Image 2: Greek Text
IO great and wise, clear‑souled and high of heart,One the last flower of Catholic love, that growsAmid bare thorns their only thornless rose,From the fierce juggling of the priests' loud martYet alien, yet unspotted and apartFrom the blind hard foul rout whose shameless showsMock the sweet heaven whose secret no man knowsWith prayers and curses and the soothsayer's art;One like a storm‑god of the northern foamStrong, wrought of rock that breasts and breaks the seaAnd thunders back its thunder, rhyme for rhymeAnswering, as though to outroar the tides of timeAnd bid the world's wave back—what song should beTheirs that with praise would bring and sing you home?IIWith all our hearts we praise you whom ye hate,High souls that hate us; for our hopes are higher,And higher than yours the goal of our desire,Though high your ends be as your hearts are great.Your world of Gods and kings, of shrine and state,Was of the night when hope and fear stood nigher,Wherein men walked by light of stars and fireTill man by day stood equal with his fate.Honour not hate we give you, love not fear,Last prophets of past kind, who fill the domeOf great dead Gods with wrath and wail, nor hearTime's word and man's: "Go honoured hence, go home,Night's childless children; here your hour is done;Pass with the stars, and leave us with the sun."
Above the spring‑tide sundawn of the year,A sunlike star, not born of day or night,Filled the fair heaven of spring with heavenlier light,Made of all ages orbed in one sole sphereWhose light was as a Titan's smile or tear;Then rose a ray more flowerlike, starry white,Like a child's eye grown lovelier with delight,Sweet as a child's heart‑lightening laugh to hear;And last a fire from heaven, a fiery rainAs of God's wrath on the unclean cities, fellAnd lit the shuddering shades of half‑seen hellThat shrank before it and were cloven in twain;A beacon fired by lightning, whence all timeSees red the bare black ruins of a crime.
What is gold worth, say,Worth for work or play,Worth to keep or pay,Hide or throw away,Hope about or fear?What is love worth, pray?Worth a tear?Golden on the mouldLie the dead leaves rolledOf the wet woods old,Yellow leaves and cold,Woods without a dove;Gold is worth but gold;Love's worth love.
IIThe word of the sun to the sky,The word of the wind to the sea,The word of the moon to the night,What may it be?IIThe sense to the flower of the fly,The sense of the bird to the tree,The sense to the cloud of the light,Who can tell me?IIIThe song of the fields to the kye,The song of the lime to the bee,The song of the depth to the height,Who knows all three?IIIThe message of April to MayThat May sends on into JuneAnd June gives out to JulyFor birthday boon;IIThe delight of the dawn in the day,The delight of the day in the noon,The delight of a song in a sighThat breaks the tune;IIIThe secret of passing away,The cost of the change of the moon,None knows it with ear or with eye,But all will soon.IIIIThe live wave's love for the shore,The shore's for the wave as it dies,The love of the thunder‑fireThat sears the skies,IIWe shall know not though life wax hoar,Till all life, spent into sighs,Burn out as consumed with desireOf death's strange eyes;IIITill the secret be secret no moreIn the light of one hour as it flies,Be the hour as of suns that expireOr suns that rise.
IOutside the gardenThe wet skies harden;The gates are barred onThe summer side:"Shut out the flower‑time,Sunbeam and shower‑time;Make way for our time,"Wild winds have cried.Green once and cheery,The woods, worn weary,Sigh as the drearyWeak sun goes home:A great wind grapplesThe wave, and dapplesThe dead green floor of the sea with foam.IIThrough fell and moorland,And salt‑sea foreland,Our noisy norlandResounds and rings;Waste waves thereunderAre blown in sunder,And winds make thunderWith cloudwide wings;Sea‑drift makes dimmerThe beacon's glimmer;Nor sail nor swimmerCan try the tides;And snowdrifts thickenWhere, when leaves quicken,Under the heather the sundew hides.IIIGreen land and red land,Moorside and headland,Are white as dead land,Are all as one;Nor honied heather,Nor bells to gather,Fair with fair weatherAnd faithful sun:Fierce frost has eatenAll flowers that sweetenThe fells rain‑beaten;And winds their foesHave made the snow's bedDown in the rose‑bed;Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.IVBury her deeperThan any sleeper;Sweet dreams will keep herAll day, all night;Though sleep benumb herAnd time o'ercome her,She dreams of summer,And takes delight,Dreaming and sleepingIn love's good keeping,While rain is weepingAnd no leaves cling;Winds will come bringing herComfort, and singing herStories and songs and good news of the spring.VDraw the white curtainClose, and be certainShe takes no hurt inHer soft low bed;She feels no colder,And grows not older,Though snows enfold herFrom foot to head;She turns not chillyLike weed and lilyIn marsh or hillyHigh watershed,Or green soft islandIn lakes of highland;She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.VIFor all the hours,Come sun, come showers,Are friends of flowers,And fairies all;When frost entrapped her,They came and lapped herIn leaves, and wrapped herWith shroud and pall;In red leaves wound her,With dead leaves bound herDead brows, and round herA death‑knell rang;Rang the death‑bell for her,Sang, "is it well for her,Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.VIIO what and where isThe rose now, fairies,So shrill the air is,So wild the sky?Poor last of roses,Her worst of woes isThe noise she knows isThe winter's cry;His hunting holloHas scared the swallow;Fain would she followAnd fain would fly:But wind unsettlesHer poor last petals;Had she but wings, and she would not die.VIIICome, as you love her,Come close and coverHer white face over,And forth againEre sunset glancesOn foam that dances,Through lowering lancesOf bright white rain;And make your playtimeOf winter's daytime,As if the MaytimeWere here to sing;As if the snowballsWere soft like blowballs,Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.IXEach reed that grows inOur stream is frozen,The fields it flows inAre hard and black;The water‑fairyWaits wise and waryTill time shall varyAnd thaws come back."O sister, water,"The wind besought her,"O twin‑born daughterOf spring with me,Stay with me, play with me,Take the warm way with me,Straight for the summer and oversea."XBut winds will vary,And wise and waryThe patient fairyOf water waits;All shrunk and wizen,In iron prison,Till spring re‑risenUnbar the gates;Till, as with clamourOf axe and hammer,Chained streams that stammerAnd struggle in straitsBurst bonds that shiver,And thaws deliverThe roaring river in stormy spates.XIIn fierce March weatherWhite waves break tether,And whirled togetherAt either hand,Like weeds uplifted,The tree‑trunks riftedIn spars are drifted,Like foam or sand,Past swamp and sallowAnd reed‑beds callow,Through pool and shallow,To wind and lee,Till, no more tongue‑tied,Full flood and young tideRoar down the rapids and storm the sea.XIIAs men's cheeks fadedOn shores invaded,When shorewards wadedThe lords of fight;When churl and cravenSaw hard on havenThe wide‑winged ravenAt mainmast height;When monks affrightedTo windward sightedThe birds full‑flightedOf swift sea‑kings;So earth turns palerWhen Storm the sailorSteers in with a roar in the race of his wings.XIIIO strong sea‑sailor,Whose cheek turns palerFor wind or hail orFor fear of thee?O far sea‑farer,O thunder‑bearer,Thy songs are rarerThan soft songs be.O fleet‑foot stranger,O north‑sea rangerThrough days of dangerAnd ways of fear,Blow thy horn here for us,Blow the sky clear for us,Send us the song of the sea to hear.XIVRoll the strong stream of itUp, till the scream of itWake from a dream of itChildren that sleep,Seamen that fare for themForth, with a prayer for them;Shall not God care for them,Angels not keep?Spare not the surgesThy stormy scourges;Spare us the dirgesOf wives that weep.Turn back the waves for us:Dig no fresh graves for us,Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.XVO stout north‑easter,Sea‑king, land‑waster,For all thine haste, orThy stormy skill,Yet hadst thou never,For all endeavour,Strength to disseverOr strength to spill,Save of his givingWho gave our living,Whose hands are weavingWhat ours fulfil;Whose feet tread underThe storms and thunder;Who made our wonder to work his will.XVIHis years and hours,His world's blind powers,His stars and flowers,His nights and days,Sea‑tide and river,And waves that shiver,Praise God, the giverOf tongues to praise.Winds in their blowing,And fruits in growing;Time in its going,While time shall be;In death and living,With one thanksgiving,Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.
Rose‑red lilies that bloom on the banner;Rose‑cheeked gardens that revel in spring;Rose‑mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan herWith wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,What do they sing in the spring of their time?If this be the rose that the world hears singing,Soft in the soft night, loud in the day,Songs for the fire‑flies to dance as they hear;If that be the song of the nightingale, springingForth in the form of a rose in May,What do they say of the way of the year?What of the way of the world gone Maying,What of the work of the buds in the bowers,What of the will of the wind on the wall,Fluttering the wall‑flowers, sighing and playing,Shrinking again as a bird that cowers,Thinking of hours when the flowers have to fall?Out of the throats of the loud birds showering,Out of the folds where the flag‑lilies leap,Out of the mouths of the roses stirred,Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering,Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep,Out of the deep and the steep, one word.One from the lips of the lily‑flames leaping,The glad red lilies that burn in our sight,The great live lilies for standard and crown;One from the steeps where the pines stand sleeping,One from the deep land, one from the height,One from the light and the might of the town.The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands,Whence May winds feed them with balm and breathFrom hills that beheld in the years behindA shape as of one from the blest souls' islands,Made fair by a soul too fair for death,With eyes on the light that should smite them blind.Vallombrosa remotely remembers,Perchance, what still to us seems so nearThat time not darkens it, change not mars,The foot that she knew when her leaves were September's,The face lift up to the star‑blind seer,That saw from his prison arisen his stars.And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning,For love of her loveliness given them in fee;And Prato gleams with the glad monk's giftWhose hand was there as the hand of morning;And Siena, set in the sand's red sea,Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's drift.And far to the fair south‑westward lightens,Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers,At sunset over the love‑lit lands,The hill‑side's crown where the wild hill brightens,Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers,Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest,Mother of men that were lords of man,Whose name in the world's heart works as a spell,My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest,As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,Fare well we may not who say farewell.
The sundawn fills the landFull as a feaster's handFills full with bloom of blandBright wine his cup;Flows full to flood that fillsFrom the arch of air it thrillsThose rust‑red iron hillsWith morning up.Dawn, as a panther springs,With fierce and fire‑fledged wingsLeaps on the land that ringsFrom her bright feetThrough all its lava‑blackCones that cast answer backAnd cliffs of footless trackWhere thunders meet.The light speaks wide and loudFrom deeps blown clean of cloudAs though day's heart were proudAnd heaven's were glad;The towers brown‑striped and greyTake fire from heaven of dayAs though the prayers they prayTheir answers had.Higher in these high first hoursWax all the keen church towers,And higher all hearts of oursThan the old hills' crown,Higher than the pillared heightOf that strange cliff‑side brightWith basalt towers whose mightStrong time bows down.And the old fierce ruin thereOf the old wild princes' lairWhose blood in mine hath shareGapes gaunt and greatToward heaven that long agoWatched all the wan land's woeWhereon the wind would blowOf their bleak hate.Dead are those deeds; but yetTheir memory seems to fretLands that might else forgetThat old world's brand;Dead all their sins and days;Yet in this red clime's raysSome fiery memory staysThat sears their land.
The year lies fallen and fadedOn cliffs by clouds invaded,With tongues of storms upbraided,With wrath of waves bedinned;And inland, wild with warning,As in deaf ears or scorning,The clarion even and morningRings of the south‑west wind.The wild bents wane and witherIn blasts whose breath bows hitherTheir grey‑grown heads and thither,Unblest of rain or sun;The pale fierce heavens are crowdedWith shapes like dreams beclouded,As though the old year enshroudedLay, long ere life were done.Full‑charged with oldworld wonders,From dusk Tintagel thundersA note that smites and sundersThe hard frore fields of air;A trumpet stormier‑soundedThan once from lists reboundedWhen strong men sense‑confoundedFell thick in tourney there.From scarce a duskier dwellingSuch notes of wail rose wellingThrough the outer darkness, tellingIn the awful singer's earsWhat souls the darkness covers,What love‑lost souls of lovers,Whose cry still hangs and hoversIn each man's born that hears.For there by Hector's brotherAnd yet some thousand otherHe that had grief to motherPassed pale from Dante's sight;With one fast linked as fearless,Perchance, there only tearless;Iseult and Tristram, peerlessAnd perfect queen and knight.A shrill‑winged sound comes flyingNorth, as of wild souls cryingThe cry of things undying,That know what life must be;Or as the old year's heart, strickenToo sore for hope to quickenBy thoughts like thorns that thicken,Broke, breaking with the sea.
[In an English magazine of 1877 there appeared a version of some insolent lines addressed by "A Russian Poet to the Empress of India." To these the first of the two following sonnets was designed to serve by way of counterblast. The writer will scarcely be suspected of royalism or imperialism; but it seemed to him that an insult levelled by Muscovite lips at the ruler of England might perhaps be less unfitly than unofficially resented by an Englishman who was also a republican.]
IGehazi by the hue that chills thy cheekAnd Pilate by the hue that sears thine handWhence all earth's waters cannot wash the brandThat signs thy soul a manslayer's though thou speakAll Christ, with lips most murderous and most meek—Thou set thy foot where England's used to stand!Thou reach thy rod forth over Indian land!Slave of the slaves that call thee lord, and weakAs their foul tongues who praise thee! son of themWhose presence put the snows and stars to shameIn centuries dead and damned that reek belowCurse‑consecrated, crowned with crime and flame,To them that bare thee like them shalt thou goForth of man's life—a leper white as snow.IICall for clear water, wash thine hands, be clean,Cry,What is truth?O Pilate; thou shalt knowHaply too soon, and gnash thy teeth for woeEre the outer darkness take thee round unseenThat hides the red ghosts of thy race obsceneBound nine times round with hell's most dolorous flow,And in its pools thy crownless head lie lowBy his of Spain who dared an English queenWith half a world to hearten him for fight,Till the wind gave his warriors and their mightTo shipwreck and the corpse‑encumbered sea.But thou, take heed, ere yet thy lips wax white,Lest as it was with Philip so it be,O white of name and red of hand, with thee.
How many sons, how many generations,For how long years hast thou bewept, and knownNor end of torment nor surcease of moan,Rachel or Rizpah, wofullest of nations,Crowned with the crowning sign of desolations,And couldst not even scare off with hand or groanThose carrion birds devouring bone by boneThe children of thy thousand tribulations?Thou wast our warrior once; thy sons long deadAgainst a foe less foul than this made head,Poland, in years that sound and shine afar;Ere the east beheld in thy bright sword‑blade's steadThe rotten corpse‑light of the Russian starThat lights towards hell his bondslaves and their Czar.
Light of our fathers' eyes, and in our ownStar of the unsetting sunset! for thy name,That on the front of noon was as a flameIn the great year nigh thirty years agoneWhen all the heavens of Europe shook and shoneWith stormy wind and lightning, keeps its fameAnd bears its witness all day through the same;Not for past days and great deeds past alone,Kossuth, we praise thee as our Landor praised,But that now too we know thy voice upraised,Thy voice, the trumpet of the truth of God,Thine hand, the thunder‑bearer's, raised to smiteAs with heaven's lightning for a sword and rodMen's heads abased before the Muscovite.
IMeseemeth I heard cry and groanThat sweet who was the armourer's maid;For her young years she made sore moan,And right upon this wise she said;"Ah fierce old age with foul bald head,To spoil fair things thou art over fain;Who holdeth me? who? would God I were dead!Would God I were well dead and slain!II"Lo, thou hast broken the sweet yokeThat my high beauty held aboveAll priests and clerks and merchant‑folk;There was not one but for my loveWould give me gold and gold enough,Though sorrow his very heart had riven,To win from me such wage thereofAs now no thief would take if given.III"I was right chary of the same,God wot it was my great folly,For love of one sly knave of them,Good store of that same sweet had he;For all my subtle wiles, perdie,God wot I loved him well enow;Right evilly he handled me,But he loved well my gold, I trow.IV"Though I gat bruises green and black,I loved him never the less a jot;Though he bound burdens on my back,If he said 'Kiss me and heed it not'Right little pain I felt, God wot,When that foul thief's mouth, found so sweet,Kissed me—Much good thereof I got!I keep the sin and the shame of it.V"And he died thirty year agone.I am old now, no sweet thing to see;By God, though, when I think thereon,And of that good glad time, woe's me,And stare upon my changed bodyStark naked, that has been so sweet,Lean, wizen, like a small dry tree,I am nigh mad with the pain of it.VI"Where is my faultless forehead's white,The lifted eyebrows, soft gold hair,Eyes wide apart and keen of sight,With subtle skill in the amorous air;The straight nose, great nor small, but fair,The small carved ears of shapeliest growth,Chin dimpling, colour good to wear,And sweet red splendid kissing mouth?VII"The shapely slender shoulders small,Long arms, hands wrought in glorious wise,Round little breasts, the hips withalHigh, full of flesh, not scant of size,Fit for all amorous masteries;*** ***** *****, *** *** ****** **** ********** ***** ** **** ***** ******** * ***** ****** ** **** *****?VIII"A writhled forehead, hair gone grey,Fallen eyebrows, eyes gone blind and red,Their laughs and looks all fled away,Yea, all that smote men's hearts are fled;The bowed nose, fallen from goodlihead;Foul flapping ears like water‑flags;Peaked chin, and cheeks all waste and dead,And lips that are two skinny rags:IX"Thus endeth all the beauty of us.The arms made short, the hands made lean,The shoulders bowed and ruinous,The breasts, alack! all fallen in;The flanks too, like the breasts, grown thin;** *** *** ***** *****, *** ** **!For the lank thighs, no thighs but skin,They are specked with spots like sausage‑meat.X"So we make moan for the old sweet days,Poor old light women, two or threeSquatting above the straw‑fire's blaze,The bosom crushed against the knee,Like faggots on a heap we be,Round fires soon lit, soon quenched and done;And we were once so sweet, even we!Thus fareth many and many an one."
Now take your fill of love and glee,And after balls and banquets hie;In the end ye'll get no good for fee,But just heads broken by and by;Light loves make beasts of men that sigh;They changed the faith of Solomon,And left not Samson lights to spy;Good luck has he that deals with none!Sweet Orpheus, lord of minstrelsy,For this with flute and pipe came nighThe danger of the dog's heads threeThat ravening at hell's door doth lie;Fain was Narcissus, fair and shy,For love's love lightly lost and won,In a deep well to drown and die;Good luck has he that deals with none!Sardana, flower of chivalry,Who conquered Crete with horn and cry,For this was fain a maid to beAnd learn with girls the thread to ply;King David, wise in prophecy,Forgot the fear of God for oneSeen washing either shapely thigh;Good luck has he that deals with none!For this did Amnon, craftilyFeigning to eat of cakes of rye,Deflower his sister fair to see,Which was foul incest; and herebyWas Herod moved, it is no lie,To lop the head of Baptist JohnFor dance and jig and psaltery;Good luck has he that deals with none!Next of myself I tell, poor me,How thrashed like clothes at wash was IStark naked, I must needs agree;Who made me eat so sour a pieBut Katherine of Vaucelles? thereby,Noé took third part of that fun;Such wedding‑gloves are ill to buy;Good luck has he that deals with none!But for that young man fair and freeTo pass those young maids lightly by,Nay, would you burn him quick, not he;Like broom‑horsed witches though he fry,They are sweet as civet in his eye;But trust them, and you're fooled anon;For white or brown, and low or high,Good luck has he that deals with none!
And Paris be it or Helen dying,Who dies soever, dies with pain.He that lacks breath and wind for sighing,His gall bursts on his heart; and thenHe sweats, God knows what sweat!—again,No man may ease him of his grief;Child, brother, sister, none were fainTo bail him thence for his relief.Death makes him shudder, swoon, wax pale,Nose bend, veins stretch, and breath surrender,Neck swell, flesh soften, joints that failCrack their strained nerves and arteries slender.O woman's body found so tender,Smooth, sweet, so precious in men's eyes,Must thou too bear such count to render?Yes; or pass quick into the skies.
[In the original here follows Villon's masterpiece, the matchlessBallad of the Ladies of Old Time, so incomparably rendered in the marvelous version of D. G. Rossetti; followed in its turn by the succeeding poem, as inferior to its companion as is my attempt at translation of it to his triumph in that higher and harder field.—A. C. S.]
What more? Where is the third Calixt,Last of that name now dead and gone,Who held four years the Papalist?Alphonso king of Aragon,The gracious lord, duke of Bourbon,And Arthur, duke of old Britaine?And Charles the Seventh, that worthy one?Even with the good knight Charlemain.The Scot too, king of mount and mist,With half his face vermilion,Men tell us, like an amethystFrom brow to chin that blazed and shone;The Cypriote king of old renown,Alas! and that good king of Spain,Whose name I cannot think upon?Even with the good knight Charlemain.No more to say of them I list;'Tis all but vain, all dead and done:For death may no man born resist,Nor make appeal when death comes on.I make yet one more question;Where's Lancelot, king of far Bohain?Where's he whose grandson called him son?Even with the good knight Charlemain.Where is Guesclin, the good Breton?The lord of the eastern mountain‑chain,And the good late duke of Alençon?Even with the good knight Charlemain.
Albeit the Venice girls get praiseFor their sweet speech and tender air,And though the old women have wise waysOf chaffering for amorous ware,Yet at my peril dare I swear,Search Rome, where God's grace mainly tarries,Florence and Savoy, everywhere,There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.The Naples women, as folk prattle,Are sweetly spoken and subtle enough:German girls are good at tattle,And Prussians make their boast thereof;Take Egypt for the next remove,Or that waste land the Tartar harries,Spain or Greece, for the matter of love,There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.Breton and Swiss know nought of the matter,Gascony girls or girls of Toulouse;Two fishwives here with a half‑hour's chatterWould shut them up by threes and twos;Calais, Lorraine, and all their crews,(Names enow the mad song marries)England and Picardy, search them and choose,There's no good girl's lip out of Paris.Prince, give praise to our French ladiesFor the sweet sound their speaking carries;'Twixt Rome and Cadiz many a maid is,But no good girl's lip out of Paris.
At daybreak, when the falcon claps his wings,No whit for grief, but noble heart and high,With loud glad noise he stirs himself and springs,And takes his meat and toward his lure draws nigh;Such good I wish you! Yea, and heartilyI am fired with hope of true love's meed to get;Know that Love writes it in his book; for why,This is the end for which we twain are met.Mine own heart's lady with no gainsayingsYou shall be always wholly till I die;And in my right against all bitter thingsSweet laurel with fresh rose its force shall try;Seeing reason wills not that I cast love by(Nor here with reason shall I chide or fret)Nor cease to serve, but serve more constantly;This is the end for which we twain are met.And, which is more, when grief about me clingsThrough Fortune's fit or fume of jealousy,Your sweet kind eye beats down her threateningsAs wind doth smoke; such power sits in your eye.Thus in your field my seed of harvestryThrives, for the fruit is like me that I set;God bids me tend it with good husbandry;This is the end for which we twain are met.Princess, give ear to this my summary;That heart of mine your heart's love should forgetShall never be: like trust in you put I:This is the end for which we twain are met.
May he fall in with beasts that scatter fire,Like Jason, when he sought the fleece of gold,Or change from man to beast three years entire,As King Nebuchadnezzar did of old;Or else have times as shameful and as badAs Trojan folk for ravished Helen had;Or gulfed with Proserpine and TantalusLet hell's deep fen devour him dolorous,With worse to bear than Job's worst sufferance,Bound in his prison‑maze with Dædalus,Who could wish evil to the state of France!May he four months, like bitterns in the mire,Howl with head downmost in the lake‑springs cold,Or to bear harness like strong bulls for hireTo the Great Turk for money down be sold;Or thirty years like Magdalen live sad,With neither wool nor web of linen clad;Drown like Narciss', or swing down pendulousLike Absalom with locks luxurious,Or liker Judas fallen to reprobance;Or find such death as Simon sorcerous,Who could wish evil to the state of France!May the old times come of fierce Octavian's ire,And in his belly molten coin be told;May he like Victor in the mill expire,Crushed between moving millstones on him rolled,Or in deep sea drenched breathless, more adradThan in the whale's bulk Jonas, when God bade:From Phœbus' light, from Juno's treasure‑houseDriven, and from joys of Venus amorous,And cursed of God most high to the utterance,As was the Syrian king Antiochus,Who could wish evil to the state of France!Prince, may the bright‑winged brood of ÆolusTo sea‑king Glaucus' wild wood cavernousBear him bereft of peace and hope's least glance,For worthless is he to get good of us,Who could wish evil to the state of France.