John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series
Page 81
One Fate attends us; and one common Grave.
Besides, we tread but a perpetual round; 305
We ne’re strike out, but beat the former ground,
And the same Maukish joyes in the same track are found.
For still we think an absent blessing best,
Which cloys, and is no blessing when possest;
A new arising wish expells it from the Breast. 310
The Feav’rish thirst of Life increases still;
We call for more and more, and never have our fill;
Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try,
What dregs of life in the last draught may lie:
Nor, by the longest life we can attain, 315
One moment from the length of death we gain;
For all behind belongs to his Eternal reign.
When once the Fates have cut the mortal Thred,
The Man as much to all intents is dead,
Who dyes to day, and will as long be so, 320
As he who dy’d a thousand years ago.
From Book the Fifth of Lucretius
Tum porrò puer, &c.
THUS like a Sayler by a Tempest hurl’d
A shore, the Babe is shipwrack’d on the World:
Naked he lies, and ready to expire;
Helpless of all that humane wants require:
Expos’d upon unhospitable Earth, 5
From the first moment of his hapless Birth.
Straight with forebodeing cryes he fills the Room;
(Too true presages of his future doom.)
But Flocks, and Herds, and every Savage Beast,
By more indulgent Nature are increas’d, 10
They want no Rattles for their froward mood,
Nor Nurse to reconcile them to their food,
With broken words; nor Winter blasts they fear,
Nor change their habits with the changing year:
Nor, for their safety, Citadels prepare; 15
Nor forge the wicked Instruments of War:
Unlabour’d Earth her bounteous treasure grants,
And Nature’s lavish hand supplies their common wants.
The Third Ode of the First Book of Horace; Inscribed to the Earl of Roscommon, on his intended Voyage to Ireland
SO may th’ auspicious Queen of Love,
And the Twin Stars, (the Seed of love,
And he who rules the rageing wind,
To thee, O sacred Ship, be kind;
And gentle Breezes fill thy Sails, 5
Supplying soft Etesian Gales:
As thou, to whom the Muse commends
The best of Poets and of Friends,
Dost thy committed Pledge restore,
And land him safely on the shore; 10
And save the better part of me,
From perishing with him at Sea.
Sure he, who first the passage try’d,
In harden’d Oak his heart did hide,
And ribs of Iron arm’d his side; 15
Or his at least, in hollow wood
Who tempted first the briny Floud:
Nor fear’d the winds contending roar,
Nor billows beating on the Shoar;
Nor Hyades portending Rain; 20
Nor all the Tyrants of the Main.
What form of death cou’d him affright,
Who unconcern’d, with steadfast sight,
Cou’d view the Surges mounting steep,
And monsters rolling in the deep! 25
Cou’d thro’ the ranks of ruin go,
With Storms above, and Rocks below!
In vain did Natures wise command
Divide the Waters from the Land,
If daring Ships, and Men prophane, 30
Invade th’ inviolable Main;
Th’ eternal Fences overleap,
And pass at will the boundless deep.
No toyl, no hardship can restrain
Ambitious Man, inur’d to pain; 35
The more confin’d, the more he tries,
And at forbidden quarry flies.
Thus bold Prometheus did aspire,
And stole from heav’n the seed of Fire:
A train of Ills, a ghastly crew, 40
The Robber’s blazing track persue;
Fierce Famine, with her Meagre face,
And Feavours of the fiery Race,
In swarms th’ offending Wretch surround
All brooding on the blasted ground: 45
And limping Death, lash’d on by Fate
Comes up to shorten half our date.
This made not Dedalus beware,
With borrow’d wings to sail in Air:
To Hell Alcides forc’d his way, 50
Plung’d thro’ the Lake, and snatch’d the Prey.
Nay scarce the Gods, or heav’nly Climes,
Are safe from our audacious Crimes;
We reach at Jove’s Imperial Crown,
And pull th’ unwilling thunder down. 55
The Ninth Ode of the First Book of Horace
I
BEHOLD yon Mountains hoary height,
Made higher with new Mounts of Snow;
Again behold the Winters weight
Oppress the lab’ring Woods below:
And Streams, with Icy fetters bound, 5
Benum’d and crampt to solid Ground.
II
With well-heap’d Logs dissolve the cold,
And feed the genial hearth with fires;
Produce the Wine, that makes us bold,
And sprightly Wit and Love inspires: 10
For what hereafter shall betide,
God, if ’tis worth his care, provide.
III
Let him alone, with what he made,
To toss and turn the World below;
At his command the storms invade; 15
The winds by his Commission blow;
Till with a Nod he bids ‘em cease,
And then the Calm returns, and all is peace.
IV
To morrow and her works defie,
Lay hold upon the present hour, 20
And snatch the pleasures passing by,
To put them out of Fortunes pow’r:
Nor love, nor love’s delights disdain;
Whate’re thou get’st to day is gain.
V
Secure those golden early joyes, 25
That Youth unsowr’d with sorrow bears,
E’re with’ring time the taste destroyes,
With sickness and unwieldy years!
For active sports, for pleasing rest,
This is the time to be possest; 30
The best is but in season best.
VI
The pointed hour of promis’d Bliss,
The pleasing whisper in the dark,
The half unwilling willing kiss,
The laugh that guides thee to the mark, 35
When the kind Nymph wou’d coyness feign,
And hides but to be found again;
These, these are joyes the Gods for Youth ordain.
The Twenty-ninth Ode of the Third Book of Horace
Paraphrased in Pindarick Verse, and inscribed to the Right Hon. Laurence, Earl of Rochester
I
DESCENDED of an ancient Line,
That long the Tuscan Scepter sway’d,
Make haste to meet the generous Wine,
Whose piercing is for thee delay’d:
The rosie wreath is ready made; 5
And artful hands prepare
The fragrant Syrian Oyl, that shall perfume thy hair.
II
When the Wine sparkles from a far,
And the well-natur’d Friend cries, come away;
Make haste, and leave thy business and thy care: 10
No mortal int’rest can be worth thy stay.
III
Leave for a while thy costly Country Seat;
And, to be Great indeed, forget
The nauseous pleasure of the Great:
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Make haste and come: 15
Come, and forsake thy cloying store;
Thy Turret that surveys, from high,
The smoke, and wealth, and noise of Rome;
And all the busie pageantry
That wise men scorn, and fools adore: 20
Come, give thy Soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.
IV
Sometimes ’tis grateful to the Rich, to try
A short vicissitude, and fit of Poverty:
A savoury Dish, a homely Treat,
Where all is plain, where all is neat, 25
Without the stately spacious Room,
The Persian Carpet, or the Tyrian Loom,
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the Great.
V
The Sun is in the Lion mounted high;
The Syrian Star 30
Barks from afar,
And with his sultry breath infects the Sky;
The ground below is parch’d, the heav’ns above us fry.
The Shepheard drives his fainting Flock
Beneath the covert of a Rock, 35
And seeks refreshing Rivulets nigh
The Sylvans to their shades retire,
Those very shades and streams new shades and streams require,
And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.
VI
Thou, what befits the new Lord May’r, 40
And what the City Faction dare,
And what the Gallique arms will do,
And what the Quiverbearing foe,
Art anxiously inquisitive to know:
But God has, wisely, hid from humane sight 45
The dark decrees of future fate;
And sown their seeds in depth of night;
He laughs at all the giddy turns of State;
When Mortals search too soon, and fear too late.
VII
Enjoy the present smiling hour; 50
And put it out of Fortunes pow’r:
The tide of bus’ness, like the running stream,
Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,
A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow,
And alwayes in extream. 55
Now with a noiseless gentle course
It keeps within the middle Bed;
Anon it lifts aloft the head,
And bears down all before it with impetuous force:
And trunks of Trees come rowling down, 60
Sheep and their Folds together drown:
Both House and Homested into Seas are borne;
And Rocks are from their old foundations torn,
And woods, made thin with winds, their scatter’d honours mourn.
VIII
Happy the Man, and happy he alone, 65
He, who can call to day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To morrow do thy worst, for I have liv’d to-day.
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
The joys I have possest, in spight of fate, are mine. 70
Not Heav’n it self upon the past has pow’r;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
IX
Fortune, that with malicious joy
Does Man her slave oppress,
Proud of her Office to destory, 75
Is seldome pleas’d to bless:
Still various, and unconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill.
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a Lottery of life. 80
I can enjoy her while she’s kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings, and will not stay,
I puff the Prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave, is quietly resign’d: 85
Content with poverty, my Soul I arm;
And Vertue, tho’ in rags, will keep me warm.
X
What is’t to me,
Who never sail in her unfaithful Sea,
If Storms arise, and Clouds grow black; 90
If the Mast split, and threaten wreck?
Then let the greedy Merchant fear
For his ill gotten gain;
And pray to Gods that will not hear,
While the debating winds and billows bear 95
His Wealth into the Main
For me, secure from Fortunes blows
(Secure of what I cannot lose,)
In my small Pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blustring roar; 100
And running with a merry gale,
With friendly Stars my safety seek
Within some little winding Creek;
And see the storm a shore.
The Second Epode of Horace
HOW happy in his low degree,
How rich in humble Poverty, is he,
Who leads a quiet country life!
Discharg’d of business, void of strife,
And from the gripeing Scrivener free. 5
(Thus, e’re the Seeds of Vice were sown,
Liv’d Men in better Ages born,
Who Plow’d, with Oxen of their own,
Their small paternal field of Corn.)
Nor Trumpets summon him to War 10
Nor drums disturb his morning Sleep,
Nor knows he Merchants gainful care,
Nor fears the dangers of the deep.
The clamours of contentious Law,
And Court and state, he wisely shuns, 15
Nor brib’d with hopes, nor dar’d with awe,
To servile Salutations runs;
But either to the clasping Vine
Does the supporting Poplar Wed,
Or with his pruneing hook disjoyn 20
Unbearing Branches from their Head,
And grafts more happy in their stead:
Or climbing to a hilly steep,
He views his Herds in Vales afar,
Or Sheers his overburden’d Sheep, 25
Or mead for cooling drink prepares
Of Virgin honey in the Jars.
Or in the now declining year,
When bounteous Autumn rears his head,
He joyes to pull the ripen’d Pear, 30
And clustring Grapes with purple spread.
The fairest of his fruit he serves,
Priapus thy rewards:
Sylvanus too his part deserves,
Whose care the fences guards. 35
Sometimes beneath an ancient Oak,
Or on the matted grass he lies:
No God of Sleep he need invoke;
The stream, that o’re the pebbles flies,
With gentle slumber crowns his Eyes. 40
The Wind, that Whistles through the sprays,
Maintains the consort of the Song;
And hidden Birds, with native layes,
The golden sleep prolong.
But when the blast of Winter blows, 45
And hoary frost inverts the year,
Into the naked Woods he goes,
And seeks the tusky Boar to rear,
With well mouth’d hounds and pointed Spear.
Or spreads his subtile Nets from sight 50
With twinckling glasses to betray
The Larkes that in the Meshes light,
Or makes the fearful Hare his prey.
Amidst his harmless easie joys
No anxious care invades his health, 55
Nor Love his peace of mind destroys,
Nor wicked avarice of Wealth.
But if a chast and pleasing Wife,
To ease the business of his Life,
Divides with him his houshold care, 60
Such as the Sabine Matrons were,
Such as the swift Apulians Bride,
Sunburnt and Swarthy tho’ she be,
Will fire for Winter Nights provide,
And without noise will oversee 65
His Children and his Family,
And order all things
till he come,
Sweaty and overlabour’d, home;
If she in pens his Flocks will fold,
And then produce her Dairy store, 70
With Wine to drive away the cold,
And unbought dainties of the poor;
Not Oysters of the Lucrine Lake
My sober appetite wou’d wish,
Not Turbet, or the Foreign Fish 75
That rowling Tempests overtake,
And hither waft the costly dish.
Not Healthpout, or the rarer Bird,
Which Phasis, or Ionia yields,
More pleasing morsels wou’d afford 80
Than the fat Olives of my fields;
Than Shards or Mallows for the pot,
That keep the loosen’d Body sound
Or than the Lamb, that falls by Lot,
To the just Guardian of my ground. 85
Amidst these feasts of happy Swains,
The jolly Shepheard smiles to see
His flock returning from the Plains;
The farmer is as pleas’d as he,
To view his Oxen, sweating smoak, 90
Bear on their Necks the loosen’d Yoke:
To look upon his menial Crew,
That sit around his cheerful hearth,
And bodies spent in toil renew
With wholesome Food and Country Mirth. 95
This Morecraft said within himself;
Resolv’d to leave the wicked Town;
And live retir’d upon his own;
He call’d his Mony in:
But the prevailing love of pelf 100
Soon split him on the former shelf,
And put it out again.
The First Book of Homer’s Ilias
THE ARGUMENT
CHRYSES, Priest of Apollo, brings Presents to the Grecian Princes, to ransom his Daughter Chryseis, Who was Prisoner in the Fleet. Agamemnon, the General, whose Captive and Mistress the young Lady was, refuses to deliver her, threatens the Venerable Old Man, and dismisses him with Contumely. — The Priest craves Vengeance of his God; who sends a Plague among the Greeks: which occasions Achilles, their Great Champion, to summon a Council of the Chief Officers: He encourages Calchas, the High Priest and Prophet, to tell the Reason, why the Gods were so much incensed against them. — Calchas is fearful of provoking Agamemnon, till Achilles engages to protect him: Then, embolden’d by the Heroe, he accuses the General as the Cause of all, by detaining the Fair Captive, and refusing the Presents offer’d for her Ransom. By this Proceeding, Agamemnon is oblig’d, against his Will, to restore Chryseis, with Gifts, that he might appease the Wrath of Phœbus; but at the same time, to revenge himself on Achilles, sends to seize his Slave Briseis. Achilles, thus affronted, complains to his Mother Thetis; and begs her to revenge his Injury, not only on the General, but on all the Army, by giving Victory to the Trojans, till the ungrateful King became sensible of his Injustice. At the same time, he retires from the Camp into his Ships, and withdraws his aid from his Countrymen. Thetis prefers her Son’s Petition to Jupiter, who grants her Sute. Juno suspects her Errand, and quarrels with her Husband, for his Grant; till Vulcan reconciles his Parents with a Bowl of Nectar, and sends them peaceably to Bed.