No More Learning

Into my marrow is it gone,
Fixt and settled in the bone,
It reigns not only in my heart
But runs like fire through every part. '
She spoke: the god of Love aloud
Sneezed again, and all the crowd
Of little Loves that waited by
Bowed and blest the augury.

COWLEY.


_85 b_

So many critics have compared Catullus to Burns that some of them may be
glad to see this North-Italian rendered into the English of the North.

WEEP, weep, ye Loves and Cupids all,
And ilka Man o' decent feelin':
My lassie's lost her wee, wee bird,
And that's a loss, ye'll ken, past healin'.

The lassie lo'ed him like her een:
The darling wee thing lo'ed the ither,
And knew and nestled to her breast,
As ony bairnie to her mither.

Her bosom was his dear, dear haunt--
So dear, he cared na lang to leave it;
He'd nae but gang his ain sma' jaunt,
And flutter piping back bereavit.

The wee thing's gane the shadowy road
That's never travelled back by ony:
Out on ye, Shades! ye're greedy aye
To grab at aught that's brave and bonny.

Puir, foolish, fondling, bonnie bird,
Ye little ken what wark ye're leavin':
Ye've gar'd my lassie's een grow red,
Those bonnie een grow red wi' grievin'.

G. S. DAVIES.

I append the version of Prof. R.
Ellis, which preserves the metre of the
original:

WEEP each heavenly Venus, all the Cupids,
Weep all men that have any grace about ye.
Dead the sparrow, in whom my love delighted,
The dear sparrow, in whom my love delighted.

Yea, most precious, above her eyes, she held him,
Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hail'd her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother;

Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither,
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.

Now he wendeth along the mirky pathway,
Whence, they tell us, is hopeless all returning.

Evil on ye, the shades of evil Orcus,
Shades all beauteous happy things devouring,
Such a beauteous happy bird ye took him.

Ah! for pity; but ah! for him the sparrow,
Our poor sparrow, on whom to think my lady's
Eyes do angrily redden all a-weeping.

R. ELLIS.


_86 a_

Langhorne is best known by his translation of Plutarch's _Lives_. But he
was a copious poet; and Catullus has never perhaps been more gracefully
rendered than in the following piece:

LESBIA, live to love and pleasure,
Careless what the grave may say:
When each moment is a treasure
Why should lovers lose a day?

Setting suns shall rise in glory,
But when little life is o'er,
There's an end of all the story--
We shall sleep, and wake no more.

Give me, then, a thousand kisses,
Twice ten thousand more bestow,
Till the sum of boundless blisses
Neither we nor envy know.

J. LANGHORNE.