No More Learning

MERCURI, NAM TE.


Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell
Amphion raised the Theban stones,
Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell,
Thy "diverse tones,"
Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now
To rich man's board and temple dear:
Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow
Her stubborn ear.
She, like a three year colt unbroke,
Is frisking o'er the spacious plain,
Too shy to bear a lover's yoke,
A husband's rein.
The wood, the tiger, at thy call
Have follow'd: thou canst rivers stay:
The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall
To thee gave way,
Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head
A hundred snakes are hissing death,
Whose triple jaws black venom shed,
And sickening breath.
Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd
Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry
One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd
With minstrelsy.
Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt,
Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain
Of outpour'd water, ever spilt,
And all the pain
Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead:
Those impious hands, (could crime do more? )
Those impious hands had hearts to shed
Their bridegrooms' gore!
One only, true to Hymen's flame,
Was traitress to her sire forsworn:
That splendid falsehood lights her name
Through times unborn.
"Wake! " to her youthful spouse she cried,
"Wake! or you yet may sleep too well:
Fly--from the father of your bride,
Her sisters fell:
They, as she-lions bullocks rend,
Tear each her victim: I, less hard
Than these, will slay you not, poor friend,
Nor hold in ward:
Me let my sire in fetters lay
For mercy to my husband shown:
Me let him ship far hence away,
To climes unknown.
Go; speed your flight o'er land and wave,
While Night and Venus shield you; go
Be blest: and on my tomb engrave
This tale of woe. "




XII.

MISERARUM EST.


How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play,
Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day
At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue!
Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread,
Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head;
It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young!
O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood!
What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon's as good?
As a boxer, as a runner, past compare!
When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er,
He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar,
As it couches in the thicket unaware.




XIII.

O FONS BANDUSIAE.


Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline,
O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine
A kid, whose crescent brow
Is sprouting all for love and victory.
In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirr'd,
Thy gelid stream shall dye,
Child of the wanton herd.
Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
Forbears to touch: sweet cool thy waters yield
To ox with ploughing tired,
And lazy sheep afield.
Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence
'Mid honour'd founts, while I the ilex sing
Crowning the cavern, whence
Thy babbling wavelets spring.




XIV.

HERCULIS RITU.


Our Hercules, they told us, Rome,
Had sought the laurel Death bestows:
Now Glory brings him conqueror home
From Spaniard foes.