Nor praise your mother overmuch; she may
Feel contrast and free words to insult turn.
But if contented with my shade he stay,
And hold my ashes of such high concern;
His coming age learn to anticipate,
Leave to the widower's cares no path confessed.
Be added to your years what mine abate,
And in my children Paullus' age be blessed.
'Tis welclass="underline" for child I ne'er wore mourning weed;
But my whole troop came to my obsequies.
My plea is done. While grateful earth life's meed
Repays, in tears ye witnesses arise.
Heaven opes to such deserts; may mine me speed
To join my honoured fathers in the skies.
L.J. Latham.
217
I give a part of the version of Stepney, whom Dr. Johnson describes as 'a very licentious translator'.
IF mighty gods can mortal sorrows know,
And be the humble partners of our woe,
Now loose your tresses, pensive Elegy,—
Too well your office and your name agree.
Tibullus, once the joy and pride of Fame,
Lies now—rich fuel—on the trembling flame;
Sad Cupid now despairs of conquering hearts,
Throws by his empty quiver, breaks his darts,
Eases his useless bows from idle strings.
Nor flies, but humbly creeps with flagging wings—
He wants, of which he robbed fond lovers, rest,—
And wounds with furious hands his pensive breast.
Those graceful curls which wantonly did flow,
The whiter rivals of the falling snow,
Forget their beauty and in discord lie,
Drunk with the fountain from his melting eye.
. . . . . . . .
In vain to gods (if gods there are) we pray,
And needless victims prodigally pay;
Worship their sleeping deities, yet Death
Scorns votaries and stops the praying breath:
To hallowed shrines intending Fate will come,
And drag you from the altar to the tomb.
Go, frantic poet, with delusions fed,
Thick laurels guard your consecrated head—
Now the sweet master of your art is dead.
What can wehope, since that a narrow span
Can measure the remains of thee, Great Man?
. . . . . . . .
If any poor remains survive the flames
Except thin shadows and mere empty names,
Free in Elysium shall Tibullus rove,
Nor fear a second death should cross his love.
There shall Catullus, crowned with bays, impart
To his far dearer friend his open heart;
There Gallus (if Fame's hundred tongues all lie)
Shall, free from censure, no more rashly die.
Such shall our poet's blest companions be,
And in their deaths, as in their lives, agree.
But thou, rich Urn, obey my strict commands,
Guard thy great charge from sacrilegious hands;
Thou, Earth, Tibullus' ashes gently use,
And be as soft and easy as his Muse.
G. Stepney.
240
AFTER death nothing is, and nothing death—
The utmost limits of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hope of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear,
Nor be concerned which way, or where,
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring Time swallows us whole,
Impartial Death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul Fiend that rules
The everlasting fiery goals,
Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools,
With his grim grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimsies and no more.
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
261
AND so Death took him. Yet be comforted:
Above this sea of sorrow lift thy head.
Death—or his shadow—look, is over all;
What but an alternating funeral
The long procession of the nights and days?
The starry heavens fail, the solid earth
Fails and its fashion. Why, beholding this,
Why with our wail o'er sad mortality
Mourn we for men, mere men, that fade and fall?
Battle or shipwreck, love or lunacy,
Some warp o' the will, some taint o' the blood, some touch
Of winter's icy breath, the Dog-star's rage
Relentless, or the dank and ghostly mists
Of Autumn—any or all of these suffice
To die by. In the fee and fear of Fate
Lives all that is. We one by one depart
Into the silence—one by one. The Judge
Shakes the vast urn: the lot leaps forth: we die.
But heis happy, and you mourn in vain.
He has outsoared the envy of gods and men,
False fortune and the dark and treacherous way,
—Scatheless: he never lived to pray for death,
Nor sinned—to fear her, nor deserved to die.
We that survive him, weak and full of woes,
Live ever with a fearful eye on Death—