ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED TO MISS. Dear, simple girl, those flattering arts, Mere phantoms of thine own creation; Then he who tells thee of thy beauty, July, 1804. My eyes refuse the cheering light, Their orbs are veil'd in starless night: Such pangs my nature sinks beneath, And feels a temporary death. TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH ON VIRGIL AND TIBULLUS. BY DOMITIUS MARSUS. HE who sublime in epic numbers roll'd, ADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL WHEN DYING. [ANIMULA! vagula, blandula, Aн! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring sprite, Friend and associate of this clay! To what unknown region borne, Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight? No more with wonted humour gay, But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS. AD LESBIAM. EQUAL to Jove that youth must be- My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short, With deadly languor droops my head, My ears with tingling echoes ring, And life itself is on the wing; IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. CRUEL Cerinthus! does the fell disease TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS. [Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque, &c.] Whom dearer than her eyes she loved: IMITATED FROM CATULLUS. OH! might I kiss those eyes of fire, FROM ANACREON. [θέλω λεγεῖν Ατρείδας, κ. τ. λ.] Fired with the hope of future fame, FROM ANACREON. [Μεσονυκτίαις ποθ' ώραις, κ. τ. λ.] "T WAS now the hour when Night had driven Her car half round yon sable heaven; Boötes, only, seem'd to roll His arctic charge around the pole; His little fingers chill my breast; His glossy curls, his azure wing, Which droop with nightly showers, I wring, FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS [Μηδαμ ̓ ὁ πάντα νέμων, κ. τ. λ.] My voice shall raise no impious strain 'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. How different now thy joyless fate, Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd. HARROW, Dec. 1, 1804. TO EMMA. SINCE now the hour is come at last, One pang, my girl, and all is over. Which bids us part to meet no more; Well! we have pass'd some happy hours, It dared to give your slumbering eyes: See still the little painted bark, In which I row'd you o'er the lake; Without thee what will they avail? This is the deepest of our woes, For this these tears our cheeks bedew: TO M. S. G. WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Whene'er I dream of that pure breast, For that would banish its repose. A glance from thy soul-searching eye I ne'er have told my love, yet thou I will not ease my tortured heart Each thought presumptuous I resign. And hope no more thy soft embrace; All, all reproach, but thy disgrace. TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine, The tears that from my eyelids flow'd Were lost in those which fell from thine. Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek, Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame; And as thy tongue essay'd to speak, In signs alone it breathed my name. But that will make us weep the more. Again, thou best beloved, adieu! Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret; Nor let thy mind past joys review,Our only hope is to forget! TO CAROLINE. WHEN I hear you express an affection so warm, Ne'er think, my beloved, that I do not believe; For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm, And your eye beams a ray which can never deceive. Yet still this fond bosom regrets, while adoring, That love, like the leaf, must fall into the sere; That age will come on, when remembrance, deploring, Contemplates the scenes of her youth with a tear; That the time must arrive, when, no longer retaining [breeze, Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to the When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining, Prove nature a prey to decay and disease. 'Tis this, my beloved, which spreads gloom o'er my features, [decree Though I ne'er shall presume to arraign the Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of his creatures, [me. In the death which one day will deprive you of Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion, But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall o'er- Oh! then let us drain, while we may, draughts of pleasure, [flow; Which from passion like ours may unceasingly Let us pass round the cup of love's bliss in full With transport my tongue give a loose to its But now tears and curses, alike unavailing, Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight; Could they view us our sad separation bewailing, Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight. Yet still, though we bend with a feign'd resignation, [cheer; Life beams not for us with one ray that can Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation; In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear. Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me, [fled? Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee, Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead. 1805. STANZAS TO A LADY, WITH THE THIS Votive pledge of fond esteem, In single sorrow doom'd to fade? In pity for the poet's woes. His was no faint, fictitious flame: THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. Έρωτα μουνον ἠχεῖ.-ANACREON. AWAY with your fictions of flimsy romance; Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove! Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, [love. Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow, Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove; From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love! If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, [rove, Or the Nine be disposed from your service to Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse, And try the effect of the first kiss of love. I hate you, ye cold compositions of art! [prove, Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots re1 court the effusions that spring from the heart, Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love. Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, [love? Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move: Arcadia displays but a region of dreams : What are visions like these to the first kiss of Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove, Some portion of paradise still is on earth, And Eden revives in the first kiss of love. When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past For years fleet away with the wings of the doveThe dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love. ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own, July, 1805. TO THE DUKE OF DORSET. DORSET! whose early steps with mine have stray'd, Exploring every path of Ida's glade; Whom still affection taught me to defend, And made me less a tyrant than a friend, Though the harsh custom of our youthful band Bade thee obcy, and gave me to command; Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower The gift of riches and the pride of power; E'en now a name illustrious is thine own, Renown'd in rank, nor far beneath the throne. Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul To shun fair science, or evade control, Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise The titled child, whose future breath may raise, View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, And wink at faults they tremble to chastise. When youthful parasites, who bend the knee To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee,And even in simple boyhood's opening dawn Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn,When these declare, "that pomp alone should wait On one by birth predestined to be great; That books were only meant for drudging fools, That gallant spirits scorn the common rules;" Believe them not;-they point the path to shame, And seek to blast the honours of thy name. Turn to the few in Ida's early throng, Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong; Or if, amidst the comrades of thy youth, None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth, Ask thine own heart; 't will bid thee, boy, forbear; For well I know that virtue lingers there. Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, But now new scenes invite me far away; Yes! I have mark'd within that generous mind A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind. Ah! though myself by nature haughty, wild, Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favourite child; Though every error stamps me for her own, And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone; Though my proud heart no precept now can tame, I love the virtues which I cannot claim. "Tis not enough, with other sons of power, To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour; To swell some peerage page in feeble pride, With long-drawn names that grace no page beside; Then share with titled crowds the common lotIn life just gazed at, in the grave forgot; While nought divides thee from the vulgar dead, Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head, The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll, That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll, Where lords, unhonour'd, in the tomb may find One spot, to leave a worthless name behind. There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults, A race, with old armorial lists o'erspread, In records destined never to be read. Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes, Exalted more among the good and wise, A glorious and a long career pursue, As first in rank, the first in talent too: Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun; Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest son. Turn to the annals of a former day; Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display. One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth, And call'd, proud boast! the British drama forth. Another view, not less renown'd for wit; Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit; Bold in the field, and favour'd by the Nine; In every splendid part ordain'd to shine; Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng, The pride of princes, and the boast of song. Such were thy fathers; thus preserve their name; Not heir to titles only, but to fame. The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, To me, this little scene of joys and woes; Each knell of Time now warns me to resign [mine: Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were ་ ་ག ་ས |