William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works
Page 76
Virtutis specie, pulchro ceu pallio amictus
Quisque catus nebulo sordida facta tegit.
Atque suis manibus commissa potentia, durum
Et dirum subito vergit ad imperium.
Hinc, nimium dum latro aurum detrudit in arcam.
Idem aurum latet in pectore pestis edax.
Nutrit avaritiam et fastum, suspendere adunco
Suadet naso inopes, et vitium omne docet.
Auri et larga probo si copia contigit, instar
Roris dilapsi ex æthere cuncta beat:
Tum, quasi numen inesset, alit, fovet, educat orbos,
Et viduas lacrymis ora rigare vetat.
Quo sua crimina jure auro derivet avarus,
Aurum animæ pretium qui cupit atque capit?
Lege pari gladium incuset sicarius atrox
Cæso homine, et ferrum judicet esse reum.
PAPILIO ET LIMAX.
Qui subito ex imis rerum in fastigia surgit,
Nativas sordes, quicquid agatur, olet.
Translations of the Latin and Italian Poems of Milton
CONTENTS
THE NEAPOLITAN, GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANSO, MARQUIS OF VILLA, TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON
AN EPIGRAM
TO JOHN MILTON
AN ODE TO JOHN MILTON, ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
TO MR. JOHN MILTON OF LONDON
ELEGY I
ELEGY II
ELEGY III
ELEGY IV
ELEGY V
ELEGY VI
ELEGY VI
THE NEAPOLITAN, GIOVANNI BATTISTA MANSO, MARQUIS OF VILLA, TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON
What features, form, mien, manners, with a mind
Oh how intelligent, and how refined!
Were but thy piety from fault as free,
Thou wouldst no Angle but an Angel be.
AN EPIGRAM
Addressed to the Englishman, John Milton, a Poet Worthy of the Three Laurels of Poesy, the Grecian, Latin, and Etruscan, by Giovanni Salzilli of Rome
Meles and Mincio both your urns depress!
Sebetus, boast henceforth thy Tasso less!
But let the Thames o’erpeer all floods, since he,
For Milton famed, shall, single, match the three.
TO JOHN MILTON
Greece sound thy Homer’s, Rome thy Virgil’s name,
But England’s Milton equals both in fame.
Selvaggi.
AN ODE TO JOHN MILTON, ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
Exalt Me, Clio,1 to the skies,
That I may form a starry crown,
Beyond what Helicon supplies
In laureate garlands of renown;
To nobler worth be brighter glory given,
And to a heavenly mind a recompense from heaven.
Time’s wasteful hunger cannot prey
On everlasting high desert,
Nor can Oblivion steal away
Its record graven on the heart;
Lodge but an arrow, Virtue, on the bow
That binds my lyre, and death shall be a vanquished foe.
In Ocean’s blazing flood enshrined.
Whose vassal tide around her swells,
Albion. from other realms disjoined,
The prowess of the world excels;
She teems with heroes that to glory rise,
With more than human force in our astonished eyes.
To Virtue, driven from other lands,
Their bosoms yield a safe retreat;
Her law alone their deed commands,
Her smiles they feel divinely sweet;
Confirm my record, Milton, generous youth!
And by true virtue prove thy virtue’s praise a truth.
Zeuxis, all energy and flaine,
Set ardent forth in his career,
Urged to his task by Helen’s fame,
Resounding ever in his ear;
To make his image to her beauty true,
From the collected fair each sovereign charm he drew.2
The bee, with subtlest skill endued,
Thus toils to earn her precious juice,
From all the flowery myriads strewed
O’er meadow and parterre profuse;
Confederate voices one sweet air compound,
And various chords consent in one harmonious sound.
An artist of celestial aim,
Thy genius, caught by moral grace,
With ardent emulation’s flame
The steps of Virtue toiled to trace,
Observed in everv land who brightest shone,
And blending all their best, make perfect good thy own.
Front all in Florence born, or taught
Our country’s sweetest accent there,
Whose works, with learned labor wrought,
Immortal honors justly share,
Then hast such treasure drawn of purest ore,
That not even Tuscan bards can boast a richer store.
Babel, confused, and with her towers
Unfinished spreading wide and plain,
Has served but to evince thy powers,
With all hot, tongues confused in vain,
Since not alone thy England’s purest phrase,
But every polished realm thy various speech displays.
The secret things of heaven and earth,
By nature, too reserved. concealed
From other minds of highest worth,
To thee ate copiously revealed;
Thou knowest them clearly, and thy views attain
The utmost bounds prescribed to moral truth’s domain.
Let Time no snore his wing display,
And boast his ruinous career,
For Virtue, rescued front his sway.
His injuries may cease to fear;
Since all events that claim remembrance find
A chronicle exact in thy capacious mind.
Give me, that I may praise thy song,
Thy lyre, by which alone I can,
Which, placing thee the stars among,
Already proves thee more than man;
And Thames shall seem Permessus,3 while his stream
Graced with a swan like thee. shall be my favorite theme.
I, who beside the Arno, strain
To match thy merit with my lays,
Learn, after many an effort vain,
To admure thee rather than to praise;
And that by mute astonishment alone,
Not by the fathering tongue, thy worth may best be shown.
TO MR. JOHN MILTON OF LONDON
A youth eminent from his country and his virtues,
Who in his travels has made himself acquainted with many
nations, and in his studies, with all, that, life another
Ulysses, lie might learn all that all could teach him;
Skilful in many tongues, on whose lips languages now mute so
live again, that the idioms of all are insufficient to his
praise; happy acquisition by which he understands the
universal admiration and applause his talents trace excited;
Whose endowments of mind and person move us to wonder, but at the same time fix
us immovable: whose works prompt us to
extol him, but by their beauty strike us mute;
In whose memory the whole world is treasured; in whose
intellect, wisdom; in whose heart, the ardent desire for
glory; and in whose mouth, eloquence. Who with Astronomy for
his conductor, hears the music of the spheres; with
Philosophy for the teacher, deciphers the hand-writing of
God, in those wonders of creation which proclaim His
greatness; and with the most unwearied literary industry for
his associate, examines, restores, penetrates with case the
obscurities of antiquity, the desolations of ages, and the
labyrinths of learning;
“But wherefore toil to reach these ard
uous heights?”
To him, in short, whose virtues the mouths of Fame are too few to celebrate, and
whom astonishment forbids us to praise
a he deserves, this tribute due to his merits, and the
offering of reverence and affection, is paid by
CARLO DATI,
A PATRICIAN FLORENTINE.
This great man’s servant, and this good man’s friend.
ELEGY I
At length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destin’d home,
They come, at length, from Deva’s Western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian tide.
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.
I well content, where Thames with refluent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside, 10
Nor zeal nor duty, now, my steps impell
To reedy Cam, and my forbidden cell.
Nor aught of pleasure in those fields have I,
That, to the musing bard, all shade deny.
Tis time, that I, a pedant’s threats disdain,
And fly from wrongs, my soul will ne’er sustain.
If peaceful days, in letter’d leisure spent
Beneath my father’s roof, be banishment,
Then call me banish’d, I will ne’er refuse
A name expressive of the lot I chuse. 20
I would that exiled to the Pontic shore,
Rome’s hapless bard had suffer’d nothing more!
He then had equall’d even Homer’s lays,
And, Virgil! thou hadst won but second praise.
For here I woo the Muse with no control,
And here my books — my life — absorb me whole.
Here too I visit, or to smile, or weep,
The winding theatre’s majestic sweep;
The grave or gay colloquial scene recruits
My spirits spent in Learning’s long pursuits. 30
Whether some Senior shrewd, or spendthrift heir,
Wooer, or soldier, now unarm’d, be there,
Or some coif’d brooder o’er a ten years’ cause
Thunder the Norman gibb’rish of the laws.
The lacquey, there, oft dupes the wary sire,
And, artful, speeds th’enamour’d son’s desire.
There, virgins oft, unconscious what they prove,
What love is, know not, yet, unknowing, love.
Or, if impassion’d Tragedy wield high
The bloody sceptre, give her locks to fly 40
Wild as the winds, and roll her haggard eye,
I gaze, and grieve, still cherishing my grief.
At times, e’en bitter tears! yield sweet relief.
As when from bliss untasted torn away,
Some youth dies, hapless, on his bridal day,
Or when the ghost, sent back from shades below,
Fills the assassin’s heart with vengeful woe,
When Troy, or Argos, the dire scene affords,
Or Creon’s hall laments its guilty lords.
Nor always city-pent or pent at home 50
I dwell, but when Spring calls me forth to roam
Expatiate in our proud suburban shades
Of branching elm that never sun pervades.
Here many a virgin troop I may descry,
Like stars of mildest influence, gliding by,
Oh forms divine! Oh looks that might inspire
E’en Jove himself, grown old, with young desire!
Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing eyes,
Outsparkling every star that gilds the skies.
Necks whiter than the iv’ry arm bestow’d 60
By Jove on Pelops, or the Milky Road!
Bright locks, Love’s golden snares, these falling low,
Those playing wanton o’er the graceful brow!
Cheeks too, more winning sweet than after show’r,
Adonis turn’d to Flora’s fav’rite flow’r!
Yield, Heroines, yield, and ye who shar’d th’embrace
Of Jupiter in ancient times, give place;
Give place ye turban’d Fair of Persia’s coast,
And ye, not less renown’d, Assyria’s boast!
Submit, ye nymphs of Greece! Ye once the bloom 70
Of Ilion, and all ye of haughty Rome,
Who swept of old her theatres with trains
Redundant, and still live in classic strains!
To British damsels beauty’s palm is due,
Aliens! to follow them is fame for you.
Oh city,0 founded by Dardanian hands,
Whose towering front the circling realm commands,
Too blest abode! no loveliness we see
In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.
The virgin multitude that daily meets, 80
Radiant with gold and beauty, in thy streets,
Outnumbers all her train of starry fires
With which Diana gilds thy lofty spires.
Fame says, that wafted hither by her doves,
With all her host of quiver-bearing Loves,
Venus, prefering Paphian scenes no more,
Has fix’d her empire on thy nobler shore.
But lest the sightless boy inforce my stay,
I leave these happy walls, while yet I may.
Immortal Moly1 shall secure my heart 90
From all the sorc’ry of Circaean art,
And I will e’en repass Cam’s reedy pools
To face once more the warfare of the Schools.
Meantime accept this trifle; Rhymes, though few,
Yet such as prove thy friend’s remembrance true.
ELEGY II
On the Death of the University Beadle at Cambridge.
Thee, whose refulgent staff and summons clear,
Minerva’s flock longtime was wont t’obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
The last of heralds, Death, has snatch’d away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.
Thy locks were whiter than the plumes display’d
By Leda’s paramour in ancient time,
But thou wast worthy ne’er to have decay’d,
Or, Aeson-like, to know a second prime, 10
Worthy for whom some Goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo’s son.
Commission’d to convene with hasty call
The gowned tribes, how graceful wouldst thou stand!
So stood Cyllenius erst in Priam’s hall,
Wing-footed messenger of Jove’s command,
And so, Eurybates when he address’d
To Peleus’ son Atrides’ proud behest.
Dread Queen of sepulchres! whose rig’rous laws
And watchful eyes, run through the realms below, 20
Oh, oft too adverse to Minerva’s cause,
Too often to the Muse not less a foe,
Chose meaner marks, and with more equal aim
Pierce useless drones, earth’s burthen and its shame!
Flow, therefore, tears for Him from ev’ry eye,
All ye disciples of the Muses, weep!
Assembling, all, in robes of sable dye,
Around his bier, lament his endless sleep,
And let complaining Elegy rehearse
In every School her sweetest saddest verse. 30
ELEGY III
Anno Aetates 17.
On the Death of the Bishop of Winchester.
Silent I sat, dejected, and alone,
Making in thought the public woes my own,
When, first, arose the image in my breast
Of England’s sufferings by that scourge, the pest.
How death, his fun�
�ral torch and scythe in hand,
Ent’ring the lordliest mansions of the land,
Has laid the gem-illumin’d palace low,
And level’d tribes of Nobles at a blow.
I, next, deplor’d the famed fraternal pair
Too soon to ashes turn’d and empty air, 10
The Heroes next, whom snatch’d into the skies
All Belgia saw, and follow’d with her sighs;
But Thee far most I mourn’d, regretted most,
Winton’s chief shepherd and her worthiest boast;
Pour’d out in tears I thus complaining said —
Death, next in pow’r to Him who rules the Dead!
Is’t not enough that all the woodlands yield
To thy fell force, and ev’ry verdant field,
That lilies, at one noisome blast of thine,
And ev’n the Cyprian Queen’s own roses, pine, 20
That oaks themselves, although the running rill
Suckle their roots, must wither at thy will,
That all the winged nations, even those
Whose heav’n-directed flight the Future shows,
And all the beasts that in dark forests stray,
And all the herds of Proteus are thy prey?
Ah envious! arm’d with pow’rs so unconfined
Why stain thy hands with blood of Human kind?
Why take delight, with darts that never roam,
To chase a heav’n-born spirit from her home? 30
While thus I mourn’d, the star of evening stood,
Now newly ris’n, above the western flood,
And Phoebus from his morning-goal again
Had reach’d the gulphs of the Iberian main.
I wish’d repose, and, on my couch reclined
Took early rest, to night and sleep resign’d,
When — Oh for words to paint what I beheld!
I seem’d to wander in a spacious field,
Where all the champain glow’d with purple light
Like that of sun-rise on the mountain height; 40
Flow’rs over all the field, of ev’ry hue
That ever Iris wore, luxuriant grew,
Nor Chloris, with whom amtrous Zephyrs play,