FROM LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM.
Unhappy child! unhappy I, who shed
A mother's sorrows o'er thy funeral bed!
Thou'rt gone in youth, Amyntas; I, in age,
Must wander thro' a lonely pilgrimage,
And sigh for regions of unchanging night,
And sicken at the day's repeated light..
Oh guide me hence, sweet spirit, to that bourn,
Where in thy presence I shall cease to mourn.
See Note 23.
Not here, O thirsty traveller, stoop to drink,
The Sun has warm'd and flocks disturb'd the brink; But climb yon upland where the heifers play, Where that tall pine excludes the sultry day;
There will you list a bubbling rill that flows
Down the smooth rock more cold than Thracian
Far from Tarentum's native soil I lie,
Far from the dear land of my infancy.
"Tis dreadful to resign this mortal breath,
But in a stranger-land is worse than death!
It is not life to pass our fever'd age
In ceaseless wanderings on the world's wide stage;
But me the muse has ever lov'd, and giv’n
Sweet joys to counterpoise the curse of Heav'n,
Nor lets my memory decay, but long
To distant times preserves my deathless song.
If any virtue my rude songs can claim,
Enough the Muse has given to build my fame;
But if condemned ingloriously to die,
Why longer raise my mortal minstrelsy?
Had Jove or Fate to life two seasons lent,
In toil and ease alternate to be spent,
Then well one portion labour might employ
In expectation of the following joy;
But if one only age of life is due
To man, and that so short and transient too,
How long (ah miserable race!) in care
And fruitless labour waste the vital air?
How long with idle toil to wealth aspire,
And feed a never-satisfied desire?
How long forget that, mortal from our birth,
Short is our troubled sojourn on the earth?
LAMENTATION OF THE CYCLOPS.
Yet will I go beside the sounding main,
And to yon solitary crags complain;
And, onward sorrowing by the sandy shore,
The scorn of Galatea's brow deplore.
But oh sweet hope! be present to my heart,
Nor with my latest, feeblest, age depart!
HYMN TO THE EVENING STAR.
Mild Star of Eve, whose tranquil beams
Are grateful to the Queen of Love;
Fair planet, whose effulgence gleams
More bright than all the host above,
And only to the Moon's clear light
Yields the first honours of the night!
All hail, thou soft, thou holy, star,
Thou glory of the midnight sky!
And when my steps are wandering far,
Leading the shepherd-minstrelsy,
Then, if the Moon deny her ray,
Oh guide me, Hesper, on my way!
No savage robber of the dark,
No foul assassin, claims thy aid, To guide his dagger to its mark,
Or light him on his plund'ring trade ; . My gentler errand is to prove
The transports of requited love.
Chasing his feathered game within the grove,
Young Thyrsis saw th' averted form of Love
Perched on a boxen bough; with joy he cries,
“This Giant-bird will prove a noble prize.”
His shafts he culls, applies them to his bow,
And marks Love's frolic gambols to and fro;
But vain his skill-his shafts, that miss their aim,
He spurns indignant, and with conscious shame
Hastes to the seer who taught him first the way
With certain aim to strike the winged prey.
He told his tale, and bad him "look, and see
The Giant-bird still perched on yonder tree."
The seer attentive shook his prescient head,
And with a smile, a parent's smile, he said,
"Forbear the chase-fly from this bird, my child,
Away-the prey you seek is savage, wild-
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