LUCRETIUS LUCILIA, wedded to Lucretius, found To lead an errant passion home again. And this, at times, she mingled with his drink, Made havock among those tender cells, and check'd His power to shape: he loathed himself; and once After a tempest woke upon a morn That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried : 'Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rain Rushing; and once the flash of a thunderboltMethought I never saw so fierce a fork Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and show'd A riotous confluence of watercourses 'Storm, and what dreams, ye holy Gods, what dreams! For thrice I waken'd after dreams. Perchance We do but recollect the dreams that come Just ere the waking: terrible! for it seem'd A void was made in Nature; all her bonds Crack'd; and I saw the flaring atom-streams And torrents of her myriad universe, Ruining along the illimitable inane, Fly on to clash together again, and make Another and another frame of things For ever that was mine, my dream, I knew it— Of and belonging to me, as the dog No dragon warriors from Cadmean teeth, For these I thought my dream would show to me, In narrowing circles till I yell'd again 'Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the breasts, The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword Pointed itself to pierce, but sank down shamed Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I woke. 'Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine, Because I would not one of thine own doves, Not ev❜n a rose, were offer'd to thee? thine, 'Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these Angers thee most, or angers thee at all? Not if thou be'st of those who, far aloof From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn, Live the great life which all our greatest fain Would follow, center'd in eternal calm. 'Nay, if thou canst, O Goddess, like ourselves Touch, and be touch'd, then would I cry to thee To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms Round him, and keep him from the lust of blood That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome. 'Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not her, Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad; Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept Her Deity false in human-amorous tears; Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods, Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called Calliope to grace his golden verse— Ay, and this Kypris also did I take That popular name of thine to shadow forth Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers: 'The Gods! and if I go my work is left Not follow the great law? My master held I have forgotten what I meant : my mind |