No More Learning

_Hor. _ WHILE no more welcome arms could twine
Around thy snowy neck than mine,
Thy smile, thy heart while I possessed,
Not Persia's monarch lived as blessed.

_Lyd. _ While thou didst feed no rival flame,
Nor Lydia after Chloe came,
Oh then thy Lydia's echoing name
Excelled ev'n Ilia's Roman fame.

_Hor. _ Me now Threician Chloe sways,
Skilled in soft lyre and softer lays;
My forfeit life I'll freely give
So she, my better life, may live.

_Lyd. _ The son of Ornytus inspires
My burning breast with mutual fires;
I'll face two several deaths with joy
So Fate but spare my Thracian boy.

_Hor. _ What if our ancient love awoke,
And bound us with its golden yoke?
If auburn Chloe I resign
And Lydia once again be mine?

_Lyd. _ Though fairer than the stars is he,
Thou rougher than the Adrian sea
And fickle as light cork, yet I
With thee would live, with thee would die.

GLADSTONE.

Prior's 'echo' of this poem is well known:

'SO when I am weary of wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come;
No matter what beauties I saw in my way,
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
Then finish, dear Cloe, this pastoral war,
And let us, like Horace and Lydia, agree;
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me. '

(_Answer to Chloe Jealous_).


_127_

O CRUEL, still and vain of beauty's charms,
When wintry age thy insolence disarms,[10]
When fall those locks that on thy shoulders play,
And youth's gay roses on thy cheeks decay,
When that smooth face shall manhood's roughness wear,
And in your glass another form appear,
Ah, why, you'll say, do I now vainly burn,
Or with my wishes not my youth return?

FRANCIS.


_135_

I print Dryden's version in its entirety. 'I have endeavoured to make it
my masterpiece in English,' he says. It is perhaps the only translation
of the _Odes_ which retains what Dryden calls their 'noble and bold
purity' and at the same time keeps the friendly and familiar strokes of
style which lighten Horace's graver moods.

DESCENDED of an ancient line,
That long the Tuscan sceptre swayed,
Make haste to meet the generous wine
Whose piercing is for thee delayed.
The rosie wreath is ready made
And artful hands prepare
The fragrant Syrian oil that shall perfume thy hair

When the wine sparkles from afar
And the well-natured friend cries 'Come away',
Make haste and leave thy business and thy care,
No mortal interest can be worth thy stay.

Leave for awhile thy costly country seat,
And--to be great indeed--forget
The nauseous pleasures of the great:
Make haste and come,
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:
Come, give thy soul a loose, and taste the pleasures of the poor.

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,
Without the stately spacious room,
The Persian carpet or the Tyrian loom
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.

The Sun is in the Lion mounted high,
The Syrian star
Barks from afar,
And with his sultry breath infects the sky;
The ground below is parched, the heavens above us fry;
The shepherd drives his fainting flock
Beneath the covert of a rock
And seeks refreshing rivulets nigh.
The Sylvans to their shade retire,
Those very shades and streams new streams require,
And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.

Thou, what befits the new Lord May'r,
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 human sight
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 learn too late.

Enjoy the present smiling hour,
And put it out of Fortune's power.