Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13)
Page 146
But this among other cities its head as far hath exalted 25
As the cypresses do among the lissome viburnums.
MELIBŒUS.
And what so great occasion of seeing Rome hath possessed thee?
TITYRUS.
Liberty, which, though late, looked upon me in my inertness,
After the time when my beard fell whiter from me in shaving,
Yet she looked upon me, and came to me after a long while, 30
Since Amaryllis possesses and Galatea hath left me.
For I will even confess that while Galatea possessed me
Neither care of my flock nor hope of liberty was there.
Though from my wattled folds there went forth many a victim,
And the unctuous cheese was pressed for the city ungrateful, 35
Never did my right hand return home heavy with money.
MELIBŒUS.
I have wondered, why sad thou invokedst the gods, Amaryllis,
And for whom thou didst suffer the apples to hang on the branches!
Tityrus hence was absent! Thee, Tityrus, even the pine trees,
Thee the very fountains, the very copses were calling. 40
TITYRUS.
What could I do? No power had I to escape from my bondage,
Nor had I power elsewhere to recognize gods so propitious.
Here I beheld that youth, to whom each year, Melibœus,
During twice six days ascends the smoke of our altars.
Here first gave he response to me soliciting favor: 45
“Feed as before your heifers, ye boys, and yoke up your bullocks.”
MELIBŒUS.
Fortunate old man! So then thy fields will be left thee,
And large enough for thee, though naked stone and the marish
All thy pasture-lands with the dreggy rush may encompass.
No unaccustomed food thy gravid ewes shall endanger, 50
Nor of the neighboring flock the dire contagion infect them.
Fortunate old man! Here among familiar rivers,
And these sacred founts, shalt thou take the shadowy coolness.
On this side, a hedge along the neighboring cross-road,
Where Hyblæan bees ever feed on the flower of the willow, 55
Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep shall persuade thee.
Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner shall sing to the breezes,
Nor meanwhile shall thy heart’s delight, the hoarse wood-pigeons,
Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from aerial elm trees.
TITYRUS.
Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed in the ether, 60
And the billows leave the fishes bare on the sea-shore,
Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, shall the exiled
Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German drink of the Tigris,
Than the face of him shall glide away from my bosom!
MELIBŒUS.
But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Africs, 65
Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes,
And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered.
Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of my country
And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward
Seeing, with wonder behold, — my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ours! 70
Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured,
And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither discord
Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields we have planted!
Graft, Melibœus, thy pear trees now, put in order thy vineyards.
Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime. 75
Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous cavern
Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging.
Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd,
Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.
TITYRUS.
Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou rest thee 80
Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples,
Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance;
And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance,
And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.
Ovid in Exile
At Tomis, in Bessarabia, near the Mouths of the Danube
Tristia, Book III., Elegy X.
SHOULD any one there in Rome remember Ovid the exile,
And, without me, my name still in the city survive;
Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean
I am existing still, here in a barbarous land.
Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi and Getæ; 5
Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius like mine!
Yet when the air is warm, intervening Ister defends us:
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war with his waves.
But when the dismal winter reveals its hideous aspect,
When all the earth becomes white with a marble-like frost; 10
And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow hurled under Arcturus,
Then these nations, in sooth, shudder and shiver with cold.
Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor the rain can dissolve it;
Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever remain.
Hence, ere the first has melted away, another succeeds it. 15
And two years it is wont, in many places, to lie.
And so great is the power of the Northwind awakened, it levels
Lofty towers with the ground, roofs uplifted bears off.
Wrapped in skins, and with trousers sewed, they contend with the weather,
And their faces alone of the whole body are seen. 20
Often their tresses, when shaken, with pendent icicles tinkle,
And their whitened beards shine with the gathering frost.
Wines consolidate stand, preserving the form of the vessels;
No more draughts of wine, — pieces presented they drink.
Why should I tell you how all the rivers are frozen and solid, 25
And from out of the lake frangible water is dug?
Ister, — no narrower stream than the river that bears the papyrus, —
Which through its many mouths mingles its waves with the deep;
Ister, with hardening winds, congeals its cerulean waters,
Under a roof of ice winding its way to the sea. 30
There where ships have sailed, men go on foot; and the billows,
Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats of horses indent.
Over unwonted bridges, with water gliding beneath them,
The Sarmatian steers drag their barbarian carts.
Scarcely shall I be believed; yet when naught is gained by a falsehood, 35
Absolute credence then should to a witness be given.
I have beheld the vast Black Sea of ice all compacted,
And a slippery crust pressing its motionless tides.
‘T is not enough to have seen, I have trodden this indurate ocean;
Dry shod passed my foot over its uppermost wave. 40
If thou hadst had of old such a sea as this is, Leander!
Then thy death had not been charged as a crime to the Strait.
Nor can the curvèd dolphins uplift themselves from the water;
All their struggles to rise merciless winter prevents;
And though Boreas sound with roar of wings in commotion, 45
In the blockaded gulf never a wave will there be;
And the ships will stand hemmed in by the frost, as in marble,
Nor will the oar have power through the stiff waters to cleave.
Fast-bound in the ice have I seen the fishes adhering,
Yet notwithstanding this some of them still were aliv
e. 50
Hence, if the savage strength of omnipotent Boreas freezes
Whether the salt-sea wave, whether the refluent stream, —
Straightway, — the Ister made level by arid blasts of the North-wind, —
Comes the barbaric foe borne on his swift-footed steed;
Foe, that powerful made by his steed and his far-flying arrows, 55
All the neighboring land void of inhabitants makes.
Some take flight, and none being left to defend their possessions,
Unprotected, their goods pillage and plunder become;
Cattle and creaking carts, the little wealth of the country,
And what riches beside indigent peasants possess. 60
Some as captives are driven along, their hands bound behind them,
Looking backward in vain toward their Lares and lands.
Others, transfixed with barbèd arrows, in agony perish.
For the swift arrow-heads all have in poison been dipped.
What they cannot carry or lead away they demolish, 65
And the hostile flames burn up the innocent cots.
Even when there is peace, the fear of war is impending;
None, with the ploughshare pressed, furrows the soil any more.
Either this region sees, or fears a foe that it sees not,
And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect. 70
No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves,
No fermenting must fills and o’erflows the deep vats.
Apples the region denies; nor would Acontius have found here
Aught upon which to write words for his mistress to read.
Naked and barren plains without leaves or trees we behold here, — 75
Places, alas! unto which no happy man would repair.
Since then this mighty orb lies open so wide upon all sides,
Has this region been found only my prison to be?
Tristia, Book III., Elegy XII.
Now the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the year being ended,
Winter Mæotian seems longer than ever before; 80
And the Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle,
Now makes the hours of the day equal with those of the night.
Now the boys and the laughing girls the violet gather,
Which the fields bring forth, nobody sowing the seed.
Now the meadows are blooming with flowers of various colors, 85
And with untaught throats carol the garrulous birds.
Now the swallow, to shun the crime of her merciless mother,
Under the rafters builds cradles and dear little homes;
And the blade that lay hid, covered up in the furrows of Ceres,
Now from the tepid ground raises its delicate head. 90
Where there is ever a vine, the bud shoots forth from the tendrils,
But from the Getic shore distant afar is the vine!
Where there is ever a tree, on the tree the branches are swelling,
But from the Getic land distant afar is the tree!
Now it is holiday there in Rome, and to games in due order 95
Give place the windy wars of the vociferous bar.
Now they are riding the horses; with light arms now they are playing,
Now with the ball, and now round rolls the swift-flying hoop:
Now, when the young athlete with flowing oil is anointed,
He in the Virgin’s Fount bathes, overwearied, his limbs. 100
Thrives the stage; and applause, with voices at variance, thunders,
And the Theatres three for the three Forums resound.
Four times happy is he, and times without number is happy,
Who the city of Rome, uninterdicted, enjoys.
But all I see is the snow in the vernal sunshine dissolving, 105
And the waters no more delved from the indurate lake.
Nor is the sea now frozen, nor as before o’er the Ister
Comes the Sarmatian boor driving his stridulous cart.
Hitherward, nevertheless, some keels already are steering,
And on this Pontic shore alien vessels will be. 110
Eagerly shall I run to the sailor, and, having saluted,
Who he may be, I shall ask; wherefore and whence he hath come.
Strange indeed will it be, if he come not from regions adjacent,
And incautious unless ploughing the neighboring sea.
Rarely a mariner over the deep from Italy passes, 115
Rarely he comes to these shores, wholly of harbors devoid.
Whether he knoweth Greek, or whether in Latin he speaketh,
Surely on this account he the more welcome will be.
Also perchance from the mouth of the Strait and the waters Propontic,
Unto the steady South-wind, some one is spreading his sails. 120
Whosoever he is, the news he can faithfully tell me,
Which may become a part and an approach to the truth.
He, I pray, may be able to tell me the triumphs of Cæsar,
Which he has heard of, and vows paid to the Latian Jove;
And that thy sorrowful head, Germania, thou, the rebellious, 125
Under the feet, at last, of the Great Captain hast laid.
Whoso shall tell me the things, that not to have seen will afflict me,
Forthwith unto my house welcomed as guest shall he be.
Woe is me! Is the house of Ovid in Scythian lands now?
And doth punishment now give me its place for a home? 130
Grant, ye gods, that Cæsar make this not my house and my homestead,
But decree it to be only the inn of my pain.
Uncollected Translations.
Let me go warm
By Luis de Góngora y Argote
The history of Mr. Longfellow’s work in translation has been given in the Introductory Note to the Translations in the present volume. As indicated there, a number of poems were contributed by Mr. Longfellow to periodicals as well as to his two collections, The Poets and Poetry of Europe and Poems of Places, which were signed by him, but for some reason were not included in any of the volumes of poetry which he put forth from time to time. Such poems have been recovered and placed in their proper groups. Besides these signed poems, however, there are a number which may be traced without question to Mr. Longfellow’s pen, and in accordance with the plan of this edition they have been reserved for the Appendix, and are here given.
This poem was published in The New England Magazine, July, 1831, and afterwards in The Poets and Poetry of Europe.
LET me go warm and merry still;
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
Let others muse on earthly things, —
The fall of thrones, the fate of kings,
And those whose fame the world doth fill; 5
Whilst muffins sit enthroned in trays,
And orange-punch in winter sways
The merry sceptre of my days; —
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
He that the royal purple wears 10
From golden plate a thousand cares
Doth swallow as a gilded pill:
On feasts like these I turn my back,
Whilst puddings in my roasting-jack
Beside the chimney hiss and crack; — 15
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
And when the wintry tempest blows,
And January’s sleets and snows
Are spread o’er every vale and hill,
With one to tell a merry tale 20
O’er roasted nuts and humming ale,
I sit, and care not for the gale; —
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
Let merchants traverse seas and lands,
For silver mines and golden sands; 25
Whilst I beside some shadowy rill,
Just where its bubbling fountain swells,
Do sit and gather stones and shells
,
And hear the tale the blackbird tells; —
And let the world laugh, an’ it will. 30
For Hero’s sake the Grecian lover
The stormy Hellespont swam over:
I cross, without the fear of ill,
The wooden bridge that slow bestrides
The Madrigal’s enchanting sides, 35
Or barefoot wade through Yepes’ tides; —
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
But since the Fates so cruel prove,
That Pyramus should die of love,
And love should gentle Thisbe kill; 40
My Thisbe be an apple-tart,
The sword I plunge into her heart
The tooth that bites the crust apart, —
And let the world laugh, an’ it will.
The Nativity of Christ
By Luis de Góngora y Argote
TO-DAY from the Aurora’s bosom
A pink has fallen, — a crimson blossom:
And oh, how glorious rests the hay
On which the fallen blossom lay.
When silence gently had unfurled 5
Her mantle over all below,
And, crowned with winter’s frost and snow,
Night swayed the sceptre of the world,
Amid the gloom descending slow,
Upon the monarch’s frozen bosom 10