Thebais - Book One - part III
Oh race confed’rate into crimes, that prove
Triumphant o’er th’ eluded rage of Jove!
This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain,
And unregarded thunder rolls in vain:
Th’ o’erlaboured Cyclops from his task retires,
Th’ Æolian forge exhausted of its fires.
For this, I suffered Phœbus’ steeds to stray,
And the mad ruler to misguide the day;
When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turned,
And heaven itself the wand’ring chariot burned.
For this, my brother of the wat’ry reign
Released th’ impetuous sluices of the main:
But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain.
Two races now, allied to Jove, offend;
To punish these, see Jove himself descend.
The Theban kings their line from Cadmus trace,
From godlike Perseus those of Argive race.
Unhappy Cadmus’ fate who does not know,
And the long series of succeeding woe?
How oft the furies, from the deeps of night,
Arose, and mixed with men in mortal fight:
Th’ exulting mother, stained with filial blood;
The savage hunter and the haunted wood;
The direful banquet why should I proclaim,
And crimes that grieve the trembling gods to name?
Ere I recount the sins of these profane,
The sun would sink into the western main,
And rising, gild the radiant east again.
Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed)
The murd’ring son ascend his parent’s bed,
Through violated nature force his way,
And stain the sacred womb where once lie lay?
Yet now in darkness and despair he groans,
And for the crimes of guilty fate atones.
His sons with scorn their eyeless father view,
Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew.
Thy curse, oh Œdipus, just heav’n alarms,
And sets th’ avenging thunderer in arms.
I from the root thy guilty race will tear,
And give the nations to the waste of war.
Adrastus soon, with gods averse, shall join
In dire alliance with the Theban line
Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed;
The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed;
Fixed is their doom; this all-rememb’ring breast
Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant’s feast.”
He said; and thus the queen of heav’n returned;
(With sudden grief her lab’ring bosom burned)
“Must I, whose cares Phoroneus’ tow’rs defend,
Must I, oh Jove, in bloody wars contend?
Thou know’st those regions my protection claim,
Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame:
Though there the fair Egyptian heifer fed,
And there deluded Argus slept, and bled;
Though there the brazen tower was stormed of old,
When Jove descended in almighty gold:
Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes,
Those bashful crimes disguised in borrowed shapes;
But Thebes, witero shining in colostial charms
Thou cam’st triumphant to a mortal’s arms,
When all my glories o’er her limbs were spread,
And blazing light’nings danced around her bed;
Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves, may prove:
Ah why should Argos feel the rage of Jove?
Yet since thou wilt thy sister-queen control,
Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul,
Go, raze my Samos, let Mycene fall,
And level with the dust the Spartan wall;
No more let mortals Juno’s pow’r invoke,
Her fanes no more with eastern incense smoke,
Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke;
But to your Isis all my rites transfer,
Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her;
For her, through Egypt’s fruitful clime renowned
Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound.
But if thou must reform the stubborn times,
Avenging on the sons the father’s crimes,
And from the long records of distant age
Derive incitements to renew thy rage;
Say, from what period then has Jove designed
To date his vengeance; to what bounds confined?
Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides
His wand’ring stream, and through the briny tides
Unmixed to his Sicilian river glides.
Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim,
Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name;
Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood
Of fierce Œnomaus, defiled with blood:
Where once his steeds their savage banquet found,
And human bones yet whiten all the ground.
Say, can those honours please; and canst thou love
Presumptuous Crete that boasts the tomb of Jove?
And shall not Tantalus’s kingdoms share
Thy wife and sister’s tutelary care?
Reverse, O Jove, thy too severe decree,
Nor doom to war a race derived from thee;
On impious realms and barb’rous kings impose
Thy plagues, and curse ‘em with such sons as those.”
Thus, in reproach and pray’r, the queen expressed
The rage and grief contending in her breast;
Unmoved remained the ruler of the sky,
And from his throne returned this stern reply:
“‘Twas thus I deemed thy haughty soul would bear
The dire, though just, revenge which I prepare
Against a nation thy peculiar care:
No less Dione might for Thebes contend,
Nor Ilacehus less his native town defend;
Yet these in silence see the fates fulfil
Their work, and rev’rence our superior will.
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Thebais - Book One - part I
Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes’ alarms,
Th’ alternate reign destroyed by impious arms,
Demand our song; a sacred fury fires
My ravished breast, and all the muse inspires.
O goddess, say, shall I deduce my rhymes
From the dire nation in its early times,
Europa’s rape, Agenor’s stern decree,
And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea?
How with the serpent’s teeth he sowed the soil,
And reaped an iron harvest of his toil?
Or how from joining stones the city sprung,
While to his harp divine Amphion sung?
Or shall I Juno’s hate to Thebes resound,
Whose fatal rage th’ unhappy monarch found?
The sire against the son his arrows drew,
O’er the wide fields the furious mother flew,
And while her arms a second hope contain,
Sprung from the rocks and plunged into the main.
But waive whate’er to Cadmus may belong,
And fix, O muse ! the barrier of thy song
At Œdipus: from his disasters trace
The long confusions of his guilty race:
Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing,
And mighty Cæsar’s conqu’ring eagles sing;
How twice he tamed proud Ister’s rapid flood,
While Dacian mountains streamed with barb’rous blood;
Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll,
And stretched his empire to the frozen pole;
Or long before, with early valour, strove,
In youthful arms, t’ assert the cause of Jove.’
And thou, great heir of all thy father’s fame,
Increase of glory to the Latian name,
Oh ! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign,
Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain.
What though the stars contract their heav’nly space,
And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place;
Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway,
Conspire to court thee from our world away;
Though Phœbus longs to mix his rays with thine,
And in thy glories more serenely shine;
Though Jove himself no less content would be
To part his throne and share his heaven with thee
Yet stay, great Cæsar ! and vouchsafe to reign
O’er the wide earth, and o’er the wat’ry main,
Resign to Jove his empire of the skies,
And people heav’n with Roman deities.
The time will come, when a diviner flame
Shall warm my breast to sing of Cæsar’s fame:
Meanwhile permit, that my preluding muse
In Theban wars an humbler theme may chuse:
Of furious hate surviving death, she sings,
A fatal throne to two contending kings,
And fun’ral flames that, parting wide in air,
Express the discord of the souls they bear :
Of towns dispeopled, and the wand’ring ghosts
Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts;
When Dirce’s fountain blushed with Grecian blood,
And Thetis, near Ismenos’ swelling flood,
With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep,
In heaps, his slaughtered sons into the deep.
What hero, Clie ! wilt thou first relate?
The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet’s fate?
Or how, with hills of slain on ev’ry side,
Hippomedon repelled the hostile tide
Or how the youth with ev’ry grace adorned
Untimely fell, to be for ever mourned?
Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend,
And sing with horror his prodigious end.
Now wretched Œdipus, deprived of sight,
Led a long death in everlasting night;
But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray
Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day,
The clear reflecting mind presents his sin
In frightful views, and makes it day within;
Returning thoughts in endless circles roll,
And thousand furies haunt his guilty soul:
The wretch then lifted to th’ unpitying skies
Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes,
Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook,
‘While from his breast these dreadful accents broke.
“Ye gods ! that o’er the gloomy regions reign,
Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain;
Thou, sable Styx ! whose livid streams are rolled
Through dreary coasts, which I though blind behold:
Tisiphone, that oft hast heard my pray’r,
Assist, if Œdipus deserve thy care !
If you received me from Jocasta’s womb,
And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come:
If leaving Polybus, I took my way,
To Cirrha’s temple on that fatal day,
When by the son the trembling father died,
Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide:
If I the Sphinx’s riddles durst explain,
Taught by thyself to win the promised reign:
If wretched I, by baleful furies led,
With monstrous mixture stained my mother’s bed,
For hell and thee begot an impious brood,
And with full lust those horrid joys renewed;
Then se1f-condemned to shades of endless night,
Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight:
If worthy thee, and what thou mightst inspire.
Oh hear ! and aid the vengeance I require,
My sons their old, unhappy sire despise,
Spoiled of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes;
Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn,
Whilst these exalt their sceptres o’er my urn;
These sons, ye gods ! who with flagitious pride
Insult my darkness, and my groans deride.
Art thou a father, unregarding Jove !
And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above?
Thou fury, then some lasting curse entail,
Which o’er their children’s children shall prevail :
Place on their heads that crown distained with gore,
Which these dire hands from my slain father tore;
Go ! and a parent’s heavy curses bear;
Break all the bonds of nature, and. prepare
Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war.
Give them to dare, what I might wish to see
Blind as I am, some glorious villainy !
Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands,
Their ready guilt preventing thy commands:
Couldst thou some great, proportioned mischief frame,
They’d prove the father from whose loins they came.”
The fury heard, while on Cocytus’ brink
Her snakes untied, sulphureous waters drink;
But at the summons rolled her eyes around,
And snatched the starting serpents from the ground.
Not half so swiftly shoots along in air
The gliding lightning, or descending star.
Through crowds of airy shades she winged her flight,
And dark dominions of the silent night;
Swift as she passed the flitting ghosts withdrew,
And the pale spectres trembled at her view:
To th’ iron gates of Tænarus she flies,
There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies.
The day beheld, and sick’ning at the sight,
Yelled her fair glories in the shades of night.
Affrighted Atlas, on the distant shore,
Trembled, and shook the heav’ns and gods he bore.
Now from beneath Malea’s airy height
Aloft she sprung, and steered to Thebes her flight;
With eager speed the well-known journey took,
Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook.
A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade,
A hundred serpents guard her horrid head,
In her sunk eye-balls dreadful meteors glow:’
Such rays from Phœbe’s bloody circle flow,
When lab’ring with strong charms, she shoots from high
A fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky.
Blood stained her cheeks, and from her mouth there came tie
Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame:
From ev’ry blast of her contagious breath
Famine and drought proceed, and plagues, and death.
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Thebais - Book One - part II
A robe obscene was o’er her shoulders thrown,
A dress by fates and furies worn alone. us
She tossed her meagre arms; her better hand’
In waving circles whirled a fun’ral brand:
A serpent from her left was seen to rear
His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air.
But when the fury took her stand on high, too
Where vast Oitheron’s top salutes the sky,
A hiss from all the snaky tire went round:
The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound,
And through th’ Aobaian cities send the sound.
Œte, with high Parnassus, heard the voice;
Eurotas’ banks remurmured to the noise;.
Again Leucothea shook at these alarms,
And pressed Palæmon closer in her arms.
Headlong from thence the glowing fury springs,
And o’er the Theban palace spreads her wings,
Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds
Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds.
Straight with the rage of all their race possessed
Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest,
And all their furies wake within their breast.
Their tortured minds repining envy tears,
And hate, engendered by suspicious fears;
And sacred thirst of sway; and all the ties
Of nature broke; and royal perjuries;
And impotent desire to reign alone,
That scorns the dull reversion of a throne;
Each would the sweets of sov’reign rule devour,
While discord waits upon divided power.
As stubborn steers by brawny plowmen broke,
And joined reluctant to the galling yoke,
Alike disdain with servile necks to bear
Th’ unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share,
But rend the reins, and bound a diff’rent way,
And all the furrows in confusion lay:
Such was the discord of the royal pair,
Whom fury drove precipitate to war.
In vain the chiefs contrived a specious way,
To govern Thebes by their alternate sway:
Unjust decree ! while this enjoys the state,
That mourns in exile his unequal fate,
And the short monarch of a hasty year
Foresees with anguish his returning heir.
Thus did the league their impious arms restrain,
But scarce subsisted to the second reign.
Yet then, no proud aspiring piles were raised,
No fretted roofs with polished metals blazed;
No laboured columns in long order placed,
No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced;
No nightly bands in glitt’ring armour wait
Before the sleepless tyrant’s guarded gate;
No chargers then were wrought in burnished gold,
Nor silver vases took the forming mold;
Nor gems on bowls embossed were seen to shine,
Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine.
Say, wretched rivals ! what provokes your rage?
Say, to what end your impious arms engage?
Not all bright Phœbus views in early morn,
Or when his ev’ning beams the west adorn,
When the south glows with his meridian ray,
And the cold north receives a fainter day;
For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice,
Were all those realms the guilty victor’s prize !
But fortune now (the lots of empire thrown)
Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown:
What joys, oh tyrant ! swelled thy soul that day,
When all were slaves thou couldst around survey,
Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own,
And singly fill a feared and envied throne !
But the vile vulgar, ever discontent,
Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent;
Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state,
And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate;
New lords they madly make, then tamely bear,
And softly curse tile tyrants whom they fear.
And one of those who groan beneath the sway
Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey,
(Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spite
With scandal armed, th’ ignoble mind’s delight,)
Exclaimed-“ O Thebes ! for thee what fates remain,
What woes attend this inauspicious reign?
Must we, alas ! our doubtful necks prepare,
Each haughty master’s yoke by turns to bear,
And still to change whom changed we still must fear?
These now control a wretched people’s fate,
These can divide, and these reverse the state:
Ev’n fortune rules no more !-O servile land,
Where exiled tyrants still by turns command.
Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove !
Is this th’ eternal doom decreed above?
On thy own offspring hast thou fixed this fate,
From the first birth of our unhappy state;
When banished Cadmus, wand’ring o’er the main,
For lost Europa searched the world in vain,
And fated in Bœotian fields to found
A rising empire on a foreign ground,
First raised our walls on that ill-omened plain,
Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain?
What lofty looks th’ unrivalled monarch bears !
How all the tyrant in his face appears !
What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow !
Gods ! how his eyes with threat’ning ardour glow !
Can this imperious lord forget to reign,
Quit all his state, descend, and serve again?
Yet, who, before, mere popularly bowed?
Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd?
Patient of right, familiar in the throne?
What wonder then? he was not then alone.
O wretched we, a vile, submissive train,
Fortune’s tame fools, and slaves in ev’ry reign !
As when two winds with rival force contend,
This way and that, the wav’ring sails they bend,
While freezing Boreas, and black Eurus blow,
Now here, now there, tho reeling vessel throw:
Thus on each side, alas ! our tott’ring state
Feels all the fury of resistless fate,
And doubtful still, and still distracted stands,
While that prince threatens, and while this commands.”
And now th’ almighty father of the gods
Convenes a council in the blest abodes:
Far in the bright recesses of the skies,
high o’er the rolling heav’ns, a mansion lies,
Whence, far below, the gods at once survey
The realms of rising and declining day,
And all lii’ extended space of earth, and air, and sea.
Full in the midst, and on a starry throne,
The majesty of heav’n superior shone;
Serene he looked, and gave an awful nod,
And all the trembling spheres confessed the god.
At Jove’s assent the deities around
In solemn state the consistory crowned.
Next a long order of inferior pow’rs
Ascend from hills, and plains, and shady bow’rs;
Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow;
And those that give the wand’ring winds to blow:
Here all their rage, and ev’n their murmurs cease,
And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace.
A shining synod of majestic gods
Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes;
Heav’n seems improved with a superior ray,
And the bright arch reflects a double day.
The monarch then his solemn silence broke,
The still creation listened while he spoke,
Each sacred accent bears eternal weight,
And each irrevocable word is fate.
“How long shall man the wrath of heav’n defy,
And force unwilling vengeance from the sky!
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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From The Prometheus Vinctus Of Aeschylus
Great Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall;
My voice shall raise no impious strain
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main.
How different now thy joyless fate,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in godlike state,
The blushing beauty by the side,
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled;
The Nymphs and Tritons dances around,
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd.
Thebais - Book One - part V
The king once more the solemn rites requires,
And bids renew the feasts, and wake the fires.
his train obey, while all the courts around
With noisy care and various tumult sound.
Embroidered purple clothes the golden beds;
This slave the floor, and that the table spreads;
A third dispels the darkness of the night,
And fills depending lamps with beams of light.
Here loaves in canisters are piled on high,
And there in flames the slaughtered victims fry.
Sublime in regal state Adrastus shone,
Stretched on rich carpets on his iv’ry throne;
A lofty couch rcceives each princely guest;
Around, at awful distance, wait the rest.
And now the king, his royal feast to grace,
Acestis calls, the guardian of his race,
Who first their youth in arts of virtue trained,
And their ripe years in modest grace maintained;
Then softly whispered in her faithful ear,
And bade his daughters at the rites appear.
When from the close apartments of the night,
The royal nymphs approach divinely bright;
Such was Diana’s, such Minerva’s face;
Nor shine their beauties with superior grace,
But that in these a milder charm endears,
And less of terror in their looks appears.
As on the heroes first they cast their eyes,
O’er their fair cheeks the glowing blushes rise,
Their downcast looks a decent shame confessed,
Then on their father’s rev’rend features rest.
The banquet done, the monarch gives the sign
To fill the goblet high with sparkling wine,
Which Danaus used in sacred rites of old,
With sculpture graced, and rough with rising gold.
Here to the clouds victorious Persons flies,
Medusa seems to move her languid eyes,
And, ev’n in gold, turns paler as she dies.
There from the chace Jove’s tow’ring eagle bears,
On golden wings, the Phrygian to the stars:
Still as he rises in th’ ethereal height,
His native mountains lessen to his sight;
While all his sad companious upward gaze,
Fixed on the glorious scene in wild amaze;
And the swift hounds, affrighted as he flies,
Run to the shade, and bark against the skies.
This golden bowl with gen’rous juice was crowned,
The first libations sprinkled on the ground,
By turns on each celestial pow’r they call;
With Phœbus’ name resounds the vaulted hail.
The courtly train, the strangers, and the rest,
Crowned with chaste laurel, and with garlands dressed,
While with rich gums the fuming altars blaze,
Salute the god in num’rous hymns of praise.
Then thus the king: “Perhaps, my noble guests,
These honoured altars, end these annual feasts
To bright Apollo’s awful name designed,
Unknown, with wonder may perplex your mind.
Great was the cause; our old solemnities
From no blind zeal, or fond tradition rise;
But saved from death, our Argives yearly pay
These grateful honours to the god of day.
“When by a thousand darts the Python slain
With orbs unrolled lay cov’ring all the plain,
(Transfixed as o’er Castalia’s streams he hung,
And sucked new poisons with his triple tongue)
To Argos’ realms the victor god resorts,
And enters old Crotopus’ humble courts.
This rural prince one only daughter blest,
That all the charms of blooming youth possessed;
Fair was her face, and spotless was her mind,
Where filial love with virgin sweetness joined.
Happy ! and happy still she might have proved,
Were she less beautiful, or less beloved !
But Phœbus loved, and on the flow’ry side
Of Nemea’s stream, the yielding fair enjoyed:
Now, ere ten moons their orb with light adorn,
Th’ illustrious offspring of the god was born;
The nymph, her father’s anger to evade,
Retires from Argos to the sylvan shade;
To woods and wilds the pleasing burden bears,
And trusts her infant to a shepherd’s cares.
“How mean a fate, unhappy child ! is thine?
Ah how unworthy those of race divine?
On flow’ry herbs in some green covert laid,
His bed the ground, his canopy the shade,’
He mixes with the bleating lambs his cries,
While the rude swain his rural music tries
To call soft slumbers on his infant eyes.
Yet ev’n in those obscure abodes to live,
Was more, alas ! than cruel fate would give,
For on the grassy verdure as he lay,
And breathed the freshness of the early day,
Devouring dogs the helpless infant tore,
Fed on his trembling limbs, and lapped the gore.
Th’ astonished mother, when the rumour came,
Forgets her father, and neglects her fame;
With loud complaints she fills the yielding air,
And beats her breast, and rends her flowing hair;
Then wild with anguish to her sire she flies:
Demands the sentence, and contented dies.
“But touched with sorrow for the dead too late,
The raging god prepares t’ avenge her fate.
He sends a monster, horrible and fell,
Begot by furies in the depths of hell.
On me, on me, let all thy fury fall,
Nor err from me, since I deserve it all:
Unless our desert cities please thy sight,
Or fun’ral flames reflect a grateful light.
Discharge thy shafts, this ready bosom rend,
And to the shades a ghost triumphant send;
But for my country let my fate atone,
Be mine the vengeance, as the crime my own.
“Merit distressed, impartial heav’n relieves:
Unwelcome life relenting Phœbus gives;
For not the vengeful pow’r, that glowed with rage,
With such amazing virtue durst engage.
The clouds dispersed, Apollo’s wrath expired,
And from the wond’ring god th’ unwilling youth retired.
Thence we these altars in his temple raise,
And offer annual honours, feasts, and praise;
These solemn feasts propitious Phœbus please;
These honours, still renewed, his ancient wrath appease.”
“But say, illustrious guest,” adjoined the king,
“What name you bear, from what high race you spring?
The noble Tydeus stands confessed, and known
Our neighbour prince, and heir of Calydon.
Relate your fortunes, while the friendly night
And silent hours to various talk invite.”
The Theban bends on earth his gloomy eyes,
Confused, and sadly thus at length replies:
“Before these altars how shall I proclaim,
O gen’rous prince! my nation, or my name,
Or through what ancient veins our blood has rolled?
Let the sad tale for ever rest untold!
Yet if propitious to a wretch unknown,
You seek to share in sorrows not your own;
Know, then, from Cadmus I derive my race,
Jocasta’s son, and Thebes my native place.”
To whom the king (who felt his gen’rous breast
Touched with concern for his unhappy guest)
Replies: “Ah! why forbears the son to name
His wretched father, known too well by fame?
Fame, that delights around the world to stray,
Scorns not to take our Argos in her way.
Ev’n those who dwell where sans at distance roll,
In northern wilds, and freeze beneath the pole;
And those who tread the burning Lybian lands,
The faithless Syrtes and the moving sands;
‘Who view the western sea’s extremest bounds,
Or drink of Ganges in their eastern grounds;
All these the woes of Œdipus have known,
Your fates, your furies, and your haunted town.
If on the sons the parents’ crimes descend,
What prince from those his lineage can defend?
Be this thy comfort, that ’tis thine t’ efface,
With virtuous acts, thy ancestor’s disgrace,
And be thyself the honour of thy race.
But see! the stars begin to steal away,
And shine more faintly at approaching day;
Now pour the wine; and in your tuneful lays
Once more resound the great Apollo’s praise.”
“O father Phœbus ! whether Lycia’s coast
And snowy mountain, thy bright presence boast;
Whether to Sweet Castalia thou repair,
And bathe in silver dews thy yellow hair;
Or pleased to find fair Delos float no more,
Delight in Cynthus, and the shady shore;
Or choose thy seat in Ilion’s proud abodes,
The shining structures raised by lab’ring gods;
By thee the bow and mortal shafts are borne;
Eternal charms thy blooming youth adorn:
Skilled in the laws of secret fate above,
And the dark counsels of almighty Jove,
‘Tis thine the seeds of future war to know,
The change of sceptres, and impending woe,
When direful meteors spread, through glowing air,
Long trails of light, and shake their blazing hair.
Thy rage the Phrygian felt, who durst aspire
T’ excel the music of thy heav’nly lyre;
Thy shafts avenged lewd Tityus’ guilty flame,
Th’ immortal victim of thy mother’s fame;
Thy hand slew Python, and the dame who lost
Her num’rous offspring for a fatal boast.
In Phlegyas’ doom thy just revenge appears,
Condemned to furies and eternal fears;
He views his food, but dreads, with lifted eye,
The mould’ring rock that trembles from on high.
“Propitious hear our prayer, O pow’r divine !
And on thy hospitable Argos shine;
Whether the style of Titan please thee more,
Whose purple rays th’ Achæmenes adore;
Or great Osiris, who first taught the swain
In Pharian fields to sow the golden grain;
Or Mitra, to whose beams the Persian bows,
And pays, in hollow rocks, his awful vows;
Mitra, whose head the blaze of light adorns,
Who grasps the struggling heifer’s lunar horns.”
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
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Thebais - Book One - part IV
For by the black infernal Styx I swear,
(That dreadful oath which binds the thunderer)
‘Tis fixed; th’ irrevocable doom of Jove;
No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air;
Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair;
Bid hell’s black monarch my commands obey,
And give up Laius to the realms of day,
Whose ghost yet shiv’ring on Cocytus’ sand,
Expects its passage to thc further strand:
Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear
These pleasing orders to the tyrant’s ear;
That from his exiled brother, swelled with pride
Of foreign forces, and his Argive bride,
Almighty Jove commands him to detain
The promised empire, and alternate reign:
Be this the cause of more than mortal hate:
The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate.”
The god obeys, and to his feet applies
Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies.
His ample hat his beamy locks o’erspread,
And veiled the starry glories of his head.
He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye;
That drives the dead to dark Tartarcan coasts,
Or back to life compels the wand’ring ghosts.
Thus, through the parting clouds, the son of May
Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way;
Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight,
Now springs aloft, and tow’rs th’ ethereal height;
Then wheeling down the steep of heav’n he flies,
And draws a radiant circle o’er the skies.
Meantime the banished Polynices roves
(his Thebes abandoned through th’ Aonian groves,
While future realms his wand’ring thoughts delight,
His daily vision and his dream by night;
Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye,
From whence he sees his absent brother fly,
With transport views the airy rule his own,
And swells on an imaginary throne.
Fain would he cast a tedious age away,
And live out all in one triumphant day.
He chides the lazy progress of the sun,
And bids the year with swifter motion run.
With anxious hopes his craving mind is tost,
And all his joys in length of wishes lost.
The hero then resolves his course to bend
Where ancient Danaus’ fruitful fields extend,
And famed Mycene’s lofty towers ascend,
(Where late the sun did Atreus’ crimes detest,
And disappeared in horror of the feast.)
And now by chance, by fate, or furies led,
From Bacehus’ consecrated caves he fled,
Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound,
And Pentheus’ blood enriched the rising ground.
Then sees Cithaeron tow’ring o’er the plain,
And thence declining gently to the main.
Next to the bounds of Nisus’ realm repairs,
Where treach’rous Scylla cut the purple hairs :
The hanging cliffs of Sciron’s rock explores,
And hears the murmurs of the diff’rent shores:
Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas,
And stately Corinth’s pleasing site surveys.
‘Twas now the time when Phœbus yields to night,
And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light,
Wide o’er the world in solemn pomp she drew
Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew;
All birds and beasts lie hushed; sleep steals away
The wild desires of men, and toils of day,
And brings, descending through the silent air,
A sweet forgetfulness of human care.
Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay,
Promise the skies the bright return of day;
No faint reflections of the distant light
Streak with long gleams the scatt’ring shades of night:
From the damp earth impervious vapours rise,
Encrease the darkness, and involve the skies.
At once the rushing winds with roaring sound
Burst from th’ Æolian caves, and rend the ground,
With equal rage their airy quarrel try,
And win by turns the kingdom of the sky:
But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds
The heav’ns, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds,
From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours,
Which the cold north congeals to haily show’rs.
From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud,
And broken lightnings flash from ev’ry cloud.
Now smoaks with show’rs the misty mountain-ground,
And floated fields lie undistinguished round.
Th’ Inachian streams with headlong fury run,
And Erasmus rolls a deluge on:
The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds,
And spreads its ancient poisons o’er the grounds:
Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play,
Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away:
Old limbs of trees from crackling forests torn,
Are whirled in air, and on the winds are borne:
The storm the dark Lycæan groves displayed,
And first to light exposed the sacred shade.
Th’ intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky,
Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly,
And views astonished, from the hills afar,
The floods descending, and the wat’ry war,’
That, driv’n by storms, and pouring o’er the plain,
Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main.
Through the brown horrors of the night he fled,
Nor knows, amazed, what doubtful path to tread;
His brother’s image to his mind appears,
Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears.
So fares a sailor on the stormy main,
When clouds conceal Boötes’ golden warn,
When not a star its friendly lustre keeps,
Nor trembling Cynthia glimmers on the deeps;
He dreads the rocks, and shoals, and seas, and skies,
While thunder roars, and lightning round him flies.
Thus strove the chief, on every side distressed,
Thus still his courage, with his toils increased;
With his broad shield opposed, he forced his way
Through thickest woods, and roused the beasts of prey,
Till he beheld, where from Larissa’s height
The shelving walls reflect a glancing light:
Thither with haste the Theban hero flies;
On this side Lerna’s pois’nous water lies,
On that Prosymna’s grove and temple rise :
lie passed the gates, which then unguarded lay,
And to the regal palace bent his way;
On the cold marble, spent with toil, he lies,
And waits till pleasing slumbers seal his eyes.
Adrastus here his happy people sways,
Blest with calm peace in his declining days;
By both his parents of descent divine,
Great Jove and Phœbus graced his noble line:
Heaven had not crowned his wishes with a son,
But two fair daughters heired his state and throne.
To him Apollo (wondrous to relate !
But who can pierce into the depths of fate?)
Had sung-“Expect thy sons on Argos’ shore,
“A yellow lion and a bristly boar.”
This long revolved in his paternal breast,
Sate heavy on his heart, and broke his rest;
This, great Amphiaraus, lay hid from thee,
Though skilled in fate, and dark futurity.
The father’s care and prophet’s art were vain,
For thus did the predicting god ordain.
Lo hapless Tydeus, whose ill-fated hand
Had slain his brother, leaves his native land,
And seized with horror in the shades of night,
Through the thick deserts headlong urged his flight:
Now by the fury of the tempest driv’n,
He seeks a shelter from th’ inclement heav’n,
Till, led by fate, the Theban’s steps he treads,
And to fair Argos’ open court succeeds.
When thus the chiefs from diff’rent lands resort
T’ Adrastus’ realms, and hospitable court;
The king surveys his guests with curious eyes,
And views their arms and habit with surprise.
A lion’s yellow skin the Theban wears,
horrid his mane, and rough with curling hairs;
Such once employed Alcides’ youthful toils,
Ere yet adorned with Nemea’s dreadful spoils.
A boar’s stiff hide, of Calydonian breed,
Œnides’ manly shoulders overspread.
Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood,
Alive, the pride and terror of the wood.
Struck with the sight, and fixed in deep amaze,
The King th’ accomplished oracle surveys,
Reveres Apollo’s vocal caves, and owns
The guiding godhead, and his future sons.
O’er all his bosom secret transports reign,
And a glad horror shoots through ev’ry vein.
To heav’n he lifts his hands, erects his sight,
And thus invokes the silent queen of night.
“Goddess of shades, beneath whose gloomy reign
You spangled arch glows with the starry train:
You who the cares of heav’n and earth allay,
Till nature quickened by th’ inspiring ray
Wakes to new vigour with the rising day:
Oh thou who freest me from my doubtful state,
Long lost aid wildered in the maze of fate !
Be present still, oh goddess ! in our aid;
Proceed, and firms those omens thou hast made.
We to thy name our annual rites will pay,
And on thy altars sacrifices lay;
The sable flock shall fall beneath the stroke,
And fill thy temples with a grateful smoke.
Hail, faithful Tripos ! hail, ye dark abodes
Of awful Phœbus: I confess the gods!”
Thus, seized with sacred fear, the monarch prayed;
Then to his inner court the guests conveyed;
Where yet thin fumes from dying sparks arise,
And dust yet white upon each altar lies,
The relics of a former sacrifice.
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
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Niobe In Distress For Her Children Slain By Apollo, From Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book VI. And From A View Of The Painting Of Mr. Richard Wilson
Apollo's wrath to man the dreadful spring
Of ills innum'rous, tuneful goddess, sing!
Thou who did'st first th' ideal pencil give,
And taught'st the painter in his works to live,
Inspire with glowing energy of thought,
What Wilson painted, and what Ovid wrote.
Muse! lend thy aid, nor let me sue in vain,
Tho' last and meanest of the rhyming train!
O guide my pen in lofty strains to show
The Phrygian queen, all beautiful in woe.
'Twas where Maeonia spreads her wide domain
Niobe dwelt, and held her potent reign:
See in her hand the regal sceptre shine,
The wealthy heir of Tantalus divine,
He most distinguish'd by Dodonean Jove,
To approach the tables of the gods above:
Her grandsire Atlas, who with mighty pains
Th' ethereal axis on his neck sustains:
Her other grandsire on the throne on high
Rolls the loud-pealing thunder thro' the sky.
Her spouse, Amphion, who from Jove too springs,
Divinely taught to sweep the sounding strings.
Seven sprightly sons the royal bed adorn,
Seven daughters beauteous as the op'ning morn,
As when Aurora fills the ravish'd sight,
And decks the orient realms with rosy light
From their bright eyes the living splendors play,
Nor can beholders bear the flashing ray.
Wherever, Niobe, thou turn'st thine eyes,
New beauties kindle, and new joys arise!
But thou had'st far the happier mother prov'd,
If this fair offspring had been less belov'd:
What if their charms exceed Aurora's teint.
No words could tell them, and no pencil paint,
Thy love too vehement hastens to destroy
Each blooming maid, and each celestial boy.
Now Manto comes, endu'd with mighty skill,
The past to explore, the future to reveal.
Thro' Thebes' wide streets Tiresia's daughter came,
Divine Latona's mandate to proclaim:
The Theban maids to hear the orders ran,
When thus Maeonia's prophetess began:
'Go, Thebans! great Latona's will obey,
'And pious tribute at her altars pay:
'With rights divine, the goddess be implor'd,
'Nor be her sacred offspring unador'd.'
Thus Manto spoke. The Theban maids obey,
And pious tribute to the goddess pay.
The rich perfumes ascend in waving spires,
And altars blaze with consecrated fires;
The fair assembly moves with graceful air,
And leaves of laurel bind the flowing hair.
Niobe comes with all her royal race,
With charms unnumber'd, and superior grace:
Her Phrygian garments of delightful hue,
Inwove with gold, refulgent to the view,
Beyond description beautiful she moves
Like heav'nly Venus, 'midst her smiles and loves:
She views around the supplicating train,
And shakes her graceful head with stern disdain,
Proudly she turns around her lofty eyes,
And thus reviles celestial deities:
'What madness drives the Theban ladies fair
'To give their incense to surrounding air?
'Say why this new sprung deity preferr'd?
'Why vainly fancy your petitions heard?
'Or say why Caeus offspring is obey'd,
'While to my goddesship no tribute's paid?
'For me no altars blaze with living fires,
'No bullock bleeds, no frankincense transpires,
'Tho' Cadmus' palace, not unknown to fame,
'And Phrygian nations all revere my name.
'Where'er I turn my eyes vast wealth I find,
'Lo! here an empress with a goddess join'd.
'What, shall a Titaness be deify'd,
'To whom the spacious earth a couch deny'd!
'Nor heav'n, nor earth, nor sea receiv'd your queen,
'Till pitying Delos took the wand'rer in.
'Round me what a large progeny is spread!
'No frowns of fortune has my soul to dread.
'What if indignant she decrease my train
'More than Latona's number will remain;
'Then hence, ye Theban dames, hence haste away,
'Nor longer off'rings to Latona pay;
'Regard the orders of Amphion's spouse,
'And take the leaves of laurel from your brows.'
Niobe spoke. The Theban maids obey'd,
Their brows unbound, and left the rights unpaid.
The angry goddess heard, then silence broke
On Cynthus' summit, and indignant spoke;
'Phoebus! behold, thy mother in disgrace,
'Who to no goddess yields the prior place
'Except to Juno's self, who reigns above,
'The spouse and sister of the thund'ring Jove.
'Niobe, sprung from Tantalus, inspires
'Each Theban bosom with rebellious fires;
'No reason her imperious temper quells,
'But all her father in her tongue rebels;
'Wrap her own sons for her blaspheming breath,
'Apollo! wrap them in the shades of death.'
Latona ceas'd, and ardent thus replies
The God, whose glory decks th' expanded skies.
'Cease thy complaints, mine be the task assign'd
'To punish pride, and scourge the rebel mind.'
This Phoebe join'd.--They wing their instant flight;
Thebes trembled as th' immortal pow'rs alight.
With clouds incompass'd glorious Phoebus stands;
The feather'd vengeance quiv'ring in his hands.
Near Cadmus' walls a plain extended lay,
Where Thebes' young princes pass'd in sport the day:
There the bold coursers bounded o'er the plains,
While their great masters held the golden reins.
Ismenus first the racing pastime led,
And rul'd the fury of his flying steed.
'Ah me,' he sudden cries, with shrieking breath,
While in his breast he feels the shaft of death;
He drops the bridle on his courser's mane,
Before his eyes in shadows swims the plain,
He, the first-born of great Amphion's bed,
Was struck the first, first mingled with the dead.
Then didst thou, Sipylus, the language hear
Of fate portentous whistling in the air:
As when th' impending storm the sailor sees
He spreads his canvas to the fav'ring breeze,
So to thine horse thou gav'st the golden reins,
Gav'st him to rush impetuous o'er the plains:
But ah! a fatal shaft from Phoebus' hand
Smites thro' thy neck, and sinks thee on the sand.
Two other brothers were at wrestling found,
And in their pastime claspt each other round:
A shaft that instant from Apollo's hand
Transfixt them both, and stretcht them on the sand:
Together they their cruel fate bemoan'd,
Together languish'd, and together groan'd:
Together too th' unbodied spirits fled,
And sought the gloomy mansions of the dead.
Alphenor saw, and trembling at the view,
Beat his torn breast, that chang'd its snowy hue.
He flies to raise them in a kind embrace;
A brother's fondness triumphs in his face:
Alphenor fails in this fraternal deed,
A dart dispatch'd him (so the fates decreed:)
Soon as the arrow left the deadly wound,
His issuing entrails smoak'd upon the ground.
What woes on blooming Damasichon wait!
His sighs portend his near impending fate.
Just where the well-made leg begins to be,
And the soft sinews form the supple knee,
The youth sore wounded by the Delian god
Attempts t' extract the crime-avenging rod,
But, whilst he strives the will of fate t' avert,
Divine Apollo sends a second dart;
Swift thro' his throat the feather'd mischief flies,
Bereft of sense, he drops his head, and dies.
Young Ilioneus, the last, directs his pray'r,
And cries, 'My life, ye gods celestial! spare.'
Apollo heard, and pity touch'd his heart,
But ah! too late, for he had sent the dart:
Thou too, O Ilioneus, art doom'd to fall,
The fates refuse that arrow to recal.
On the swift wings of ever flying Fame
To Cadmus' palace soon the tidings came:
Niobe heard, and with indignant eyes
She thus express'd her anger and surprise:
'Why is such privilege to them allow'd?
'Why thus insulted by the Delian god?
'Dwells there such mischief in the pow'rs above?
'Why sleeps the vengeance of immortal Jove?'
For now Amphion too, with grief oppress'd,
Had plung'd the deadly dagger in his breast.
Niobe now, less haughty than before,
With lofty head directs her steps no more
She, who late told her pedigree divine,
And drove the Thebans from Latona's shrine,
How strangely chang'd!--yet beautiful in woe,
She weeps, nor weeps unpity'd by the foe.
On each pale corse the wretched mother spread
Lay overwhelm'd with grief, and kiss'd her dead,
Then rais'd her arms, and thus, in accents slow,
'Be sated cruel Goddess! with my woe;
'If I've offended, let these streaming eyes,
'And let this sev'nfold funeral suffice:
'Ah! take this wretched life you deign'd to save,
'With them I too am carried to the grave.
'Rejoice triumphant, my victorious foe,
'But show the cause from whence your triumphs flow?
'Tho' I unhappy mourn these children slain,
'Yet greater numbers to my lot remain.'
She ceas'd, the bow string twang'd with awful sound,
Which struck with terror all th' assembly round,
Except the queen, who stood unmov'd alone,
By her distresses more presumptuous grown.
Near the pale corses stood their sisters fair
In sable vestures and dishevell'd hair;
One, while she draws the fatal shaft away,
Faints, falls, and sickens at the light of day.
To sooth her mother, lo! another flies,
And blames the fury of inclement skies,
And, while her words a filial pity show,
Struck dumb--indignant seeks the shades below.
Now from the fatal place another flies,
Falls in her flight, and languishes, and dies.
Another on her sister drops in death;
A fifth in trembling terrors yields her breath;
While the sixth seeks some gloomy cave in vain,
Struck with the rest, and mingled with the slain.
One only daughter lives, and she the least;
The queen close clasp'd the daughter to her breast:
'Ye heav'nly pow'rs, ah spare me one,' she cry'd,
'Ah! spare me one,' the vocal hills reply'd:
In vain she begs, the Fates her suit deny,
In her embrace she sees her daughter die.
* 'The queen of all her family bereft,
'Without or husband, son, or daughter left,
'Grew stupid at the shock. The passing air
'Made no impression on her stiff'ning hair.
* This Verse to the End is the Work of another Hand.
'The blood forsook her face: amidst the flood
'Pour'd from her cheeks, quite fix'd her eye-balls
'stood.
'Her tongue, her palate both obdurate grew,
'Her curdled veins no longer motion knew;
'The use of neck, and arms, and feet was gone,
'And ev'n her bowels hard'ned into stone:
'A marble statue now the queen appears,
'But from the marble steal the silent tears.'
poem by Phillis Wheatley
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To A Friend On His Nuptials
When Jove lay bless'd in his Alcmæna's charms,
Three nights in one he press'd her in his arms;
The sun lay set, and conscious nature strove
To shade her god, and to prolong his love.
From that auspicious night Alcides came;
What less could rise from Jove and such a dame?
May this auspicious night with that compare,
Nor less the joys, nor less the rising heir,
He strong as Jove, she like Alcmæna fair.
poem by Matthew Prior
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Elegy XVI. He Suggests the Advantage of Birth To a Person of Merit
When genius, graced with lineal splendour, glows,
When title shines, with ambient virtues crown'd,
Like some fair almond's flowery pomp it shows,
The pride, the perfume, of the regions round.
Then learn, ye Fair! to soften splendour's ray;
Endure the swain, the youth of low degree;
Let meekness join'd its temperate beam display;
'Tis the mild verdure that endears the tree.
Pity the sandall'd swain, the shepherd's boy;
He sighs to brighten a neglected name;
Foe to the dull applause of vulgar joy,
He mourns his lot; he wishes, merits fame.
In vain to groves and pathless vales we fly;
Ambition there the bowery haunt invades;
Fame's awful rays fatigue the courtier's eye,
But gleam still lovely through the chequer'd shades.
Vainly, to guard from Love's unequal chain,
Has Fortune rear'd us in the rural grove;
Should --'s eyes illume the desert plain,
Even I may wonder, and even I must love.
Not unregarded sighs the lowly hind;
Though you contemn, the gods respect his vow;
Vindictive rage awaits the scornful mind,
And vengeance, too severe! the gods allow.
On Sarum's plain I met a wandering fair;
The look of sorrow, lovely still, she bore;
Loose flow'd the soft redundance of her hair,
And on her brow a flowery wreath she wore.
Oft stooping as she stray'd, she cull'd the pride
Of every plain; she pillaged every grove!
The fading chaplet daily she supplied,
And still her hand some various garland wove.
Erroneous Fancy shaped her wild attire:
From Bethlem's walls the poor lymphatic stray'd;
Seem'd with her air, her accent, to conspire,
When, as wild Fancy taught her, thus she said:
'Hear me, dear Youth! oh, bear an hapless maid,
Sprung from the scepter'd line of ancient kings!
Scorn'd by the world, I ask thy tender aid;
Thy gentle voice shall whisper kinder things.
'The world is frantic-fly the race profane-.
Nor I, nor you, shall its compassion move:
Come, friendly let us wander and complain;
And tell me, Shepherd! hast thou seen my love?
'My love is young-but other loves are young;
And other loves are fair, and so is mine;
An air divine discloses whence he sprung;
He is my love, who boasts that air divine.
'No vulgar Damon robs me of my rest;
Ianthe listens to no vulgar vow;
A prince, from gods descended, fires her breast;
A brilliant crown distinguishes his brow.
'What! shall I stain the glories of my race,
More clear, more lovely bright, than Hesper's beam?
The porcelain pure with vulgar dirt debase?
Or mix with puddle the pellucid stream?
'See through these veins the sapphire current shine!
'Twas Jove's own nectar gave th' ethereal hue:
Can base plebeian forms contend with mine,
Display the lovely white, or match the blue?
'The painter strove to trace its azure ray;
He changed his colours, and in vain he strove:
He frown'd-I, smiling, view'd the faint essay:
Poor youth! he little knew it flow'd from Jove.
'Pitying his toil, the wondrous truth I told,
How amorous Jove trepann'd a mortal fair;
How through the race the generous current roll'd,
And mocks the poet's art and painter's care.
'Yes, from the gods, from earliest Saturn, sprung
Our sacred race, through demi-gods convey'd,
And he, allied to Phœbus, ever young,
My godlike boy! must wed their duteous maid.
'Oft, when a mortal vow profanes my ear,
My sire's dread fury murmurs through the sky;
And should I yield-his instant rage appears;
He darts th' uplifted vengeance-and I die.
'Have you not heard unwonted thunders roll?
Have you not seen more horrid lightnings glare?
'Twas then a vulgar love ensnared my soul;
'Twas then-I hardly 'scaped the fatal snare.
''Twas then a peasant pour'd his amorous vow,
All as I listen'd to his vulgar strain;-
Yet such his beauty-would my birth allow,
Dear were the youth, and blissful were the plain.
'But, oh, I faint! why wastes my vernal bloom,
In fruitless searches ever doom'd to rove?
My nightly dreams the toilsome path resume,
And I shall die-before I find my love.
'When last I slept, methought my ravish'd eye
On distant heaths his radiant form survey'd;
Though night's thick clouds encompass'd all the sky,
The gems that bound his brow dispell'd the shade.
'O how this bosom kindled at the sight!
Led by their beams I urged the pleasing chase,
Till, on a sudden, these withheld their light-
All, all things envy the sublime embrace.
'But now no more-Behind the distant grove
Wanders my destined youth, and chides my stay:
See, see! he grasps the steel-Forbear, my Love-
Ianthe comes; thy princess hastes away.'
Scornful she spoke, and, heedless of reply,
The lovely maniac bounded o'er the plain,
The piteous victim of an angry sky!
Ah me! the victim of her proud disdain.
poem by William Shenstone
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Psalm 50
The last judgment.
The Lord, the Sovereign, sends his summons forth,
Calls the south nations and awakes the north;
From east to west the sounding orders spread,
Through distant worlds and regions of the dead:
No more shall atheists mock his long delay;
His vengeance sleeps no more: behold the day!
Behold, the Judge descends, his guards are nigh;
Tempest and fire attend him down the sky:
Heav'n, earth, and hell, draw near; let all things come
To hear his justice, and the sinner's doom:
"But gather first my saints," the Judge commands,
"Bring them, ye angels, from their distant lands.
"Behold, my cov'nant stands for ever good,
Sealed by th' eternal Sacrifice in blood,
And signed with all their names; the Greek, the Jew,
That paid the ancient worship or the new,
There's no distinction here; come, spread their thrones,
And near me seat my fav'rites and my sons.
"I, their Almighty Savior and their God,
I am their Judge: ye heav'ns, proclaim abroad
My just eternal sentence, and declare
Those awful truths that sinners dread to hear:
Sinners in Zion, tremble and retire;
I doom the painted hypocrite to fire.
"Not for the want of goats or bullocks slain
Do I condemn thee; bulls and goats are vain
Without the flames of love; in vain the store
Of brutal off'rings that were mine before;
Mine are the tamer beasts and savage breed,
Flocks, herds, and fields and forests where they feed.
"If I were hungry, would I ask thee food?
When did I thirst, or drink thy bullocks' blood?
Can I be flattered with thy cringing bows,
Thy solemn chatt'rings and fantastic vows?
Are my eyes charmed thy vestments to behold,
Glaring in gems, and gay in woven gold?
"Unthinking wretch! how couldst thou hope to please
A God, a Spirit, with such toys as these,
While, with my grace and statutes on thy tongue,
Thou lov'st deceit, and dost thy brother wrong?
In vain to pious forms thy zeal pretends,
Thieves and adulterers are thy chosen friends.
"Silent I waited with long-suff'ring love,
But didst thou hope that I should ne'er reprove?
And cherish such an impious thought within,
That God, the Righteous, would indulge thy sin?
Behold my terrors now: my thunders roll,
And thy own crimes affright thy guilty soul."
Sinners, awake betimes; ye fools, be wise;
Awake before this dreadful morning rise;
Change your vain thoughts, your crooked works amend,
Fly to the Savior, make the Judge your friend
Lest, like a lion, his last vengeance tear
Your trembling souls, and no deliv'rer near.
poem by Isaac Watts
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The Last Song of Sappho
Thou tranquil night, and thou, O gentle ray
Of the declining moon; and thou, that o'er
The rock appearest, 'mid the silent grove,
The messenger of day; how dear ye were,
And how delightful to these eyes, while yet
Unknown the furies, and grim Fate! But now,
No gentle sight can soothe this wounded soul.
Then, only, can forgotten joy revive,
When through the air, and o'er the trembling fields
The raging south wind whirls its clouds of dust;
And when the car, the pondrous car of Jove,
Omnipotent, high-thundering o'er our heads,
A pathway cleaves athwart the dusky sky.
Then would I love with storm-charged clouds to fly
Along the cliffs, along the valleys deep,
The headlong flight of frightened flocks to watch,
Or hear, upon some swollen river's shore
The angry billows' loud, triumphant roar.
How beautiful thou art, O heaven divine,
And thou, O dewy earth! Alas no part
Of all this beauty infinite, the gods
And cruel fate to wretched Sappho gave!
To thy proud realms, O Nature, I, a poor,
Unwelcome guest, rejected lover, come;
To all thy varied forms of loveliness,
My heart and eyes, a suppliant, lift in vain.
The sun-lit shore hath smiles no more for me,
Nor radiant morning light at heaven's gate;
The birds no longer greet me with their songs,
Nor whispering trees with gracious messages;
And where, beneath the bending willows' shade,
The limpid stream its bosom pure displays,
As I, with trembling and uncertain foot,
Oppressed with grief, upon its margin pause,
The dimpled waves recoil, as in disdain,
And urge their flight along the flowery plain.
What fearful crime, what hideous excess
Have so defiled me, e'en before my birth,
That heaven and fortune frown upon me thus?
Wherein have I offended, as a child,
When we of evil deeds are ignorant,
That thus disfigured, of the bloom of youth
Bereft, my little thread of life has from
The spindle of the unrelenting Fate
Been drawn? Alas, incautious are thy words!
Mysterious counsels all events control,
And all, except our grief, is mystery.
Deserted children, we were born to weep;
But why, is known to those above, alone.
O vain the cares, the hopes of earlier years!
To idle shows Jove gives eternal sway
O'er human hearts. Unless in shining robes arrayed,
All manly deeds in arms, or art, or song,
Appeal in vain unto the vulgar throng.
I die! This wretched veil to earth I cast,
And for my naked soul a refuge seek
Below, and for the cruel faults atone
Of gods, the blind dispensers of events.
And thou, to whom I have been bound so long,
By hopeless love, and lasting faith, and by
The frenzy vain of unappeased desire,
Live, live, and if thou canst, be happy here!
My cup o'erflows with bitterness, and Jove
Has from his vase no drop of sweetness shed,
For all my childhood's hopes and dreams have fled.
The happiest day the soonest fades away;
And then succeed disease, old age, the shade
Of icy death. Behold, alas! Of all
My longed-for laurels, my illusions dear,
The end,--the gulf of hell! My spirit proud
Must to the realm of Proserpine descend,
The Stygian shore, the night that knows no end.
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Homer's Hymn To Minerva
I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,
Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed,
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed
The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;
Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move
Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;
And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time
Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.
Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf I. -- The Challenge Of Thor
I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress,
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations;
This is my hammer,
Miölner the mighty;
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it!
These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it,
And hurl it afar off;
This is my girdle;
Whenever I brace it,
Strength is redoubled!
The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens,
In flashes of crimson,
Is but my red beard
Blown by the night-wind,
Affrighting the nations!
Jove is my brother;
Mine eyes are the lightning;
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder,
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake!
Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor's-Day!
Thou art a God too,
O Galilean!
And thus single-handed
Unto the combat,
Gauntlet or Gospel,
Here I defy thee!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Challenge of Thor
I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress,
Reign I forever!
Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations;
This is my hammer,
Miölner the mighty;
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it!
These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it,
And hurl it afar off;
This is my girdle;
Whenever I brace it,
Strength is redoubled!
The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens,
In flashes of crimson,
Is but my red beard
Blown by the night-wind,
Affrighting the nations!
Jove is my brother;
Mine eyes are the lightning;
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder,
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake!
Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor's Day!
Thou art a God too,
O Galilean!
And thus singled-handed
Unto the combat,
Gauntlet or Gospel,
Here I defy thee!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Jupiter And Fortune.
Once Jupiter, from out the Skies,
Beheld a thousand Temples rise;
The Goddess Fortune all invok'd,
To Jove an Altar seldom smoak'd:
The God resolv'd to make Inspection,
What had occasion'd this Defection;
And bid the Goddess tell the Arts,
By which she won deluded Hearts.
My Arts! (says she) Great Jove, you know,
That I do ev'ry Thing below:
I make my Vot'ries dine on Plate;
I give the gilded Coach of State;
Bestow the glitt'ring Gems, that deck
The fair Lavinia's lovely Neck;
I make Novella Nature's Boast,
And raise Valeria to a Toast;
'Tis I, who give the Stupid, Taste,
(Or make the Poets lie, at least);
My fav'rite Sons, whene'er they please,
Can Palaces in Desarts raise,
Cut out Canals, make Fountains play,
And make the dreary Waste look gay;
Ev'n Vice seems Virtue by my Smiles;
I gild the Villain's gloomy Wiles,
Nay, almost raise him to a God,
While crowded Levees wait his Nod.
Enough--the Thunderer reply'd;
But say, whom have you satisfy'd?
These boasted Gifts are thine, I own;
But know, Content is mine alone.
poem by Mary Barber
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On The Platonic 'Ideal' As It Was Understood By Aristotle. (Translated From Milton)
Ye sister Pow'rs who o'er the sacred groves
Preside, and, Thou, fair mother of them all
Mnemosyne, and thou, who in thy grot
Immense reclined at leisure, hast in charge
The Archives and the ord'nances of Jove,
And dost record the festivals of heav'n,
Eternity!--Inform us who is He,
That great Original by Nature chos'n
To be the Archetype of Human-kind,
Unchangeable, Immortal, with the poles
Themselves coaeval, One, yet ev'rywhere,
An image of the god, who gave him Being?
Twin-brother of the Goddess born from Jove,
He dwells not in his Father's mind, but, though
Of common nature with ourselves, exists
Apart, and occupies a local home.
Whether, companion of the stars, he spend
Eternal ages, roaming at his will
From sphere to sphere the tenfold heav'ns, or dwell
On the moon's side that nearest neighbours Earth,
Or torpid on the banks of Lethe sit
Among the multitude of souls ordair'd
To flesh and blood, or whether (as may chance)
That vast and giant model of our kind
In some far-distant region of this globe
Sequester'd stalk, with lifted head on high
O'ertow'ring Atlas, on whose shoulders rest
The stars, terrific even to the Gods.
Never the Theban Seer, whose blindness proved
His best illumination, Him beheld
In secret vision; never him the son
Of Pleione, amid the noiseless night
Descending, to the prophet-choir reveal'd;
Him never knew th' Assyrian priest, who yet
The ancestry of Ninus chronicles,
And Belus, and Osiris far-renown'd;
Nor even Thrice-great Hermes, although skill'd
So deep in myst'ry, to the worshippers
Of Isis show'd a prodigy like Him.
And thou, who hast immortalized the shades
Of Academus, if the school received
This monster of the Fancy first from Thee,
Either recall at once the banish'd bards
To thy Republic, or, thyself evinc'd
A wilder Fabulist, go also forth.
poem by William Cowper
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Thebais - Book Two
Now Jove’s Command fulfill’d, the Son of May
Quits the black Shades and slowly mounts to Day.
For lazy Clouds in gloomy Barriers rise,
Obstruct the God, and intercept the Skies;
No Zephyrs here their airy pinions move,
To spread his progress to the Realms above.
Scarce can he steer his dark laborious Flight,
Lost and encumber’d in the Damps of Night:
There roaring Tides of Fire his Course withstood,
Here Styx in nine wide Circles roll’d his Flood.
Behind old Laius trod th’ infernal Ground,
Trembling with Age, and tardy from his Wound;
(For all his Force his furious Son apply’d,
And plung’d the guilty Faulchion in his Side.)
Propt and supported by the healing Rod,
The Shade pursued the Footsteps of the God.
The Groves that never bloom; the Stygian Coasts,
The House of Woe; the Mansions of Ghosts,
Earth too admires to see the Ground give way,
And gild Hell’s Horrors with the Gleams of Day.
But not with Life repining Envy fled,
She still reigns there, and lives among the Dead.
One from this Crowd exclaim’d, (whose lawless Will
Inur’d to Crimes, and exercis’d in Ill,
Taught his prepost’rous Joys from Pains to flow,
And never triumph’d, but in Scenes of Woe)
Go to thy Province in the Realms above,
Call’d by the Furies or the Will of Jove:
Or drawn by Magick Force or Mystick Spell,
Rise, and purge off the sooty Gloom of Hell.
Go, see the Sun, and whiten in his Beams,
Or haunt the flow’ry Fields and limpid Streams,
With Woes redoubled to return again,
When thy past pleasures shall enhance thy Pain.
Now by the Stygian Dog they bent their Way;
Stretch’d in his Den the dreadful Monster lay;
But lay not long, for startling at the Sound,
Head above Head he rises from the Ground.
from their close Folds his startling Serpents break,
And curlin horrid Circles round his Neck.
This saw the God, and stretching forth his Hand,
Lull’d the grim Monster with his potent Want
Thro’ his vast Bulk the gliding Slumbers creep,
And sent down all his glaring Eyes in Sleep.
There lies a Place in Greece well known to Fame,
Thro’ all her Realms, and Tænarus the Name,
Where from the Sea the Tops of Malea rise,
Beyond the Ken of Mortals, to the Skies:
Proud in his Height he calmly hears below
The distant Winds in hollow Murmurs blow.
Here sleep the Storms when weary’d and opprest,
And on his Head the drowsy Planets rest:
There in blue Mists his rocky Sides he shrouds,
Ane here the tow’ring Mountain props the Clouds.
Above his awfu Brow no Bird can fly,
And far beneath the mutt’rung Thunders die.
When down the Steep of Heav’n the Day descends,
The Sun so wide his floating Bound extends,
That o’er the Deeps the Mountain hangs display’d
And covers half the Ocean with his Shade:
Where the Tænarian Shores oppose the Sea,
The Land retreats, and winds into a Bay.
Here for Repose Inperian Neptune leads,
Tir’d from th’ Ægean Floods, his smoaking Steeds;
With their broad Hoofs they scoop the Beach away,
Their finny Train rolls back, and floats along the Sea.
Here Fame reports th’ unbody’d Shades to go
Thro’ this wide Passage to the Realms below.
From hence the peasants, (As th’ Arcadians tell,)
Hear all the Cries, and Groans, and Din of Hell.
Oft, as her Scourge of Snakes and Fury plies,
The piercing Echoes mount the distant Skies;
Scar’d at the Porter’s triple Roar, the Swains
Have fled astonish’d, and forsook the Plains.
From hence emergent in a mantling Cloud
Sprung to his native Skies the winged God.
Swift from his Face before th’ Ethereal Ray,
Flew all the black Tartarean Strains away,
And the dark Stygian Gloom refin’d to Day.
O’er the Towns and Realms he held his Progress on,
Now wing’d the Skies where bright Arcturus shone,
And now the silent Empire of the Moon.
The Pow’r of Sleep, who met his radiant Flight,
And drove the solemn Chariot of the Night,
Rode with respect and from th’ empyreal Road
Turned his pale Steeds, in reverence to the God.
The Shade beneath pursues his Course, and spies
The well-known Planets, and congenial Skies.
His Eyes from far, tall Cyrrha’s Heights explore,
And Phocian Fields polluted with his Gore.
At length to Thebes he came, and with a Groan
Survey’d the guilty Palace on his own;
With awful Silence stalk’d before the Gate,
But when he saw the Trophies of his fate,
High on a Column rais’d against the Door,
And his rich Chariot still deform’d with Gore,
He starts with horror back; ev’n Jove’s Command
could scarce controul him, nor the vital Wand.
poem by Pablius Papinius Statius
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Homer's Hymn To Venus
Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,
Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight
Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings
Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things
That fleet along the air, or whom the sea,
Or earth, with her maternal ministry,
Nourish innumerable, thy delight
All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!
Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:--
Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well
Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame
Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.
Diana ... golden-shafted queen,
Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green
Of the wild woods, the bow, the...
And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit
Of beasts among waste mountains,--such delight
Is hers, and men who know and do the right.
Nor Saturn’s first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,
Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last,
Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;
But sternly she refused the ills of Love,
And by her mighty Father’s head she swore
An oath not unperformed, that evermore
A virgin she would live mid deities
Divine: her father, for such gentle ties
Renounced, gave glorious gifts--thus in his hall
She sits and feeds luxuriously. O’er all
In every fane, her honours first arise
From men--the eldest of Divinities.
These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives,
But none beside escape, so well she weaves
Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods
Who live secure in their unseen abodes.
She won the soul of him whose fierce delight
Is thunder--first in glory and in might.
And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving,
With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving,
Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair,
Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare.
but in return,
In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken,
That by her own enchantments overtaken,
She might, no more from human union free,
Burn for a nursling of mortality.
For once amid the assembled Deities,
The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes
Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,
And boasting said, that she, secure the while,
Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods
The mortal tenants of earth’s dark abodes,
And mortal offspring from a deathless stem
She could produce in scorn and spite of them.
Therefore he poured desire into her breast
Of young Anchises,
Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains
Of the wide Ida’s many-folded mountains,--
Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung
Like wasting fire her senses wild among.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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An Allegory On Man
A thoughtful Being, long and spare,
Our Race of Mortals call him Care:
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What Name the Gods have call'd him too)
With fine Mechanick Genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, tho' no one bought.
This Being, by a Model bred
In Jove's eternal sable Head,
Contriv'd a Shape impow'rd to breathe,
And be the Worldling here beneath.
The Man rose staring, like a Stake;
Wond'ring to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The Bus'ness he was made to do;
That pleas'd to see with what a Grace
He gravely shew'd his forward Face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An Under-something of the Sky.
But e'er he gave the mighty Nod,
Which ever binds a Poet's God:
(For which his Curls Ambrosial shake,
And Mother Earth's oblig'd to quake
He saw old Mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his Eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A Castle for a Crown before,
Nor with long Streets and longer Roads
Dangling behind her, like Commodes:
As yet with Wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a Landskip-painted Vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, (as Ovid said)
And thrice she bow'd, her weighty Head.
Her Honours made, Great Jove, she cry'd,
This Thing was fashion'd from my Side;
His Hands, his Heart, his Head are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine?
Nay rather ask, the Monarch said,
What boots his Hand, his Heart, his Head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy Part's an idle Shape of Clay.
Halves, more than Halves! cry'd honest Care,
Your Pleas wou'd make your Titles fair,
You claim the Body, you the Soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the Gods Debate began,
On such a trivial Cause, as Man.
And can Celestial Tempers rage?
(Quoth Virgil in a later Age.)
As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the Fabling Antients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his Winters had not shed
Their silver Honours on his Head;
He just had got his Pinions free
From his old Sire Eternity.
A Serpent girdled round he wore,
The Tail within the Mouth before;
By which our Almanacks are clear
That learned Ægypt meant the Year.
A Staff he carry'd, where on high
A Glass was fix'd to measure by,
As Amber Boxes made a Show
For Heads of Canes an Age ago.
His Vest, for Day, and Night, was py'd;
A bending Sickle arm'd his Side;
And Spring's new Months his Train adorn;
The other Seasons were unborn.
Known by the Gods, as near he draws,
They make him Umpire of the Cause.
O'er a low Trunk his Arm he laid,
(Where since his Hours a Dial made
Then leaning heard the nice Debate,
And thus pronounc'd the Words of Fate.
Since Body from the Parent Earth,
And Soul from Jove receiv'd a Birth,
Return they where they first began;
But since their Union makes the Man,
'Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care who join'd them, Man is due.
He said, and sprung with swift Career
To trace a Circle for the Year;
Where ever since the Seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's Heel.
'Tis well, said Jove, and for consent
Thund'ring he shook the Firmament.
Our Umpire Time shall have his Way,
With Care I let the Creature stay:
Let Bus'ness vex him, Av'rice blind,
Let Doubt and Knowledge rack his Mind,
Let Error act, Opinion speak,
And Want afflict, and Sickness break,
And Anger burn, Dejection chill,
And Joy distract, and Sorrow kill.
'Till arm'd by Care and taught to Mow,
Time draws the long destructive Blow;
And wasted Man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his Day,
Shall only find, by this Decree,
The Soul flies sooner back to Me.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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Licia Sonnets 13
Enamored Jove commanding did entreat
Cupid to wound my love, which he denied,
And swore he could not for she wanted heat
And would not love, as he full oft had tried.
Jove in a rage, impatient this to hear,
Replied with threats; "I'll make you to obey!"
Whereat the boy did fly away for fear
To Licia's eyes, where safe intrenched he lay.
Then Jove he scorned, and dared him to his face,
For now more safe than in the heavens he dwelled,
Nor could Jove's wrath do wrong to such a place
Where grace and honour have their kingdom held.
Thus in the pride and beauty of her eyes
The seely boy the greatest god defies.
poem by Giles Fletcher The Elder
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The Negro Boy
Paupertas onus visa est grave.
Cold blows the wind, and while the tear
Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,
The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,
And on my naked bosom flies!
O pity, all ye sons of Joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy.
These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast
By Winter harden'd into steel,
These eyes, that know not soothing rest,
But speak the half of what I feel!
Long, long, I never new one joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
Cannot the sigh of early grief
Move but one charitable mind?
Cannot one hand afford relief?
One Christian pity, and be kind?
Weep, weep, for thine was never joy,
O little wand'ring Negro-boy!
Is there a good which men call Pleasure?
O Ozmyn, would that it were thine!
Give me this only precious treasure;
How it would soften grief like mine!
Then Ozmyn might be call'd, with joy,
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
My limbs these twelve long years have borne
The rage of ev'ry angry wind:
Yet still does Ozmyn weep and mourn,
Yet still no ease, no rest can find!
Then death, alas, must soon destroy
The little wand'ring Negro-boy!
No sorrow e'er disturbs the rest,
That dwells within the lonely grave;
Thou best resource, the wo-wrung breast
E'er ask'd of Heav'n, or Heav'n e'er gave!
Ah then, farewell, vain world, with joy
I die the happy Negro-boy!
poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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