May one kind grave unite each hapless name, Amid that scene if some relenting eye And graft my love immortal on thy fame! Glance on the stone where our cold relics lie, Then, ages hence, when all my woes are o'er, Devotion's self shall steal a thought from Hearen, When this rebellious beart shall beat no more ; One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven. If ever chance two wandering lovers brings And sure if Fate soine future bard shall join To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs, In sad similitude of griefs to mine, O'er the pale marble shall they join their heads, Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore, And drink the falling tears each other sheds; And image charms he must behold no more; Then sadly say, with inutual pity mov'd, Such, if there be, who loves so long, so well; “ 0, may we never love as these have lóv'd !" Let him our sad, our tender story tell! From the full choir, when loud hosaunas rise, The well-sung woes will sooth my pensive ghost; And swell the ponip of dreadful sacrifice, He best can paint them who shall feel them most! TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS. ADVERTISEMENT. The following Translations were selected from many others done by the author in his youth; for the most part indeed but a sort of exercises, while he was improving himself in the languages, and carried by his early bent to poetry to perform them rather in verse than prose. Mr. Dryden's Fables came out about that time, which occasioned the Translations from Chaucer. They were first separately printed in Miscellanies by J. Tonson and B. Lintot, and afterwards collected in the quarto edition of 1717. The Imitations of English authors, which follow, were done as early, some of them at fourteen or fifteen years old. THE When opening buds salute the welcome day, And earth relenting feels the genial ray; As balmy sleep had charm’d my cares to rest, And love itself was banish'd from my breast, While purer sluinbers spread their golden wings) A train of phantoms in wild order rose, I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas and manner entirely altered, the descriptions and The whole creation open to my eyes : [skies; 11. most of the particular thoughts my owni; yet I In air self-balanc'd hung the globe below, could not suffer it to be printed without this ac Where mountains rise, and circling oceans flow; knowledgment. The reader, who would com Here naked rocks, and empty wastes were seen pare this with Chaucer, may begin with bis There towering cities, and the forests green: third book of Fame, there being nothing in the Here sailing ships delight the wandering eyes; two first books that answers to their title : There trees and intermingled temples rise: wherever any hint is taken from him, the pas- Now a clear sun the shining scene displays; sage itself is set down in the marginal notes. The transient landscape now in clouds decays: The poem is introduced in the manner of the Pro O'er the wide prospect as I gaz'd around, vençal poets, whose works were for the most Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound, Like broken thunders tha part visions, or pieces of imagination, and con at distance roar, stantly descriptive. From these, Petrarch and Or billows murmuring on the hollow shore : Chaucer frequently borrowed the idea of their poems. See the Trionfi of the former, and the Ver. 11, &c.] These verses are hinted from the Dream, Flower and the Leaf, &c. of the latter. following of Chaucer, Book ii. The author of this therefore chose the same sort Though beheld I fields and plains of exordium. Now hills and now mountains, Now valeis, and now forestes, And now unneth great bestes, Now rivers, now citees, Ix that soft season, when descending showers Now towns, now great trces, Call forth the greens, and wake the rising fewers; Now shippes mylivg in the see. IMITATIONS Then gazing up, a glorious pile beheld, (ceal'd. Their names inscrib'd unnumber'd ages past frost) The gather'd winter of a thousand years. And fix their own, with labour, in their place : On this foundation Fame's high temple stands; Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd, Stupendous pile! not rear'd by mortal hands. Or disappear'd, and left the first behind. Whate'er proud Rome or artful Grecce beheld, Nor was the work impair'd by storins alone, 41 Or elder Babylon, its frame excell'd. But felt th' approaches of too warm a sun; Four faces had the dome, and every face, For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays Of various structure, but of equal grace! Not more by Envy, than excess of Praise. Four brazen gates, on columns lifted high, Yet part no injuries of Heaven could feel, 45 Salute the different quarters of the sky. Like crystal faithful to the graving steel: Here fabled chiefs in darker ages born, The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade, Or worthies old, whom arms or arts adorn, Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade. Who cities rais'd, or tam'd a inonstrous race, The walls in venerable order grace: Heroes ju animated marble frown, Westward, a sumptuous frontispiece appear'd, It stood upon so high a rock, On Doric pillars of white marble rear'd, Higher standeth none in Spayne Crown'd with an architrave of antique mold, What manner stone this rock was, And sculpture rising on the roughen'd gold. For it was like a lymed glass, In shaggy spoils here Theseus was beheld, But that it sbone full inore clere; And Perseus dreadful with Minerva's shield : But of what congeled matere There great Alcides, stooping with his toil, It was, I niste redily; Rests on his club, and holds th' Hesperian spoil : But at the last espied I, Here Orpheus sings ; trees moving to the sound? And found that it was every dele, Start froin their roots, and form a shade around : A rock of ice, and not of stele. Amphion there the loud creating lyre Ver. 31. Inscriptions here, &c.] Strikes, and behold a sudden Thebes aspire! Cythæron's echoes answer to bis call, And half the mountain rolls into a wall: There might you see the lengthening spires ascend, The domes swell up, the widening arches bend, The growing towers like exhalations rise, And the huge columns heave into the skies. The easteru front was glorious to behold, With diamond flaming, and Barbaric gold. There Ninus shone, who spread th’ Assyrian fame, And the great founder of the Persian name : There in long robes the royal Magi stand, gan And Brachmans, decp in desert woods rever'd. shades Ver. 45. Yet part no injuries, &c.] To midnight banquets in the glimmering glades; For on that other side I sey, Made visionary fabrics round them rise, Of that hill which northward ley, And airy spectres skim before their eyes ; How it was written full of names Of talisınans and sigils knew the power, Superior, and alone, Confucius stood, But on the south, a long majestic race Of Egypt's priests the gilded niches grace, But well I wiste what it made; Who measur'd Earth, describ'd the starry spheres, It was conserved with the shade And trac'd the long records of lunar years. (All the writing that I sye) High on his car Sesostris struck my view Of the castle that stoode on high, Whom scepter'd slaves in golden harness drew: And stood eke in so cold a place, His hands a bow and pointed javelin hold; That heat might it not defacc. His giant limbs are arm'd in scales of gold, Tho' 159 IMITATIONS. Between the statues obelisks were plac'd, But in the centre of the hallow'd choir, And the learn'd walls with hieroglyphics grac'd. Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire ; Of Gothic structure was the northern side, Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand, D'erwrought with ornaments of barbarous pride. Hold the chief honours, and the fane command. There huge Colosses rose, with trophies crown'd, High on the first, the mighty Homer shone; 182 And Runic characters were grav'd around. Eternal adamant compos'd his throne ; There sat Zamolxis with erected eyes, Father of verse ! in holy Gillets drest, And Odin here in mimic trances dies. His silver beard wav'd gently o'er his breast; There on rude iron columns, smeard with blood, Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears ; The horrid forms of Scythian heroes stood, In years he seem'd, but not impair'd by years. Druids and hards (their once loud harps unstrung) The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen: And youths that died to be by poets sung. Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian queen; These and a thousand more of doubtful fame, Here Hector glorious from Patroclus' fall, To whom old fables gave a lasting name, Here drage'd in triumph round the Trojan wall. In ranks adornd the temple's outward face ; Motion and life did every part inspire, The wall in lustre and effect like glass, 132 Bold was the work, and prov'd the master's fire; Wbich, o'er each object casting various dyes, A strong expression most he seem'd t'affect, Enlarges some, and others multiplies : And here and there disclos'd a brare neglect. Nor void of emblem was the mystic wall, A golden coluinn next in rank appear'd, 196 For thus romantic Pame increases all. On which a shrine of purest gold was rear'd; Great without pride, in modest inajesty. The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead; Eliza stretch'd upon the funeral pyre, found, From the dees many a pillere, l'pou a pillere saw I stonde His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod, That was of lede and iron fine, And his horn'd head bely'd the Lybian god. Him of the sect Saturnine, 'There Cæsar, grac'd with both Minervas, shone; The Ebraicke Josephus the old, &c. Casar, the world's great master, and his own; l'pon an iron pillire strong, Unmord, superior still in every state, That painted was all endlong, And scarce detested in his country's fate. With tigers' blood in every plave, But chief were those, who not for empire fought, The Tholosan that hight Stace, But with their toils their people's safety ught: That bear of Thebes up the name, &c. High o'er the rest Epaminondas stood; Ver. 182.] Timoleon, glorious in his brother's blood; Full wonder high on a pillere Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state; Of iron, he the great Omer, Great in his triunphs, in retirement great; Aud with him Dares and 'Titus, &c. And wisc Aurelius, in whose well-taught inind Ver. 196, &c.] There saw I stand on a pillere That was of tinned iron cleere, The latia poet Virgyle, claim, Those of less noisy, and less guilty fame, That hath bore up of a great while Fair Virtue s silent train : supreme of these The fame of pious Fneas: Here ever shines the godlike Socrates; And next him on a pillere was He whom ungrateful Athens could expell Of copper, Venus' clerke Ovile, That bath sowen wondrous wide The great god of love's fame- Tho saw I on a pillere by Of iron wrought full stornly, The great poet Dan Lucail, As hve as that I might see, The fame of Julius and Pompce. And next bin on a pillere stode Of sulphure, like as he were wode, Dan (landian, sothic for to tell. That bare up all the fame of Hell, &c.' (ars. Proy flam'd in burning gold, and o'er the throne A thousand busy tongues the goddess bears, Four swans sustain a car of silver bright, (flight: For Fame they raise their voice, and tune the string; And boldly sinks into the sounding strings. With Time's first birth began the heavenly lays, The figurd games of Greece the column grace, And last, eternal, through the length of days Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race, Around these wonders as I cast a look, 276 The youths bang o'er their chariots as they run; The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook, The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone; And all the nations, summond at the call, The champions in distorted postures threat ; From different quarters fill the crowded hall: And all appear'd irregularly great. Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard; Here happy Horace tund th’ Ausonian lyre In various garbs promiscuous throngs appear'd; To sweeter sounds, and teniper'd Pindar's tire : Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew Pleas'd with Alcæus' manly rage t’infuse Their fovery toils, and sip the fragrant dew, The softer spirit of the Sappbic Muse. When the wing'd colonies first tempt the sky, The polish'd pillar different sculptures grace; O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly, A work outlasting monumental brass. Or, settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield, Here smiling Loves and Bacchanals appear, And a low murmur runs along the field. The Julian star and great Augustus here. Millions of suppliant crouds the shrine attend, The doves that round the infant poet spread And all degrees before the goddess bend; Myrtles and bays, hung hovering o'er his head. The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage, Here, in a shrine that cast a dazzling light, And boasting youth, and narrative old-age. Sate fix'd in thought the mighty Stagirite; Their pleas were different, their request the same; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crown'd, For good and bad alike are fond of Fame. And various animals his sides surround; Some she disgrac'd, and some with honours His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Unlike successes equal merits found. (crown'd; 29.4 Superior worlds, and look all Nature through. Thus her blind sister, tickle Fortune, reigns, With equal rays immortal Tully shone, And undiscerning scatters crowns and chains. The Roman rostra deck'd the consul's throne: First at the shrine the learned world appear, Gathering his flowing robe, he seem'd to stand And to the goddess thus prefer their prayer. In act to speak, and graceful stretci'd his hand. Long have we sought t'instruct and please man. Behind, Rome's genius waits with civic crowns, kind, And the great father of his country owns. Withi studies pale, with midnight vigils blind ; These massy columns in a circle rise, But thank'd by few, rewarded yet by noue, O'er which a pompous dome invades the skies: We here appeal to thy superior throne : Scarce to the top / stretch'd my aching siglit, On wit and learning the just prize bestow, So large it spread, and swellid to such a height. For Fame is all we must expect below." Full in the midst proud Fame's jinperial seat The goddess heard, and bade the Muses raise With jewels blaz'l, magnificently great; The golden trumprt of eternal Praise : The vivid emeralds there revive the eye, From pole to pule the winds diffuse the sound, The faming rubies show their sanguine dye, That fills the circuit of the world around; Bright azure rays from lively sapphires stream, And lucid amber casts a golden gleam. With various-colour'd light the pavement shone, Ver. 270. Beneath, in order rang'd, &c.] And all on fire appear'd the glowing throne ; I heard about her throne y sung The dome's high arch reflects the mingled blaze, That all the palays walls rus, Aud forms a rainbow of alternate rays. So sung the mighty Muse, she When on the goddess first I casi niy sight, That cloped is Calliope, Scarce scem'd her stature of a cubit's height; 259 And ber seven sisters ckeBut swell'd to larger size, the more I gaz'd, Ver. 276. Around these wonders, &c.) Till to the roof her towering front she rais'd. I hearil a noise approacheu blive, That fard as boas done in a live, Against her time of vut-tlying, Right such a minere murmwing, For all the world it secinci inc, Such was her form, as antient bards have told, Tho gan I louk about and see Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold; That there came entering into th' hall, A right great company withal; An that of sundry regions, Of all kind of conditions, &c. Ver. 291, Some she disgrae'd, &c.) Aud some of them she grituted sno, But thos soone in a while she, And some she warned well aui fair, Herself the wonderly straight, And some she granted the contrair That with her feet she the Earth right, Right as her sister, daine Fortune, And with her livad she tuuchyd licasen ls wout to serve iu cominune. IMITATIONS. Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud; A troop came next, who crowns and armour word, “For thee" (they cry'd) “amidst alarms and strife, rill the wide Earth, and gain upon the skies. We sail'd in tempests down the stream of life; At every breath were balmy odours shed, For thee whole nations fill'd with flames and blood, Which still grew sweeter, as they wider spread : And swam to empire through the purple flood. Less fragrant scents th' unfolding rose exhales, Those ills we dar'd, thy inspiration own; Or spices breathing in Arabian gales. What virtuc seem'd, was done for thee alone." Next these the good and just, an awful train, 318 “ Ambitious fools !" (the queen reply'd, and frown'd) Thus on their knees address the sacred fane. “Be all your acts in dark oblivion drown'd; Since living virtue is with envy cursd, There sleep forgot, with mighty tyrants gone, And the best men are treated like the worst, Your statues moulder'd, and your names unknown !" Do thou, just goddess, call our merits forth, A sudden cloud straight snatch'd them from my And give each deed th' exact intripsic worth.” sight, “ Not with bare justice shall your act be crown'd,” And each majestic phantom sunk in night. (Said Fame)" but high above desert renown'd: Then came the smallest tribe I yet had seen; 356 Let fuller notes th' applauding world amaze, Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien, And the loud clarion labour in your praise.". “Great idol of mankind! we neither claim This band dismiss'd, behold another crowd 328 The praise of merit, nor aspire to Pame! Prefer'd the same request, and lowly bow'd; But, safe in deserts from th' applause of men, The constant tenour of whose well-spent days Would die unheard of, as we liv'd unseen. No less deserv'd a just return of praise. "Tis all we beg thee, to conceal from sight But straight the direful trump of Slander sounds; Those aots of goodness which themselves requite. Through the big dome the doubling thunder let us still the secret joys partake, bounds; To follow Virtue ev'n for Virtue's sake.” Loud as the burst of cannon rends the skies, “And live there men, who slight immortal Fame! The dire report through every region flies, Who then with incense shall adore our name? In every ear incessant rumours rung, But, mortals ! know, 'tis still our greatest pride, And gathering scandals grew on every tongue. To blaze those virtues which the good would hide, From the black trumpet's rusty concave broke 338 Rise! Muses, rise! add all your tuneful breath ; Sulphureous flames, and clouds of rolling smoke: These must not sleep in darkness and in death.” The poisonous vapour blots the purple skies, She said : in air the trembling music floats, And withers all before it as it flies, And on the winds triumphant swell the notes; So soft, though high, so loud, and yet so clear, IMITATIONS. Ev'n listening angels lean from Heaven to hear: Ver. 318. The good and just, &c.] To farthest shores th' ambrosial spirit flies, Tho came the third companye, Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies. And gan up to the dees to hye, Next these a youthful train their vows express'd, And down on knees they fell anone, With feathers crown'd, with gay embroidery And saiden: “We been everichone dress'd: Folke that han full truely " Hither,” they cry'd, “ direct your cyes, and sec Deserved fame right-fully, The men of pleasure, dress, and gallantry; IMITATION, Ver. 356. Then came the smallest, &c.] And yet ye shall have hetter loos, I saw anone the fifth route, Right in despite of all your foos, That to this lady gan loute, Than worthy is, and that anone. And downe on knees anone to fall, læt now," quoth she, “thy trump gone" And to her they besoughten all, And certes all the breath that went To hiden their good works eke. Out of his trump's mouth smel'd And said, they yere not a leke As men a pot of baume held For no fame ne such renowne ; Among a basket full of roses. For they for contemplacyoune, And Goddes love had it wrought, Ne of fame would they ought. “What,” quoth she, “and be ye wood ? Another huge companye And ween ye for to do good, Of good folke And for to have it of no fame? What did this Eolus, but he Have ye despite to have my name? Took out his-trump of brass, Nay ye shall lien everichone : That fouler than the Devil was: Blow thy trump, and that anone" And gan his trump for to blowe, (Quoth she) “ thou Eolus, I hote, As all the world should overthrowe, And ring these folks works by wrote, Throughout every regiono That all the world may of it heare :" Went this foul trumpet's souinc And he gan blow their loos so cleare, Swift as a pellet out of a gunne, In his golden clarioune, When fire is in the powiler runno. Through the world went the sonne, And such a smoke gan out wende, All so kindly, and eke so soft, Out of the foul trumpet's ende--&c. That ther fame was blowo alaft |