Qvo Te, foelix Anna, modo deflere licebit?
Cui magnum imperium, gloria maior erat:
Ecce meus torpens animus succumbit vtrique,
Cui tenuis fama est, ingeniúmque minus.
Quis, nisi qui manibus Briareus, oculísque sit Argus, 5
Scribere, Te dignùm, vel lachrymare queat!
Frustra igitur sudo: superest mihi sola voluptas,
Quòd calamum excusent Pontus & Astra meum:
Namque Annae laudes coelo scribuntur aperto,
Sed luctus noster scribitur Oceano. 10
G. Herbert Coll. Trin. Soc.
AD AUTOREM INSTAURATIONIS MAGNAE.
Per strages licet autorum veterúmque ruinam
Ad famae properes vera Tropaea tuae,
Tam nitidè tamen occidis, tam suauiter, hostes,
Se quasi donatum funere quisque putat.
Scilicet apponit pretium tua dextera fato, 5
Vulneréque emanat sanguis, vt intret honos.
O quàm felices sunt, qui tua castra sequuntur,
Cùm per te sit res ambitiosa mori.
COMPARATIO INTER MUNUS SUMMI CANCELLARIATUS ET LIBRUM.
Mvnere dum nobis prodes, Libróque futuris,
In laudes abeunt secula quaeque tuas;
Munere dum nobis prodes, Libróque remotis,
In laudes abeunt iam loca quaeque tuas:
Hae tibi sunt alae laudum. Cui contigit vnquam 5
Longius aeterno, latius orbe decus?
IN HONOREM ILLUSTR. D. D. VERULAMIJ, STI ALBANI, MAG. SIGILLI CUSTODIS POST EDITAM AB EO INSTAURATIONEM MAGNAM.
Qvis iste tandem? non enim vultu ambulat
Quotidiano! Nescis, ignare? Audies!
Dux Notionum; veritatis Pontifex;
Inductionis Dominus, & Verulamij;
Rerum magister vnicus, at non Artium; 5
Profunditatis pinus, atque Elegantiae;
Naturae Aruspex intimus; Philosophiae
Aerarium; sequester expèrientiae,
Speculationísque; Aequitatis signifer;
Scientiarum, sub pupillari statu 10
Degentium olim, Emancipator; Luminis
Promus; Fugator Idolûm, atque nubium;
Collega Solis; Quadra Certitudinis;
Sophismatomastix; Brutus Literarius,
Authoritatis exuens tyrannidem; 15
Rationis & sensûs stupendus Arbiter;
Repumicator mentis; Atlas Physicus,
Alcide succumbente Stagiritico;
Columba Noae, quae in vetustis artibus
Nullum locum requiémue cernens perstitit 20
Ad se suaéque matris Arcam regredi:
Subtilitatis Terebra; Temporis Nepos
Ex Veritate matre; Mellis alueus;
Mundíque & Animarum sacerdos vnicus;
Securis errorum; ínque Naturalibus 25
Granum Sinapis, acre Alijs, crescens sibi:
O me probè lassum! Iuuate, Posteri!
G. HERBERT ORAT. Pub. in
Acad. Cantab.
AETHIOPISSA AMBIT CESTUM DIUERSI COLORIS VIRUM.
Qvid mihi si facies nigra est? hoc, Ceste, colore
Sunt etiam tenebrae, quas tamen optat amor.
Cernis vt exustâ semper sit fronte viator;
Ah longum, quae te deperit, errat iter.
Si nigro sit terra solo, quis despicit aruum? 5
Claude oculos, & erunt omnia nigra tibi:
Aut aperi, & cernes corpus quas proijcit vmbras;
Hoc saltem officio fungar amore tui.
Cùm mihi sit facies fumus, quas pectore flammas
Iamdudum tacitè delituisse putes? 10
Dure, negas? O fata mihi praesaga doloris,
Quae mihi lugubres contribuere genas!
DUM PETIT INFANTEM.
Dvm petit Infantem Princeps, Grantámque Iacobus,
Quisnam horum maior sit, dubitatur, amor.
Vincit more suo Noster: nam millibus Infans
Non tot abest, quot nos Regis ab ingenio.
IN OBITUM INCOMPARABILIS FRANCISCI VICECOMITIS SANCTI ALBANI, BARONIS VERULAMIJ.
Dvm longi lentíque gemis sub pondere morbi
Atque haeret dubio tabida vita pede,
Quid voluit prudens Fatum, iam sentio tandem:
Constat, Aprile vno te potuisse mori:
Vt Flos hinc lacrymis, illinc Philomela querelis, 5
Deducant linguae funera sola tuae.
GEORGIVS HERBERT
IN SACRAM ANCHORAM PISCATORIS, G. HERBERT.
Qvod Crux nequibat fixa, Clauíque additi,
(Tenere Christum scilicet, ne ascenderet)
Tuíue Christum deuocans facundia
Vltra loquendi tempus; addit Anchora:
Nec hoc abundè est tibi, nisi certae Anchorae 5
Addas sigillum: nempe Symbolum suae
Tibi debet Unda & Terra certitudinis.
Quondam fessus Amor loquens Amato,
Tot & tanta loquens amica, scripsit:
Tandem & fessa manus, dedit sigillum. 10
Suauis erat, qui scripta dolens lacerando recludi,
Sanctius in Regno Magni credebat Amoris
(In quo fas nihil est rumpi) donare sigillum.
Munde, fluas fugiásque licet, nos nostráque fixi:
Deridet motus sancta catena tuos. 15
Latin and Greek Poems Translated
Translated by Alexander B. Grosart and Richard Wilton
NOTE.
R. WI. =Rev. Richard Wilton; G.= Alexander B. Grosart
PARENTALIA.
SACRED TO A MOTHER’S MEMORY.
I. AH Mater, quo te deplorem fonte? Dolores
Ah, Mother! where is Grief’s full-flowing fount?
What drops my sorrows ever can recount?
Dry, to my tears, seems Thames that murmurs by,
Myself for all thy virtues all too dry.
Into the grief-black stream pour burning me;
Fit ink to write thy praise I should not be.
These things I pen in love, that all may know,
Mother means Music when Grief wills it so!
R. WI.
II. Corneliae sanctae, graves Semproniae
Holy Cornelias, and Sempronias grave,
And all of serious womanhood, I crave
Your tears; for she, who blended what in you
Shines good and beautiful, claims as her due
Your blended sorrows. For this downfall raise
Loud weepings, Dignity, nor lose thy praise:
Stand, Modesty, with locks loose flowing down;
Sorrow is sometimes Beauty’s loftiest crown.
The glory of women has perish’d; and men dread
Lest of each sex with her the dower has fled.
The fleeting suns she would not wear away
In vanity of dress and self-display,
Piling proud structures in the morning hour
Upon her head, rear’d upwards like a tow’r;
Then spending the long day in talk and laughter —
For tongues’ confusion comes tower’d Babel after! —
But after modest braiding of her hair,
Such as becomes a matron wise and fair,
And a brief bath, her freshen’d mind she brought
To pious duties and heart-healing thought,
Addressing to the Almighty Father’s throne
Such warm and earnest prayers as He will own.
Next she goes round her family, assigning
What each may need for garden, distaff, dining.
To everything its time and place are given;
Then are call’d in the tasks at early even.
By a fix’d plan her life and house go on,
By a wise daily calculation;
Sweetness and grace through all her dwelling shine,
Of both first shining in her mind the sign.
But if at times a great occasion rise —
With visit of some noble — she likewise
Ri
ses, and raises up herself, and vies
With the occasion, and the victory gains.
O, what a shower of courteous speech she rains!
Grave pleasantry, grace mix’d with wit is heard;
Fetters and chains she weaves with every word.
Or if some business for the hour should ask,
She glides through turns and windings of the task,
With her replies a match for wisest men.
Then what a mistress was she of the pen!
What graceful writing hers! Mark the fair shell,
Wherein a kernel fairer still may dwell,
The voice and sentiment agreeing well.
Through all the world her well-known letters flit:
Charming right hand, that dust is all unfit,
Where now thou liest, for thy writing fine;
Pactolus’ sand sole fitting tomb of thine.
Add music, smoothing, soothing other gifts,
Which, for a moment, the rapt spirit lifts
As with a prelude of Heaven’s harmony.
Then what a helper of the poor you see
In her! A prop of languid folk and slow,
A roof for those who live forlorn and low,
A common balm on throbbing bosoms shed,
While public blessings hover round her head,
Rehearsing now the manner of the sky,
Anticipating her reward on high.
I droop as all her virtues I relate,
Which by my sorrows I enumerate;
Stars are they now, my tearful griefs of late.
But thou who think’st these things not fitly done,
A mother’s praise forbidding to a son,
Away with thy false foolish modesty!
Heartless and silent then shall only I
Be found, when her fine praise rings to the sky?
My mother’s urn, is’t closed only to me —
Wither’d the herbs, and dry the rosemary?
Owe I to her a tongue only to grieve?
Away, thou foolish one and give me leave
Shame to forget while pious praise I weave.
Thou shalt be prais’d for ever, mother mine,
By me, thy sorrowing son; for surely thine
This learning is, which I deriv’d from thee,
Which o’er the page now flows spontaneously,
Its highest fruit of labour seen to attain
In praising thee, though Folly may arraign. R. WI.
III. Cur splendes, o Phoebe? ecquid demittere matrem
Why shin’st thou, sun? Canst thou send down to me
My mother, with thy beam so bright to see?
Ah, she o’ertops thy head as soul the clay;
The elements but round her body play.
Sure, thus thou shinest, and adorn’st thy face,
And holy joys to thy account dost place.
But if thou canst not send her down from heav’n,
And rest to her, deep and serene, be giv’n, —
Double thy rays, that I, my hand being twin’d
In them, my mother in her bliss may find. R. WI.
IV. Quid nugor calamo favens
Why do I trifle, still with my pen playing?
My mother, now in heavenly Eden straying
‘Stead of her little garden bow’rs,
Tends there ever-blooming flow’rs.
Nor there amid the still-increasing joy
May blast of Boreas blow, or once annoy;
Nay, my mother dear, in thee
Heaven comes down to me.
And while I muse, companion of the stars,
I am a spirit, free of my body’s bars;
Wherefore in this my lower sphere
I sing, with sweet soft tear;
Still praising thee, mother, throughout the day,
And the hush’d night when light has pass’d away;
Dark night rivalling e’en the morn,
Though I am lone and lorn.
From thee my birth, through thee my second birth —
Twice mother to me — showing heav’n on earth,
That here and there I might thy praise
In song still grateful raise.
V. Horti, deliciae Dominae, marcescite tandem
Gardens, your Lady’s joy, now meet your doom;
Ye’ve deck’d her bier, no longer ye may bloom:
Your beauty, bristling now with briers and thorns,
Her tending hand with a keen sorrow mourns.
Of earth the flowers smell, and where she reposes
Death taints the neighbouring stems, and these the roses.
With dim heads violets to the ground bend low,
And by their grief their Lady’s dwelling show.
Not gardens, cemeteries here I find;
Of absent mistress all the beds remind.
Die all! nor in this garden, from this hour,
To seek their Lady spring forth bud or flower!
Back to your roots and fathers’ tombs all glide;
Graves without price God does for plants provide.
Die; or live only till sad Eve appears
To deck your obsequies with dewy tears. R. WI.
VI. Galene, frustra es, cur miserum premens
O Galen, altogether vain art thou,
Still questioning me with moody brow;
Thy fingers on my wrist inclin’d,
So searching me, — me, sick in mind:
In mind, not body; which nor thy pills many
Nor aught slow med’cines yield, nor any
Spoil o’ the Indies, e’er can cure:
Mind soaring free, like spirit pure.
Pow’rless to heal, O if thou couldst but kill!
Nay, not e’en so should I obtain my will:
Save by a holy death reliev’d,
I should but be the more bereav’d.
How ignorantly, Galen, thou dost err,
Feeling my pulse! If it be fever’d, there
Burns the desire to write of Mother;
She’s in the throbbing veins, none other.
Or if I flat’lent swell, blame not my members;
The cause hides in my mind, as fire in embers —
Trav’ling with her praise, my Mother styl’d;
Med’cine’s unsafe to those with child.
My frame’s disorder’d, yet don’t mixtures weigh
For an unreal state; what thou dost say
Is fever brings alone my cure,
For troubl’d mind a medicine sure.
VII.Pallida materni Genii atque exsanguis imago
Pale bloodless image of maternity,
Into such misty likenesses of thee
Arc my joys changed Ί For mother do I see
A treacherous phantasm, and aerial breast
Mocking a son who fain would there find rest?
Woe for a cloud fill’d not with milk but rain,
And laughing at my tears as I complain, —
Tears which reflect the watery tint again!
Nay, wouldst thou fly? Not such a cloudy face
My Juno show’d; where you could see no trace
Of vernal dawn. She was no mother pale,
Conceal’d behind a fleeting ashy veil.
Parent august was she, whose holy face,
Star-like, in yonder sky deserv’d a place;
Such as Astræa wore, about to leave
Her haunt amid the reeds some cloudless eve;
Or Themis, o’er her old throne hovering seen,
Settling contentions with discernment keen.
Show such a face, and with thee, image fair,
My life’s remainder I will gladly share;
Myself the horses of the sun will tie
Unto thy car alone, unmurmuringly;
Nor while on such pursuits, wasting, I pore,
Will mourn my days unpleasingly past o’er;
Nor sigh for learning quench’d or thrown away,
And hop
es deferr’d to some far-distant day.
And for my uncouth fancies I shall blame
An empty world, which well deserves to claim
Its comets, spreading consternation far,
And many a pale and pallor-striking star.
I have a rural cottage, ceil’d with beams
Scanty and bare, where a small garden gleams,
Whose fleecy growth of flowers with radiant bloom
Struggles for light in the too narrow room:
But ’tis a garden which a master’s mind
Well balanced to its wish exact would find,
That crowded flowers more closely might exhale
Their odours, and rude hands might ne’er prevail
To hurst its hounds; a growing bouquet fair,
A nest of sweets, enriching all the air.
Here thou and I, my Mother dear, will stray,
Inhaling flowery incense day by day;
Only do thou assume feelings and face
Where I an image of myself may trace;
Nor a dim drooping countenance let me find
Oppos’d to my too-well-remembering mind;
Lest, differing in discordant look and act,
The tender fragrant flower-beds we distract,
And mid the garden’s other offspring fair,
Our growing joys should wither in despair. R. WI.
VIII. Parvam piamqne dum lubetner semitam
Whilst I a humble holy path prefer
To grand and guilty wherein others err,
An envious star ray modest choice arraigns,
And mingles gall i’ my wine, nor ill restrains.
Alas, on this I fling me down, repining,
And the orbs of heaven menace in their shining;
Till Some One grasps my cloak, and whispers kindly
Into my ear, the while I murmur blindly:
‘This is the cup thy Lord drank.’ Then I ask,
Adoring, taste it, and approve the cask. G.
IX. Hoc, Genitrix, scriptum proles tibi sedula mittit.
Mother, thy child this letter sends to thee;
To read it, stay awhile thy melody:
’Tis music to the saints, news of their own:
The cares abide which they of old have known.
Sadly we weep, and the fair suns we shroud
With darkening cheeks, as with a double cloud.
Our king prepares a fleet with grand design;
George Herbert- Collected Poetical Works Page 23
