Lord Caesar, when you sternly wroteThe story of your grim campaigns
And watched the ragged smoke-wreath floatAbove the burning plains,
Amid the impenetrable wood,Amid the camp's incessant hum
At eve, beside the tumbling flood,In high Avaricum,
You little recked, imperious head,When shrilled your shattering trumpets' noise,
Your frigid sections would be readBy bright-eyed English boys.
Ah me! Who penetrates todayThe secret of your deep designs?
Your sovereign visions, as you layAmid the sleeping lines?
The Mantuan singer pleading stands;From century to century
He leans and reaches wistful hands,And cannot bear to die.
But you are silent, secret, proud,No smile upon your haggard face,
As when you eyed the murderous crowdBeside the statue's base.
I marvel: That Titanic heartBeats strongly through the arid page,
And we, self-conscious sons of art,In this bewildering age,
Like dizzy revellers stumbling outUpon the pure and peaceful night,
Are sobered into troubled doubt,As swims across our sight,
The ray of that sequestered sun,Far in the illimitable blue,—
The dream of all you left undone,Of all you dared to do.
—Arthur Christopher Benson
They found it in her hollow marble bed,There where the numberless dead cities sleep,They found it lying where the spade struck deepA broken mirror by a maiden dead.
These things—the beads she wore about her throat,Alternate blue and amber, all untied,A lamp to light her way, and on one sideThe toll men pay to that strange ferry-boat.
No trace today of what in her was fair!Only the record of long years grown greenUpon the mirror's lustreless dead sheen,Grown dim at last, when all else withered there
Dead, broken, lustreless! It keeps for meOne picture of that immemorial land,For oft as I have held thee in my handThe chill bronze brightens, and I dream to see
A fair face gazing in thee wondering wiseAnd o'er one marble shoulder all the whileStrange lips that whisper till her own lips smileAnd all the mirror laughs about her eyes.
It was well thought to set thee there, so sheMight smooth the windy ripples of her hairAnd knot their tangled waywardness or ereShe stood before the queen Persephone.
And still it may be where the dead folk restShe holds a shadowy mirror to her eyes,And looks upon the changelessness, and sighsAnd sets the dead land lilies in her hand.
—Rennell Rodd
When through the dolorous city of damned soulsThe Florentine with Vergil took his way,
A dismal marsh they passed, whose fetid shoalsHeld sinners by the myriad. Swollen and grey,Like worms that fester in the foul decay
Of sweltering carrion, these bad spirits sankChin-deep in stagnant slime and ooze that stank.
Year after year forever—year by year,Through billions of the centuries that lie
Like specks of dust upon the dateless sphereOf heaven's eternity, they cankering sighBetween the black waves and the starless sky;
And daily dying have no hope to gainBy death or change or respite of their pain.
What was their crime, you ask? Nay, listen: "WeWere sullen—sad what time we drank the light,
And delicate air, that all day daintilyIs cheered by sunshine; for we bore black nightAnd murky smoke of sloth, in God's despite,
Within our barren souls, by discontentFrom joy of all fair things and wholesome pent:
Therefore in this low Hell from jocund sightAnd sound He bans us; and as there we grew
Pallid with idleness, so here a blightPerpetual rots with slow-corroding dewOur poisonous carcase, and a livid hue
Corpse-like o'erspreads these sodden limbs that takeAnd yield corruption to the loathly lake."
—John Addington Symonds
Andromache
Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,
Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,Stalks Peleus' ruthless son?
Who, when thou glid'st amid the dark abodes,
To hurl the spear and to revere the gods,Shall teach thine Orphan One?
Hector
Woman and wife beloved—cease thy tears;
My soul is nerved—the war-clang in my ears!Be mine in life to stand
Troy's bulwark!—fighting for our hearths, to go
In death, exulting to the streams below,Slain for my father-land!
Andromache
No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall—
Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall—Fallen the stem of Troy!
Thou go'st where slow Cocytus wanders—where
Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless airIs dark to light and joy!
Hector
Longing and thought—yea, all I feel and think
May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink,But my love not!
Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls! I hear!
Gird on my sword—Belov'd one, dry the tear—Lethe for love is not!
—Schiller
Under Mount Etna he lies,It is slumber, it is not death;
For he struggles at times to arise,
And above him the lurid skiesAre hot with his fiery breath.
The crags are piled on his breast,The earth is heaped on his head;
But the groans of his wild unrest,
Though smothered and half suppressed,Are heard, and he is not dead.
And the nations far awayAre watching with eager eyes;
They talk together and say,
"Tomorrow, perhaps today,Enceladus will arise!"
And the old gods, the austereOppressors in their strength,
Stand aghast and white with fear
At the ominous sounds they hear,And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"
Ah me! for the land that is sownWith the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown
From the lips of the overthrownEnceladus, fill the air.
Where ashes are heaped in driftsOver vineyard and field and town,
Whenever he starts and lifts
His head through the blackened riftsOf the crags that keep him down.
See, see! the red light shines!'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines,
Of Alps and of Apennines,"Enceladus, arise!"
—Henry W. Longfellow
When Horace in Venusian grovesWas scribbling wit or sipping "Massic,"
Or singing those delicious lovesWhich after ages reckon classic,
He wrote one day—'twas no vagary—These famous words:—Nil admirari!
"Wonder at nothing!" said the bard;A kingdom's fall, a nation's rising,
A lucky or a losing card,Are really not at allsurprising;
However men or manners vary,Keep cool and calm:Nil admirari!
If kindness meet a cold return;If friendship prove a dear delusion;
If love, neglected, cease to burn,Or die untimely of profusion,—
Such lessons well may make us wary,But needn't shock:Nil admirari!
Ah! when the happy day we reachWhen promisers are ne'er deceivers;
When parsons practice what they preach,And seeming saints are all believers,
Then the old maxim you may vary,And say no more,Nil admirari!
—John G. Saxe
The Emperor Titus, at the close of a day in which he had neither gained any knowledge nor conferred benefit, was accustomed to exclaim, "Perdidi diem," "I have lost a day."
Why art thou sad, thou of the sceptred hand?
The rob'd in purple, and the high in state?Rome pours her myriads forth, a vassal band,
And foreign powers are crouching at thy gate;Yet dost thou deeply sigh, as if oppressed by fate.
"Perdidi diem!"—Pour the empire's treasure,
Uncounted gold, and gems of rainbow dye;Unlock the fountains of a monarch's pleasure
To lure the lost one back. I heard a sigh—One hour of parted time, a world is poor to buy.
"Perdidi diem!"—'Tis a mournful story,
Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell,Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory,
Hope's honey left within the withering bellAnd plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed so well.
Hail, self-communing Emperor, nobly wise!
There are, who thoughtless haste to life's last goal.There are, who time's long squandered wealth despise.
Perdidi vitammarks their finished scroll,When Death's dark angel comes to claim the startled soul.
—Mrs. Sigourney
Once, on sublime Olympus, whenGreat Jove, the sire of gods and men,Was looking down on this our Earth,And marking the increasing dearthOf pious deeds and noble lives,While vice abounds and meanness thrives,—He straight determined to effaceAt one fell swoop the thankless raceOf human kind. "Go!" said the KingUnto his messenger, "and bringThe vengeful Furies; be it theirs,Unmindful of their tears and prayers,These wretches,—hateful from their birth,—To wipe from off the face of earth!"The message heard, with torch of flameAnd reeking sword, Alecto came,And by the beard of Pluto sworeThe human race should be no more!But Jove, relenting thus to seeThe direst of the murderous three,And hear her menace, bade her goBack to the murky realms below."Be mine the cruel task!" he said,And, at a word, a bolt he sped,Which, falling in a desert place,Left all unhurt the human race!Grown bold and bolder, wicked menWax worse and worse, until againThe stench to high Olympus came,And all the gods began to blameThe monarch's weak indulgence,—theyWould crush the knaves without delay!
At this, the ruler of the air
Proceeds a tempest to prepare,Which, dark and dire, he swiftly hurledIn raging fury on the world!But not where human beings dwell(So Jove provides) the tempest fell.And still the sin and wickednessOf men grew more, instead of less:Whereat the gods declare, at length,For thunder bolts of greater strengthWhich Vulcan soon, at Jove's command,Wrought in his forge with dexterous hand.Now from the smithy's glowing flameTwo different sorts of weapons came:Tohitthe mark was one designed;As sure tomiss, the other kind.The second sort the Thunderer threw,Which not a human being slew;But roaring loudly, hurtled wideOn forest-top and mountain-side!
What means this ancient tale? ThatJoveIn wrath still felt a parent's love:Whatever crimes he may have done,The father yearns to spare the son.
—John G. Saxe
Socrates
Ere we leave this friendly sky,And cool Ilyssus flowing by,Change the shrill cicala's songFor the clamor of the throng,Let us make a parting prayerTo the gods of earth and air.
Phaedrus
My wish, O Friend, accords with thine,Say thou the prayer, it shall be mine.
Socrates
This then, I ask, O thou beloved Pan,And all ye other gods: Help, as ye can,That I may prosper in the inner man;
Grant ye that what I have or yet may winOf those the outer things may be akinAnd constantly at peace within;
May I regard the wise the rich, and careMyself for no more gold, as my earth-share,Than he who's of an honest heart can bear.
—John H. Finley
"Poetry and paganism do not mix very well nowadays. The Hellenism of our versifiers is, as a rule, not Greek; it is derived partly from Swinburne and partly from Pater. But now and then there comes a poet who has real appreciation of the beauty of classic days; who can express sincerely and vividly the haunting charm of Greek or Roman culture. Such an one is the anonymous writer of these lines, which appeared in the LondonPunch."
The wind it sang in the pine-tops, it sang like a humming harp;The smell of the sun on the bracken was wonderful sweet and sharp.As sharp as the piney needles, as sweet as the gods were good,For the wind it sung of the old gods, as I came through the wood!It sung how long ago the Romans made a road,And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode.
It sang of the wayside altars (the pine-tops sighed like the surf),Of little shrines uplifted, of stone and scented turf,Of youths divine and immortal, of maids as white as the snowThat glimmered among the thickets a mort of years ago!All in the cool of dawn, all in the twilight gray,The gods came up from Italy along the Roman way.
The altar smoke it has drifted and faded afar on the hill;No wood-nymphs haunt the hollows; the reedy pipes are still;No more the youth Apollo shall walk in his sunshine clear;No more the maid Diana shall follow the fallow-deer(The woodmen grew so wise, the woodmen grew so old,The gods went back to Italy—or so the story's told!).
But the woods are full of voices and of shy and secret thingsThe badger down by the brook-side, the flick of a woodcock's wings,The plump of a falling fir-cone, the pop of the sunripe pods,And the wind that sings in the pine-tops the song of the ancient gods—The song of the wind that says the Romans made a road,And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode!
O Sister Nymphs, how shall we dance or singRememberingWhat was and is not? How sing any moreNow Aphrodite's rosy reign is o'er?For on the forest-floorOur feet fall wearily the summer long,The whole year long:No sudden goddess through the rushes glides,No eager God among the laurels hides;Jove's eagle mopes beside an empty throne,Persephone and Ades sit alone,By Lethe's hollow shore.And hear not any moreEchoed from poplar-tree to poplar-tree,The voice of Orpheus making sweetest moanFor lost Eurydice.The Fates walk all aloneIn empty kingdoms, where is none to fearShaking of any spear.Even the ghosts are goneFrom lightless fields of mint and euphrasy:There sings no wind in any willow-tree,And shadowy flute-girls wander listlesslyDown to the shore where Charon's empty boat,As shadowed swan doth float,Rides all as listlessly, with none to steer.A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wanUnsought of any man:Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown,And now she seeks Persephone alone.The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill,And all the songs are stillOf grieving Dryads, leftTo wail about our woodland ways, bereft,The endless summertide.Queen Venus draws asideAnd passes, sighing, up Olympus' hill.And silence holds her Cyprian bowers, and claimsHer flowers, and quenches all her altar-flames,And strikes dumb in their throatsHer doves' complaining notes:
And sorrow
Sits crowned upon her seat: nor any morrowHears the Loves laughing round her golden chair.(Alas, thy golden seat, thine empty seat!)Nor any evening sees beneath her feetThe daisy rosier flush, the maidenhairAnd scentless crocus borrowFrom rose and hyacinth their savour sweet.Without thee is no sweetness in the morn,The morn that was fulfilled of mystery,It lies like a void shell, desiring thee,O daughter of the water and the dawn,
Anadyomene!
There is no gold upon the bearded corn,No blossom on the thorn;And in wet brakes the Oreads hide, forlornOf every grace once theirs: no Faun will follow
By herne or hollow
Their feet in the windy morn.
Let us all cry together "Cytherea!"Lock hands and cry together: it may beThat she will heed and hearAnd come from the waste places of the sea,Leaving old Proteus all discomforted,To cast down from his headIts crown of nameless jewels, to be hurledIn ruins, with the ruined royaltyOf an old world.The Nereids seek thee in the salt sea-reaches,Seek thee; and seek, and seek, and never find:Canst thou not hear their calling on the wind?We nymphs go wandering under pines and beeches,And far—and far behindWe hear Paris' piping blownAfter us, calling thee and making moan(For all the leaves that have no strength to cry,The young leaves and the dry),Desiring thee to bless these woods again,Making most heavy moanFor withered myrtle-flowers,For all thy Paphian bowersEmpty and sad beneath a setting sun;
For dear days done!
The Naiads splash in the blue forest-pools—
"Idalia—Idalia!" they cry.
"On Ida's hill,With flutings faint and shrill,—On Ida's hill the shepherds vainly tryTheir songs, and coldly stand their damsels by,Whatever tunes they try;For beauty is not, and Love may not be,
On land or sea—
Oh, not in earth or heaven, on land or sea,While darkness holdeth thee."The Naiads weep beside their forest-pools,And from the oaks a hundred voices call,"Come back to us, O thou desired of all!Elsewhere the air is sultry: here it coolsAnd full it is of pine scents: here is stillThe world-pain that has driven from Ida's hill
Thine unreturning feet.
Alas! the days so fleet that were, and sweet,When kind thou wert, and dear,And all the loves dwelt here!Alas! thy giftless hands, thy wandering feet!Oh, here for Pithys' sake the air is sweetAnd here snow falls not, neither burns the sunNor any winds make moan for dear days done.Come, then: the woods are emptied all of glee,And all the world is sad, desiring thee!"
—Nora Hopper
I am that Helen, that very HelenOf Leda, born in the days of old:
Men's hearts as inns that I might dwell in:Houseless I wander to-night, and cold.
Because man loved me, no God takes pity:My ghost goes wailing where I was Queen!
Alas! my chamber in Troy's tall city,My golden couches, my hangings green!
Wasted with fire are the halls they built me,And sown with salt are the streets I trod,
Where flowers they scattered and spices spilt me—Alas, that Zeus is a jealous God!
Softly I went on my sandals golden;Of love and pleasure I took my fill;
With Paris' kisses my lips were holden,Nor guessed I, when life went at my will,That the fates behind me went softlier still.
—Nora Hopper
Where, girt with orchard and with oliveyard,
The white hill-fortress glimmers on the hill,Day after day an ancient goldsmith's skill
Guided the copper graver, tempered hardBy some lost secret, while he shaped the sard
Slowly to beauty, and his tiny drill,Edged with corundum, ground its way until
The gem lay perfect for the ring to guard.
Then seeing the stone complete to his desire,With mystic imagery carven thus,And dark Egyptian symbols fabulous,He drew through it the delicate golden wire,And bent the fastening; and the Etrurian sunSank behind Ilva, and the work was done.
What dark-haired daughter of a Lucumo
Bore on her slim white finger to the graveThis the first gift her Tyrrhene lover gave,
Those five-and-twenty centuries ago?What shadowy dreams might haunt it, lying low
So long, while kings and armies, wave on wave,Above the rock-tomb's buried architrave
Went trampling million-footed to and fro?
Who knows? but well it is so frail a thing,Unharmed by conquering Time's supremacy,Still should be fair, though scarce less old than Rome.Now once again at rest from wanderingAcross the high Alps and the dreadful sea,In utmost England let it find a home.
—J. W. Mackail
Orpheus with his lute made trees,And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music, plants and flowersEver sprung: as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep or hearing, die.
—William Shakespeare
Of Neptune's empire let us singAt whose command the waves obey;To whom the rivers tribute pay,
Down the high mountains sliding:To whom the scaly nation yieldsHomage for the crystal fieldsWherein they dwell:
And every sea-god pays a gemYearly out of his wat'ry cell
To deck great Neptune's diadem.
The Tritons dancing in a ringBefore his palace gates do makeThe waters with their echoes quake,
Like the great thunder sounding:The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,And the sirens, taught to killWith their sweet voice,
Make every echoing rock replyUnto their gentle murmuring noise
The praise of Neptune's empery.
—Thomas Campion
(In part, only)
He lives on little, and is blest,On whose plain board the brightSalt-cellar shines, which was his sire's delight,
Nor terrors, nor cupidity's unrest,Disturb his slumbers light.
Why should we still project and plan,We creatures of an hour?Why fly from clime to clime, new regions scour?
Where is the exile, who, since time began,To fly from self had power?
Fell care climbs brazen galley's sides;Nor troops of horse can flyHer foot, which than the stag's is swifter, ay,
Swifter than Eurus when he madly ridesThe clouds along the sky.
Careless what lies beyond to know,And turning to the best,The present, meet life's bitters with a jest,
And smile them down; since nothing here belowIs altogether blest.
In manhood's prime Achilles died,Tithonus by the slowDecay of age was wasted to a show,
And Time may what it hath to thee deniedOn me perchance bestow.
To me a farm of modest size,And slender vein of song,Such as in Greece flowed vigorous and strong,
Kind fate hath given, and spirit to despiseThe base, malignant throng.
—Sir Theodore Martin
Yes, a small box of nard from the stores of Sulpicius3A cask shall elicit, of potency rare
To endow with fresh hopes, dewy-bright and delicious,And wash from our hearts every cobweb of care.
If you'd dip in such joys, come—the better the quicker!—But remember the fee—for it suits not my ends,
To let you make havoc, scot-free, 'with my liquor,As though I were one of your heavy-pursed friends.
To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy!—In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain,
Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,—'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane.
—Sir Theodore Martin
Receive, dear friends, the truths I teach,So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.
He that holds fast the golden meanAnd lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Imbittering all his state.
The tallest pines feel most the powerOf wintry blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's sideHis cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.
The well-informed philosopherRejoices with a wholesome fear,
And hopes in spite of pain;
If winter bellow from the north,Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth,
And nature laughs again.
What if thine heaven be overcast?The dark appearance will not last;
Expect a brighter sky.
The god that strings a silver bowAwakes sometimes the Muses too,
And lays his arrows by.
If hindrances obstruct thy way,Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen:
But O! if Fortune fill thy sailWith more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvas in.
—William Cowper
He unto whom thou art so partial,O reader, is the well-known Martial,The Epigrammatist: while living,Give him the fame thou wouldst be givingSo shall he hear, and feel, and know it:Post-obits rarely reach a poet.
—Lord Byron
When the sad tale, how Brutus fell, was brought,And slaves refused the weapon Portia sought;"Know ye not yet," she said, with towering pride,"Death is a boon that cannot be denied?I thought my father amply had imprestThis simple truth upon each Roman breast."Dauntless she gulph'd the embers as they flamedAnd, while their heat within her raged, exclaim'd"Now, troublous guardians of a life abhorr'd,Still urge your caution, and refuse the sword."
—George Lamb
That scarce a piece I publish in a year,Idle perhaps to you I may appear.But rather, that I write at all, admire,When I am often robbed of days entire.Now with my friends the evening I must spend:To those preferred my compliments must send.Now at the witnessing a will make one:Hurried from this to that, my morning's gone.Some office must attend; or else some ball;Or else my lawyer's summons to the hall.Now a rehearsal, now a concert hear;And now a Latin play at Westminster.Home after ten return, quite tir'd and dos'd.When is the piece, you want, to be compos'd?
—John Hay
Your slave will with your gold abscond,The fire your home lay low,
Your debtor will disown his bondYour farm no crops bestow;
Your steward a mistress frail shall cheat;Your freighted ship the storms will beat;
That only from mischance you'll save,Which to your friends is given;
The only wealth you'll always haveIs that you've lent to heaven.
—English Journal of Education, Jan., 1856
They tell me, Cotilus, that you're a beau:What this is, Cotilus, I wish to know."A beau is one who, with the nicest care,In parted locks divides his curling hair;One who with balm and cinnamon smells sweet,Whose humming lips some Spanish air repeat;Whose naked arms are smoothed with pumice-stone,And tossed about with graces all his own:A beau is one who takes his constant seatFrom morn till evening, where the ladies meet;And ever, on some sofa hovering near,Whispers some nothing in some fair one's ear;Who scribbles thousand billets-doux a day;Still reads and scribbles, reads, and sends away;A beau is one who shrinks, if nearly pressedBy the coarse garment of a neighbor guest;Who knows who flirts with whom, and still is foundAt each good table in successive round:A beau is one—none better knows than heA race-horse, and his noble pedigree"—Indeed? Why Cotilus, if this be so,What teasing trifling thing is called a beau!
—Elton
The things that make a life to please,(Sweetest Martial), they are these:Estate inherited, not got:A thankful field, hearth always hot:City seldom, law-suits never:Equal friends, agreeing forever:Health of body, peace of mind:Sleeps that till the morning bind:Wise simplicity, plain fare:Not drunken nights, yet loos'd from care:A sober, not a sullen spouse:Clean strength, not such as his that plows;Wish only what thou art, to be;Death neither wish, nor fear to see.
—Sir Richard Fanshawe
Thou monarch of eight parts of speech,Who sweep'st with birch a youngster's breech,Oh! now awhile withhold your hand!So may the trembling crop-hair'd bandAround your desk attentive hear,And pay you love instead of fear;So may yours ever be as full,As writing or as dancing school.The scorching dog-day is begun;The harvest roasting in the sun;Each Bridewell keeper, though requir'dTo use the lash, is too much tir'd.Let ferula and rod togetherLie dormant, till the frosty weather.Boys do improve enough in reason,Who miss a fever in this season.
—John Hay
Underneath this greedy stone,Lies little sweet Erotion;4Whom the Fates, with hearts as cold,Nipp'd away at six years old.Thou, whoever thou mayst be,That hast this small field after me,Let the yearly rites be paidTo her little slender shade;So shall no disease or jarHurt thy house, or chill thy Lar;But this tomb be here aloneThe only melancholy stone.
—Leigh Hunt
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.5
Some hae meat and canna eat,And some wad eat that want it;But we hae meat and we can eatAnd sae the Lord be thanket.
—Burns
Sunt quibus est panisnec amor tamen ullus edendi:
Sunt quibus hic amor estdeest tamen ipse cibus.
Panis at est nobiset amor quoque panis edendi
Pro quibus est Dominogratia habenda Deo.
—The Lawrence Latinist
It was, and still my care is,To worship ye, the Lares,With crowns of greenest parsley,And garlick chives not scarcely;For favors here to warme me,And not by fire to harme me;For gladding so my hearth here,With inoffensive mirth here;That while the wassaile bowle hereWith North-down ale doth troule here,No sillable doth fall here,To marre the mirth at all here.For which, O chimney-keepers!(I dare not call ye sweepers)So long as I am ableTo keep a country-tableGreat be my fare, or small cheere,I'll eat and drink up all here.
—Robert Herrick
Past the despairing wail—And the bright banquets of the Elysian ValeMelt every care away!Delight, that breathes and moves forever,Glides through sweet fields like some sweet river!Elysian life survey!There, fresh with youth, o'er jocund meads,His merry west-winds blithely leadsThe ever-blooming May!Through gold-woven dreams goes the dance of the Hours,In space without bounds swell the soul and its powers,And Truth, with no veil, gives her face to the day.And joy today and joy tomorrowBut wafts the airy soul aloft;The very name is lost to Sorrow,And Pain is Rapture tuned more exquisitely soft.Here the Pilgrim reposes the world-weary limb,And forgets in the shadow, cool-breathing and dim,The load he shall bear never more;Here the mower, his sickle at rest, by the streamsLull'd with harp strings, reviews, in the calm of his dreamsThe fields, when the harvest is o'er.Here, He, whose ears drank in the battle roar,Whose banners streamed upon the startled windA thunder-storm,—before whose thunder treadThe mountains trembled,—in soft sleep reclined,By the sweet brook that o'er its pebbly bedIn silver plays, and murmurs to the shore,Hears the stern clangour of wild spears no more.
—Schiller