NO wrath of Men, or rage of Seas,

Can shake a just man's purposes:

No threats of Tyrants, or the Grim

Visage of them can alter him;

But what he doth at first entend

That he holds firmly to the end.

Herrick.

THE man of firm and noble soul

No factious clamours can control:

No threatening tyrant's darkling brow

Can swerve him from his just intent;

Gales the warring waves which plough,

By Auster on the billows spent,

To curb the Adriatic main

Would awe his fixed determined mind in vain.

Ay, and the red right arm of Jove,

Hurtling his lightnings from above,

With all his terrors there unfurled,

He would unmoved, unawed behold.

The flames of an expiring world,

Again in crushing chaos rolled,

In vast promiscuous ruin hurled,

Might light his glorious funeral pile,

Still dauntless 'mid the wreck of earth he'd smile.

Byron.

145

BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky!

Thine is the flower-crowned bowl, for thee shall die

When dawns yon sun, the kid

Whose horns, half-seen, half-hid,

Challenge to dalliance or to strife—in vain.

Soon must the firstling of the wild herd be slain,

And these cold springs of thine

With blood incarnadine.

Fierce glows the Dog-star, but his fiery beam

Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream

To labour-wearied ox,

Or wanderer from the flocks:

And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain:

My harp shall tell how from thy cavernous mountain,

Where the brown oak grows tallest,

All babblingly thou fallest.

C.S. Calverley.

148

The rendering that follows is printed in the author's Ionicanot as a translation, but as a poem, under the title Hypermnestra. It represents our poem of Horace from the 25th line onwards.

LET me tell of Lydи of wedding-law slighted,

Penance of maidens and bootless task,

Wasting of water down leaky cask,

Crime in the prison-pit slowly requited.

Miscreant brides! for their grooms they slew.

One out of many is not attainted,

One alone blest and for ever sainted,

False to her father, to wedlock true.

Praise her! she gave her young husband the warning.

Praise her for ever! She cried, 'Arise!

Flee from the slumber that deadens the eyes;

Flee from the night that hath never a morning.

Baffle your host who contrived our espousing,

Baffle my sisters, the forty and nine,

Raging like lions that mangle the kine,

Each on the blood of a quarry carousing.

I am more gentle, I strike not thee,

I will not hold thee in dungeon tower.

Though the king chain me, I will not cower,

Though my sire banish me over the sea.

Freely run, freely sail, good luck attend thee;

Go with the favour of Venus and Night.

On thy tomb somewhere and some day bid write

Record of her who hath dared to befriend thee.'

W. Johnson Cory.

149

UNSHAMED, unchecked, for one so dear

We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir,

Melpomene, to whom thy sire

Gave harp and song-notes liquid-clear!

Sleeps he the sleep that knows no morn?

O Honour, O twin-born with Right,

Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light,

When shall again his like be born?

Many a kind heart for him makes moan;

Thine, Vergil, first. But ah! in vain

Thy love bids heaven restore again

That which it took not as a loan.

Were sweeter lute than Orpheus' given

To thee, did trees thy voice obey;

The blood revisits not the clay

Which he, with lifted wand, hath driven

Into his dark assemblage, who

Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer.

Hard lot. Yet light their griefs, who bear

The ills which they may not undo.

C.S. Calverley.

152, ii

THE snow, dissolv'd, no more is seen,

The fields and woods, behold, are green;

The changing year renews the plain,

The rivers know their banks again;

The sprightly Nymph and naked Grace

The mazy dance together trace;

The changing year's successive plan

Proclaims mortality to Man.

Rough winter's blasts to spring give way,

Spring yields to summer's sovran ray;

Then summer sinks in autumn's reign,