where'er our thoughts might wend, And that no change, nor any evil chance, Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be, That even satiety should still enhance Between our hearts their strict community, And that the bounteous wizard then would place Vanna and Bice and my gentle love, Companions of our wandering, and would grace With passionate talk, wherever we might rove, Our time, and each were as content and free As I believe that thou and I should be.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
Ταν άλα ταν γλαυκαν όταν ὧνεμος ατρεμαβαλλη, κ. τ. λ.
WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep The azure sea, I love the land no more, The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep Tempt my unquiet mind.-But when the roar Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst, I turn from the drear aspect to the home Of earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed, When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea, Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
HYMN TO MERCURY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER. I.
SING, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove, The Herald-child, king of Arcadia And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love Having been interwoven, modest May Bore Heaven's dread Supreme-an antique grove Shadow'd the cavern where the lovers lay In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men, And white-arm'd Juno slumber'd sweetly then.
Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling, And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief, She gave to light a babe all babes excelling, A schemer subtle beyond all belief; A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing, A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, And other glorious actions to achieve.
The babe was born at the first peep of day; He began playing on the lyre at noon, And the same evening did he steal away Apollo's herds;-the fourth day of the moon On which him bore the venerable May, From her immortal limbs he leap'd full soon, Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep, But out to seek Apollo's herds would creep.
Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, He in his sacred crib deposited
The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rush'd with great leaps up to the mountain's head, Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might Devise in the lone season of dun night.
Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has Driven steeds and chariot-the child meanwhile strode O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God
Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows, And safely stall'd in a remote abode- The archer Argicide, elate and proud, Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.
He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way, But, being ever mindful of his craft,
Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seem'd before, were aft: His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray, And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs, And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.
And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass
A mighty pile of wood the God then heap'd, And having soon conceived the mystery Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stript The bark, and rubb'd them in his palms,-on high Suddenly forth the burning vapor leapt, And the divine child saw delightedly-- Mercury first found out for human weal Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.
And fine dry logs and roots innumerous He gather'd in a delve upon the ground- And kindled them-and instantaneous
The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapt the great pile with glare and roaring sound, Hermes dragg'd forth two heifers, lowing loud, Close to the fire-such might was in the God.
And on the earth upon their backs he threw The panting beasts, and roll'd them o'er and o'er, And bored their lives out. Without more ado He cut up fat and flesh, and down before The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two, Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done, He stretch'd their hides over a craggy stone.
We mortals let an ox grow old, and then Cut it up after long consideration,— But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen Drew the fat spoils to the more open station
Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when
Down green Onchestus, heap'd like beds with grass. He had by lot assign'd to each a ration
So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast; O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell, And flower-paven plains, great Hermes past; Till the black night divine, which favoring fell Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast Waken'd the world to work, and from her cell Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime Into her watch-tower just began to climb. XVII.
Now to Alpheus he had driven all The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall, And to the water-troughs which ever run
Through the fresh fields-and when with rush-grass tall,
Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one
Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware Of all the joys which in religion are.
For the sweet savor of the roasted meat Tempted him, though immortal. Natheless, He check'd his haughty will and did not eat, Though what it cost him words can scarce express, And every wish to put such morsels sweet Down his most sacred throat, he did repress; But soon within the lofty-portall'd stall He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all
And every trace of the fresh butchery And cooking, the God soon made disappear, As if it all had vanish'd through the sky:
He burn'd the hoofs and horns and head and hair, The insatiate fire devour'd them hungrily; And when he saw that every thing was clear, He quench'd the coals and trampled the black dust And in the stream his bloody sandals toss'd.
All night he work'd in the serene moonshine- But when the light of day was spread abroad, He sought his natal mountain peaks divine. On his long wandering, neither man nor god Had met him, since he kill'd Apollo's kine, Nor house-dog had bark'd at him on his road;
Had pastured been, the great God made them move Now he obliquely through the key-hole past, Towards the stall in a collected drove.
Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast.
"But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave And live among the Gods, and pass each day In high communion, sharing what they have Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey; And from the portion which my father gave To Phoebus, I will snatch my share away, Which if my father will not-natheless I, Who am the king of robbers, can but try. XXX.
"And, if Latona's son should find me out, I'll countermine him by a deeper plan; I'll pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout, And sack the fane of every thing I can- Caldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt, Each golden cup and polish'd brazen pan, All the wrought tapestries and garments gay.' So they together talk'd;—meanwhile the Day 'XXXI.
Ethereal born arose out of the flood
of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men. Apollo past toward the sacred wood,
Which from the inmost depths of its green glen Echoes the voice of Neptune,-and there stood On the same spot in green Onchestus then That same old animal, the vine-dresser, Who was employ'd hedging his vineyard there.
And Phoebus stoop'd under the craggy roof Arch'd over the dark cavern:-Maia's child Perceived that he came angry, far aloof,
About the cows of which he had been beguiled, And over him the fine and fragrant woof
Of his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piledAs among fire-brands lies a burning spark, Cover'd beneath the ashes cold and dark.
There, like an infant who had suck'd his fill, And now was newly wash'd and put to bed, Awake, but courting sleep with weary will,
And gather'd in a lump hands, feet, and head, He lay, and his beloved tortoise still
He grasp'd and held under his shoulder-blade. Phoebus the lovely mountain-goddess knew, Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who
Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook Of the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo Look'd sharp; and when he saw them not, he took The glittering key, and open'd three great hollow Recesses in the rock-where many a nook
Was fill'd with the sweet food immortals swallow, And mighty heaps of silver and of gold Were piled within-a wonder to behold!
And white and silver robes, all overwrought With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet- Except among the Gods, there can be naught In the wide world to be compared with it. Latona's offspring, after having sought
His herds in every corner, thus did greet Great Hermes:-" Little cradled rogue, declare Of my illustrious heifers, where they are!
"Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us Must rise, and the event will be, that I Shall hawl you into dismal Tartarus, In fiery gloom to dwell eternally; Nor shall your father nor your mother loose
The bars of that black dungeon-utterly You shall be cast out from the light of day, To rule the ghosts of men, unblest as they." XLIV.
To whom thus Hermes slyly answer'd:-"Son Of great Latona, what a speech is this! Why come you here to ask me what is done With the wild oxen which it seems you miss ?
I have not seen them, nor from any one
Have heard a word of the whole business; If you should promise an immense reward, I could not tell more than you now have heard.
"An ox-stealer should be bo h tall and strong, And I am but a little new-born thing, Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:- My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling The cradle-clothes about me all day long,- Or, half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing, And to be wash'd in water clean and warm, And hush'd and kiss'd and kept secure from harm.
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