Others, transfixed with barbéd arrows, in agony perish,

For the swift arrow-heads all have in poison been dipped.

What they cannot carry or lead away they demolish,

And the hostile flames burn up the innocent cots.

Even when there is peace, the fear of war is impending;

None, with the ploughshare pressed, furrows the soil any more.

Either this region sees, or fears a foe that it sees not, And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.

No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves,

No fermenting must fills and o'erflows the deep

vats.

Apples the region denies; nor would Acontius have found here

Aught upon which to write words for his mistress

to read.

Naked and barren plains without leaves or trees we behold here,

Places, alas! unto which no happy man would repair.

Since then this mighty orb lies open so wide upon all sides,

Has this region been found only my prison to be?

TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy XII.

Now the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the year being ended,

Winter Mæotian seems longer than ever before;

And the Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle

Now makes the hours of the day equal with those of the night.

gather,

Which the fields bring forth, nobody sowing the seed.

Now the meadows are blooming with flowers of various colors,

And with untaught throats carol the garrulous birds.

Now the swallow, to shun the crime of her merciless mother,

Under the rafters builds cradles and dear little homes;

And the blade that lay hid, covered up in the furrows of Ceres,

Now from the tepid ground raises its delicate head.

Where there is ever a vine, the bud shoots forth from the tendrils,

But from the Getic shore distant afar is the vine!

Where there is ever a tree, on the tree the branches are swelling,

But from the Getic land distant afar is the tree!

Now it is holiday there in Rome, and to games in due order

Give place the windy wars of the vociferous bar.

Now they are riding the horses; with light arms now they are playing,

Now with the ball, and now round rolls the swiftflying hoop:

Now, when the young athlete with flowing oil is anointed,

He in the Virgin's Fount bathes, overwearied, his limbs.

Thrives the stage; and applause, with voices at variance, thunders,

And the Theatres three for the three Forums resound.

Four times happy is he, and times without number is happy,

Who the city of Rome, uninterdicted, enjoys.

But all I see is the snow in the vernal sunshine dissolving,

And the waters no more delved from the indurate lake.

Nor is the sea now frozen, nor as before o'er the Ister

Comes the Sarmatian boor driving his stridulous cart.

Hitherward, nevertheless, some keels already are steering,

And on this Pontic shore alien vessels will be.

Eagerly shall I run to the sailor, and, having saluted,

Who he may be, I shall ask; wherefore and whence he hath come.

Strange indeed will it be, if he come not from regions adjacent,

And incautious unless ploughing the neighboring

sea.

Rarely a mariner over the deep from Italy passes, Rarely he comes to these shores, wholly of har

bors devoid.

Whether he knoweth Greek, or whether in Latin he speaketh,

Here, in the shade, this life of ours,
Full of delicious air, glides by
Amid a multitude of flowers

As countless as the stars on high;

These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil,
Bathed with an azure all divine,
Where springs the tree that gives us oil,
The grape that giveth us the wine;

Beneath these mountains stripped of trees,
Whose tops with flowers are covered o'er,
Where spring-time of the Hesperides

Begins, but endeth nevermore;

Under these leafy vaults and walls,
That unto gentle sleep persuade;

This rainbow of the waterfalls,

Of mingled mist and sunshine made;

Upon these shores, where all invites,
We live our languid life apart;
This air is that of life's delights,
The festival of sense and heart;

This limpid space of time prolong,
Forget to-morrow in to-day,
And leave unto the passing throng
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway.

TO MY BROOKLET.

FROM THE FRENCH OF DUCIS.

THOU brooklet, all unknown to song,
Hid in the covert of the wood!
Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng,
Like thee I love the solitude.

O brooklet, let my sorrows past
Lie all forgotten in their graves,
Till in my thoughts remain at last
Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy waves.

The lily by thy margin waits; —

The nightingale, the marguerite; In shadow here he meditates

His nest, his love, his music sweet. Near thee the self-collected soul

Knows naught of error or of crime;
Thy waters, murmuring as they roll,
Transform his musings into rhyme.

Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves,
Pursuing still thy course, shall I
List the soft shudder of the leaves,

And hear the lapwing's plaintive cry?

BARRÉGES.

FROM THE FRENCH OF LEFRANC DE POMPIGNAN.

I LEAVE you, ye cold mountain chains,
Dwelling of warriors stark and frore!
You, may these eyes behold no more,
Save on the horizon of our plains.

Vanish, ye frightful, gloomy views!
Ye rocks that mount up to the clouds!
Of skies, enwrapped in inisty shrouds,
Impracticable avenues!

Ye torrents, that with might and main
Break pathways through the the rocky walls!
With your terrific waterfalls

Fatigue no more my weary brain!

Arise, ye landscapes full of charms,
Arise, ye pictures of delight!

Ye brooks, that water in your flight
The flowers and harvests of our farms!

You I perceive, ye meadows green,

Where the Garonne the lowland fills,
Not far from that long chain of hills,
With intermingled vales between.

Yon wreath of smoke, that mounts so high,
Methinks from my own hearth must come;
With speed, to that beloved home,
Fly, ye too lazy coursers, fly!

And bear me thither, where the soul
In quiet may itself possess,

Where all things soothe the mind's distress, Where all things teach me and console.

I.

THE ARTIST.

NOTHING the greatest artist can conceive

That every marble block doth not confine
Within itself; and only its design

The band that follows intellect can achieve.
The ill I flee, the good that I believe,

In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, Thus hidden lie; and so that death be mine Art, of desired success, doth me bereave. Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny, If in thy heart both death and love find place At the same time, and if my humble brain, Burning, can nothing draw but death from thee.

II.

FIRE.

Nor without fire can any workman mould
The iron to his preconceived design,
Nor can the artist without fire refine
And purify from all its dross the gold;
Nor can revive the phoenix, we are told,
Except by fire. Hence if such death be mine
I hope to rise again with the divine,

Whom death augments, and time cannot make old.

O sweet, sweet death! O fortunate fire that burns
Within me still to renovate my days,
Though I am almost numbered with the dead!

If by its nature unto heaven returns

This element, me, kindled in its blaze,

Will it bear upward when my life is fled.

III.

YOUTH AND AGE.

Он give me back the days when loose and free
To my blind passion were the curb and rein,
Oh give me back the angelic face again,
With which all virtue buried seems to be!
Oh give my panting footsteps back to me,
That are in age so slow and fraught with pain,
And fire and moisture in the heart and brain,
If thou wouldst have me burn and weep for thee!
If it be true thou livest alone, Amor,

On the sweet-bitter tears of human hearts,
In an old man thou canst not wake desire;
Souls that have almost reached the other shore
Of a diviner love should feel the darts,
And be as tinder to a holier fire.

V.

TO VITTORIA COLONNA.

LADY, how can it chance - yet this we see
In long experience that will longer last
A living image carved from quarries vast
Than its own maker, who dies presently?
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be,

And even Nature is by Art surpassed;
This know I, who to Art have given the past,
But see that Time is breaking faith with me.
Perhaps on both of us long life can I

Either in color or in stone bestow,
By now portraying each in look and mien;
So that a thousand years after we die,

How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe,
And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.

VI.

TO VITTORIA COLONNA.

WHEN the prime mover of my many sighs Heaven took through death from out her earthly place,

Nature, that never made so fair a face,

Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes. O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries!

O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace, Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies. Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay

The rumor of thy virtuous renown, That Lethe's waters could not wash away! A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down, Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey, Except through death, a refuge and a crown.

AH me! ah me! when thinking of the years,
The vanished years, alas, I do not find
Among them all one day that was my own!
Fallacious hopes, desires of the unknown,
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in tears,
(For human passions all have stirred my mind),
Have held me, now I feel and know, confined
Both from the true and good still far away.
I perish day by day;

The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,

And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.

DEDICATION.

TO G. W. G.

WITH favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Hebrides,
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while

We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

DEAD he lay among his books! The peace of God was in his looks.

As the statues in the gloom Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,1

So those volumes from their shelves Watched him, silent as themselves.

Ah! his hand will nevermore
Turn their storied pages o'er;

Nevermore his lips repeat
Songs of theirs, however sweet.

Let the lifeless body rest!
He is gone, who was its guest;
Gone, as travellers haste to leave
An inn, nor tarry until eve.

Traveller! in what realms afar,
In what planet, in what star,
In what vast, aerial space,
Shines the light upon thy face?

In what gardens of delight
Rest thy weary feet to-night?

Poet! thou, whose latest verse
Was a garland on thy hearse;

Thou hast sung, with organ tone,
In Deukalion's life, thine own;

On the ruins of the Past
Blooms the perfect flower at last.

Friend! but yesterday the bells
Rang for thee their loud farewells;

And to-day they toll for thee,
Lying dead beyond the sea;

Lying dead among thy books,
The peace of God in all thy looks.

1 In the Ilofkirche at Innsbruck.

THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE

Is it so far from thee
Thou canst no longer see,

In the Chamber over the Gate,
That old man desolate,
Weeping and wailing sore
For his son, who is no more?
O Absalom, my son !

Is it so long ago

That cry of human woe
From the walled city came,
Calling on his dear name,
That it has died away
In the distance of to-day?
O Absalom, my son!

There is no far or near,
There is neither there nor here,
There is neither soon nor late,
In that Chamber over the Gate,
Nor any long ago

To that cry of human woe,
O Absalom, my son!

From the ages that are past
The voice sounds like a blast,
Over seas that wreck and drown,
Over tumult of traffic and town;
And from ages yet to be
Come the echoes back to me,
O Absalom, my son!
Somewhere at every hour
The watchman on the tower
Looks forth, and sees the fleet
Approach of the hurrying feet
Of messengers, that bear
The tidings of despair.

O Absalom, my son!

He goes forth from the door,
Who shall return no more.
With him our joy departs;
The light goes out in our hearts;
In the Chamber over the Gate
We sit disconsolate.

O Absalom, my son!

That 't is a common grief
Bringeth but slight relief;
Ours is the bitterest loss,
Ours is the heaviest cross;
And forever the cry will be,
"Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son!"

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.

TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE,

Who presented to me, on my Seventy-second Birthday, February 27, 1879, this Chair made from the Wood of the Village Blacksmith's Chestnut-Tree.

AM I a king, that I should call my own
This splendid ebon throne?

Or by what reason, or what right divine,
Can I proclaim it mine?

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song
It may to me belong;

Only because the spreading chestnut-tree
Of old was sung by me.