Happiness

On Translations of Homer

Hexameters acrd Pentameters.

These lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer!
No—but a most burlesque barbarous experiment.
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.



Milton

Alcaics.

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan
Rings to the roar of an angel onset—
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
Th...

That day we wandered 'mid the hills, - so lone
Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay
In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.

Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from, -
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum, -
An iris bloomed - blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.

I have forgotten many things since then -
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'Tis winter now," so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim ...

The Princess sings:

I am the princess up in the tower
And I dream the whole day thro'
Of a knight who shall come with a silver spear
And a waving plume of blue.

I am the princess up in the tower,
And I dream my dreams by day,
But sometimes I wake, and my eyes are wet,
When the dusk is deep and gray.

For the peasant lovers go by beneath,
I hear them laugh and kiss,
And I forget my day-dream knight,
And long for a love like this.

II

The Minstrel sings:

I lie beside the princess' tower,
So close she cannot see my face,
And watch her dreaming all day long,
And bending with a lily's grace.

Her cheeks are paler than the moon
That sails along a sunny sky,
And yet her silent mouth is red
Where ten...

Grace, Beauty and Caprice
Build this golden portal;
Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal.
Their sweet and lofty countenance
His enchanted food;
He need not go to them, their forms
Beset his solitude.
He looketh seldom in their face,
His eyes explore the ground,--
The green grass is a looking-glass
Whereon their traits are found.
Little and less he says to them,
So dances his heart in his breast;
Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
Of wit, of words, of rest.
Too weak to win, too fond to shun
The tyrants of his doom,
The much deceived Endymion
Slips behind a tomb.

That day we wandered 'mid the hills, so lone
Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay
In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.

Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum,
An iris bloomed blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.

I have forgotten many things since then
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'Tis winter now, " so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 'tis wint...

        We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
        Well, such you are,--but well enough we know
        How thick about us root, how rankly grow
        Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
        That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
        Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
        Our steady senses; how such matters go
        We are aware, and how such matters end.
        Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
        With lovers such as we forevermore
        Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
        Receives the Table's ruin through her door,
        Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
        Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.

Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap
That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
And find forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,
Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!" . . .

She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and ...

    (To F. S.)

    In the smooth grey heaven is poised the pale half moon
    And sheds on the wide grey river a broken reflection.
    Out from the low church-tower the boats are moored
    After the heat of the day, and await the dark.

    And here, where the side of the road shelves into the river
    At the gap where barges load and horses drink,
    There are no horses.    And the river is full
    And the water stands by the shore and does not lap.

    And a barge lies up for the night this side of the island,
    The bargeman sits in the bows and smokes his pipe
    And his wife by the cabin stirs.    Behind me voices pass.

    Calm sky, calm river: and a few calm things reflected.
    And all as yet keep their colours; the island osiers...

Last night she came unto me,
And kneeling by my side,
Laid her head upon my bosom,
My beautiful, my bride;
My lost one, with her soft dark eyes,
And waves of sunny hair.
I smoothed the shining tresses,
With tearful, fond caresses,
And words of thankful prayer.

And then a thrill of doubt and pain,
My jealous heart swept o'er;
We were parted - she was dwelling
Upon a far-off shore;
Yet He who made my sad heart, knew
I loved her more and more;
My love more true and perfect grew,
As each dark day passed o'er;
But she whose heart had been my own,
Who loved me tenderly,
Whose last low words I knelt to hear,
Were, "How can I leave thee?"

And "Death would seem as sweet as life,
Could we together be."
Now, though we two we...

A woman was playing,
A man looking on;
And the mould of her face,
And her neck, and her hair,
Which the rays fell upon
Of the two candles there,
Sent him mentally straying
In some fancy-place
Where pain had no trace.

A cowled Apparition
Came pushing between;
And her notes seemed to sigh,
And the lights to burn pale,
As a spell numbed the scene.
But the maid saw no bale,
And the man no monition;
And Time laughed awry,
And the Phantom hid nigh.

In lonely gardens deserted - unseen -
Oh! lovely lilacs of purple and white,
You are dipping down through a mist of green;
For the morning sun's delight.
And the velvet bee, all belted with black,
Drinks deep of the wine which your flagons hold,
Clings close to your plumes while he fills his pack
With a load of burnished gold.

You hide the fences with blossoms of snow,
And sweeten the shade of castle towers;
Over low, grey gables you brightly blow,
Like amethysts turned to flowers.
The tramp on the highway - ragged and bold -
Wears you close to his heart with jaunty air;
You rest in my lady's girdle of gold,
And are held against her hair.

In God's own acre your tender flowers,
Bend down to the grasses and seem to sigh
For those who count ...

I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?" -

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.

- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
...

Dark is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbor
    Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud;
Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon,
    Like to the towers of a town, built on the verge of the sea.

Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean;
    With them sail my thoughts over the limitless deep,
Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings,
    Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores.

Now they have vanished away, have disappeared in the ocean;
    Sunk are the towers of the town into the depths of the sea!
AU have vanished but those that, moored in the neighboring roadstead,
    Sailless at anchor ride, looming so large in the mist.

Vanished, too, are the thoughts, the dim, unsa...

When the earliest south winds softly blow
Over the brown earth, and the waning snow
In the last days of the discrowned March,--
Before the silver tassels of the larch,
Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen;
Or in the woods the faintest kindling green,
    And all the earth is veiled in azure mist,
Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,--
They lift their bright heads shyly one by one.
    And offer each, in cups of amethyst,
Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,--
A brimming beaker poised in either hand
Fit for the revels of King Oberon,
With all his royal gold and purple on:
Children of pensive thought and airy fancies,
Sweeter than any poet's sweetest stanzas,
    Though to the sound of eloquent music told,
        Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sun...

O sun, shine hot on the river;
For the ice is turning an ashen hue,
And the still bright water is looking through,
And the myriad streams are greeting you
With a ballad of life to the giver,
From forest and field and sunny town,
Meeting and running and tripping down,
With laughter and song to the river.

Oh! the din on the boats by the river;
The barges are ringing while day avails,
With sound of hewing and hammering nails,
Planing and painting and swinging pails,
All day in their shrill endeavour;
For the waters brim over their wintry cup,
And the grinding ice is breaking up,
And we must away down the river.

Oh! the hum and the toil of the river;
The ridge of the rapid sprays and skips:
Loud and low by the water's lips,
Tearing the w...

Come hither, my dear one, my choice one, and rare one,
And let us be walking the meadows so fair,
Where on pilewort and daisies the eye fondly gazes,
And the wind plays so sweet in thy bonny brown hair.

Come with thy maiden eye, lay silks and satins by;
Come in thy russet or grey cotton gown;
Come to the meads, dear, where flags, sedge, and reeds appear,
Rustling to soft winds and bowing low down.

Come with thy parted hair, bright eyes, and forehead bare;
Come to the whitethorn that grows in the lane;
To banks of primroses, where sweetness reposes,
Come, love, and let us be happy again.

Come where the violet flowers, come where the morning showers
Pearl on the primrose and speedwell so blue;
Come to that clearest brook that ever runs round the nook

Other of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O thou, my pleasure, thou, all my desire,
Thou shalt recall the beauty of caresses,
The charm of evenings by the gentle fire,
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!

The eves illumined by the burning coal,
The balcony where veiled rose-vapour clings
How soft your breast was then, how sweet your soul!
Ah, and we said imperishable things,
Those eves illumined by the burning coal.

Lovely the suns were in those twilights warm,
And space profound, and strong life's pulsing flood,
In bending o'er you, queen of every charm,
I thought I breathed the perfume in your blood.
The suns were beauteous in those twilights warm.

The film of night flowed round and over us,
And my eyes in the dark did your eyes mee...