Τις καταλείψαντας γλυκερόν φαος εκ ετι θρηνώ,
Της δ' επι προσδοκιη ζωντας αει θανατο.
Analecta Græca-Brunck. Vol. II. p. 343.
I MOURN not those who have already left
Life, the sweet light of Life, and Life's pure
But oh, I mourn their state, of hope bereft,
Who, living, pine in hourly dread of death,
And, dying, live-and supplicate the gift
Of added years to deck their wintry wreath
Of hoary honors:-and, when years are given,
Then pray for more, to make their peace with
Heaven!
THE SPARTANS SLAIN AT THERMOPYLÆ.
Ω ειν αγγειδδον Λακεδαιμονίοις, ότι τηλε
Κειμεθα, τοις κείνων ρημασι πειθόμενοι.
Go tell the SPARTANS, thou who passest by, That HERE, obedient to their voice, WE LIE.
[From the Fourth Book of Virgil's Georgics.]
ALONG the bank th' affrighted fair one fled,
But, ah! already number'd with the dead,
She mark'd not where, to guard the flowery way,
In tufted grass, a dreadful Hydra lay.
The choral Dryads bid their sorrows flow,
And chaunt on all their hills the dirge of woe.
Her fate the Rhodopeian towers bemoan'd;
Pangæus wept; the realm of Rhoesus groan'd;
And Hebrus, and Actian Orithyia.
He, striking deep and slow his hollow lyre,
His grief assuaging with the muse's lore,
Thee, sweetest spouse, thee, lonely on the shore,
At rising morn, at coming evening sang:
With thee the woods and vocal mountains
The jaws of Tænaros; the gulf, where light
Ne'er gleams, he sought; the grove of fearful Night;
The Manes dire; the King who fiercely glares;
And hearts, unknown to melt at human prayers.
But Hades owned the magic charm of sound:
The pale and glimmering ghosts came gliding round,
Numerous as birds that crowd the leafy bowers,
When frowns the darkness, or descend the showers.
Matrons and husbands; shades of heroes slain,
Who once were mighty on the battle-plain;
Unwedded maids, and youths, with funeral cries,
Laid on the pile before their parents' eyes;
Whom drear Cocytus, with unseemly reeds,
With sable mud, and intermingled weeds,
Enwraps; the slow, unlovely lake surrounds,
And Styx, the nine-fold stream, for ever bounds.
The inmost gulf of Tartarus was filled
With awe; the dire Eumenides were thrilled;
Ixion's wheel in air suspended hung,
And Cerberus was mute, while Orpheus sung!
THE Minstrel now had pass'd through every toil
But when returning with/the lovely spoil,
Restor❜d Eurydice, who'walk'd behind,
(For so Proserpine will'd) his reckless mind
Almighty Love o'ercame. Could Hell forgive,
E'en Hell would pardon, and would bid her live.
She now had gain'd th' æthereal realm of light;
He turned to gaze; and all to her was night!
Fruitless his toil-Proserpine's stern decree
Infring'dah, what remains but misery!
Convulsive throes thrice shook the trembling
ground;
And thrice deep murmurs roll'd through Hell pro
Oh, wretched Orpheus! I am lost," she cries: "Eternal sleep dissolves my swimming eyes. "Farewell! I sink, yet panting to entwine "These arms around thee-ah! no longer thine!"
Lo! from his sight the pallid spectre flees, Like smoke dispers'd upon the viewless breeze.
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