In terms which Demosthenic force outgo,
And baldest jests of foul-mouthed Cicero.
Right in the midst great Atè keeps her stand,
And from her sovereign station taints the land.
Hence pulpits rail; grave senates learn to jar;
Quacks scold; and Billingsgate infects the Bar.
EXISTENCE, CONSIDERED IN ITSELF, NO BLESSING.
FROM THE LATIN OF PALINGENIUS.
The poet, after a seeming approval of suicide from a consideration of the cares and crimes of life, finally rejecting it, discusses the negative importance of existence, contemplated in itself, without reference to good or evil.
Of these sad truths consideration had,
Thou shalt not fear to quit this world so mad,
So wicked; but the tenet rather hold
Of wise Calanus and his followers old,
Who with their own wills their own freedom wrought,
And by self-slaughter their dismissal sought
From this dark den of crime, this horrid lair
Of men, that savager than monsters are;
And scorning longer in this tangled mesh
Of ills to wait on perishable flesh,
Did with their desperate hands anticipate
The too, too slow relief of lingering fate.
And if religion did not stay thine hand,
And God and Plato's wise behests withstand,
I would in like case counsel thee to throw
This senseless burden off, of cares below.
Not wine, as wine, men choose, but as it came
From such or such a vintage: 'tis the same
With life, which simply must be understood
A blank negation, if it be not good.
But if 'tis wretched all,-as men decline
And loathe the sour lees of corrupted wine,-
'Tis so to be contemned. Merely TO BE
Is not a boon to seek, or ill to flee;
Seeing that every vilest little thing
Has it in common,-from a gnat's small wing,
A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone,
And crumbling bark from trees. Unless TO BE
And TO BE BLEST be one, I do not see
In bare existence, as existence, aught
That's worthy to be loved or to be sought.
THE PARTING SPEECH OF THE CELESTIAL
MESSENGER TO THE POET.
FROM THE LATIN OF PALINGENIUS, IN THE “ZODIACUS VITÆ.”
BUT now time warns (my mission at an end)
That to Jove's starry court I re-ascend;
From whose high battlements I take delight
To scan your earth, diminished to the sight,
Pendent and round, and, as an apple, small,
Self-propt, self-balanced, and secure from fall
By her own weight; and how with liquid robe
Blue Ocean girdles round her tiny globe,
While lesser Nereus, gliding like a snake,
Betwixt her hands his flexile course doth take,
Shrunk to a rivulet; and how the Po,
The mighty Ganges, Tanais, Ister, show
No bigger than a ditch which rains have swelled.
Old Nilus' seven proud mouths I late beheld,
And mocked the watery puddles. Hosts steel-clad
Ofttimes I thence beheld; and how the sad
Peoples are punished by the fault of kings,
Which from the purple fiend Ambition springs.
Forgetful of mortality, they live
In hot strife for possessions fugitive,
At which the angels grieve. Sometimes I trace
Of fountains, rivers, seas, the change of place;
By ever-shifting course, and Time's unrest,
The vale exalted, and the mount deprest
To an inglorious valley; ploughshares going
Where tall trees reared their tops, and fresh trees growing
In antique postures; cities lose their site;
Old things wax new. O what a rare delight
To him who, from this vantage, can survey
At once stern Afric and soft Asia,
With Europe's cultured plains, and, in their turns,
Their scattered tribes!-those whom the hot Crab burns,
The tawny Ethiops; Orient Indians;
Getulians; ever-wandering Scythians ;
Swift Tartar hordes; Cilicians rapacious,
And Parthians with black-bended bow pugnacious;
Sabeans incense bring; the men of Thrace;
Italian, Spaniard, Gaul; and that rough race
Of Britons, rigid as their native colds;
With all the rest the circling sun beholds,
But clouds and elemental mists deny
These visions blest to any fleshly eye.
A TALE FROM SUIDAS.
IN days of yore, ere early Greece
Had dreamed of patrols or police,
A crew of rake-hells in terrorem
Spread wide, and carried all before 'em,
Rifled the poultry and the women,
And held that all things were in common;
Till Jove's great son the nuisance saw,
And did abate it by Club Law.
Yet not so clean he made his work,
But here and there a rogue would lurk
In caves and rocky fastnesses,
And shunned the strength of Hercules.
Of these, more desperate than others,
A pair of ragamuffin brothers
In secret ambuscade joined forces,
To carry on unlawful courses.
These robbers' names, enough to shake us,
Were, Strymon one, the other Cacus.
And, more the neighbourhood to bother,
A wicked dam they had for mother,
Who knew their craft, but not forbid it,
And whatsoe'er they nymmed, she hid it;
Received them with delight and wonder,
When they brought home some special plunder;
Called them her darlings and her white boys,
Her ducks, her dildings-all was right, boys-
"Only," she said, "my lads, have care
Ye fall not into BLACK BACK'S snare;
For, if he catch, he'll maul your corpus,
And clapper-claw you to some purpose."
She was in truth a kind of witch,
Had grown by fortune-telling rich;
To spells and conjurings did tackle her,
And read folk's dooms by light oracular;
In which she saw, as clear as daylight,
What mischief on her bairns would alight;
Therefore she had a special loathing
For all that owned that sable clothing.
Who can 'scape fate, when we're decreed to 't?
The graceless brethren paid small heed to 't.
A brace they were of sturdy fellows,
As we may say, that feared no colours,
And sneered, with modern infidelity,
At the old gipsy's fond credulity,
It proved all true though, as she mumbled-
For on a day the varlets stumbled
On a green spot-sit linguæ fides-
'Tis Suidas tells it-where Alcides
Secure, as fearing no ill neighbour,
Lay fast asleep after a "Labour."
His trusty oaken plane was near-
The prowling rogues look round, and leer,
And each his wicked wits 'gan rub,
How to bear off the famous Club;
Thinking that they, sans price or hire, would
Carry 't straight home, and chop for firewood.
'Twould serve their old dame half a winter.
You stare! but 'faith it was no splinter;
I would not for much money 'spy
Such beam in any neighbour's eye,
The villains, these exploits not dull in,
Incontinently fell a pulling.
They found it heavy-no slight matter—
But tugged and tugged, until the clatter
'Woke Hercules, who in a trice
Whipt up the knaves, and with a splice
He kept on purpose-which before
Had served for giants many a score-
To end of Club tied each rogue's head fast :
Strapping feet too, to keep them steadfast:
And pickaback them carries townwards,
Behind his brawny back head-downwards
(So foolish calf-for rhyme I bless X-
Comes nolens volens out of Essex);
Thinking to brain them with his dextra,
Or string them up upon the next tree.
That Club-so equal fates condemn-
They thought to catch, has now catched them.
Now Hercules, we may suppose,
Was no great dandy in his clothes;
Was seldom, save on Sundays, seen
In calimanco or nankeen;
On anniversaries would try on
A jerkin spick-span new from lion;
Went bare, for the most part, to be cool,
And save the time of his Groom of the Stole; Besides, the smoke he had been in
In Stygian gulf had dyed his skin
To a natural sable-a right hell-fit
That seemed to careless eyes black velvet.
The brethren from their station scurvy,
Where they hung dangling topsy-turvy,
With horror view the black costume,
And each presumes his hour is come!
Then softly to themselves 'gan mutter
The warning words their dame did utter;
Yet not so softly, but with ease
Were overheard by Hercules.
Quoth Cacus, "This is he she spoke of,
Which we so often made a joke of."
I see," said the other; "thank our sin for 't,
'Tis Black Back sure enough: we're in for 't."
His godship, who, for all his brag
Of roughness, was at heart a wag,
At his new name was tickled finely,
And fell a-laughing most divinely.
Quoth he, "I'll tell this jest in heaven;
The musty rogues shall be forgiven;"
So in a twinkling did uncase them,
On mother earth once more to place them.
The varlets, glad to be unhampered,
Made each a leg, then fairly scampered.
THE clouds are blackening, the storms threatening,
And ever the forest maketh a moan;
Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching,
Thus by herself she singeth alone,
Weeping right plenteously.
"The world is empty, the heart is dead surely,
In this world plainly all seemeth amiss;
To thy breast, holy one, take now thy little one,
I have had earnest of all earth's bliss,
Living right lovingly."
ON R. B. HAYDON'S "JERUSALEM."
IN TABULAM EXIMII PICTORIS B. HAYDONI IN QUÂ SOLYMÆI, AD-
VENIENTE DOMINO, PALMAS IN VIA PROSTERNENTES MIRÂ
ARTE DEPINGUNTUR.
QUID vult iste equitans? et quid velit iste virorum
Palmifera ingens turba, et vox tremebunda Hosanna,
Hosanna Christo semper semperque canamus.
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