No More Learning

In an ill-fated hour the coast he gain'd,
Where late in regal pomp Thyestes reigned;
But, when his hoary honours bow'd to fate,
Aegysthus govern'd in paternal state,
The surges now subside, the tempest ends;
From his tall ship the king of men descends;
There fondly thinks the gods conclude his toil:
Far from his own domain salutes the soil;
With rapture oft the urge of Greece reviews,
And the dear turf with tears of joy bedews.
Him, thus exulting on the distant stand,
A spy distinguish'd from his airy stand;
To bribe whose vigilance, Aegysthus told
A mighty sum of ill-persuading gold:
There watch'd this guardian of his guilty fear,
Till the twelfth moon had wheel'd her pale career;
And now, admonish'd by his eye, to court
With terror wing'd conveys the dread report.
Of deathful arts expert, his lord employs
The ministers of blood in dark surprise;
And twenty youths, in radiant mail incased,
Close ambush'd nigh the spacious hall he placed.
Then bids prepare the hospitable treat:
Vain shows of love to veil his felon hate!
To grace the victor's welcome from the wars,
A train of coursers and triumphal cars
Magnificent he leads: the royal guest,
Thoughtless of ill, accepts the fraudful feast.
The troop forth-issuing from the dark recess,
With homicidal rage the king oppress!
So, whilst he feeds luxurious in the stall,
The sovereign of the herd is doomed to fall,
The partners of his fame and toils at Troy,
Around their lord, a mighty ruin, lie:
Mix'd with the brave, the base invaders bleed;
Aegysthus sole survives to boast the deed. "

He said: chill horrors shook my shivering soul,
Rack'd wish convulsive pangs in dust I roll;
And hate, in madness of extreme despair,
To view the sun, or breathe the vital air.
But when, superior to the rage of woe,
I stood restored and tears had ceased to flow,
Lenient of grief the pitying god began:
'Forget the brother, and resume the man.
To Fate's supreme dispose the dead resign,
That care be Fate's, a speedy passage thine
Still lives the wretch who wrought the death deplored,
But lives a victim for thy vengeful sword;
Unless with filial rage Orestes glow,
And swift prevent the meditated blow:
You timely will return a welcome guest,
With him to share the sad funereal feast. "

"He said: new thoughts my beating heart employ,
My gloomy soul receives a gleam of joy.
Fair hope revives; and eager I address'd
The prescient godhead to reveal the rest:
'The doom decreed of those disastrous two
I've heard with pain, but oh! the tale pursue;
What third brave son of Mars the Fates constrain
To roam the howling desert of the main;
Or, in eternal shade of cold he lies,
Provoke new sorrows from these grateful eyes. '

"'That chief (rejoin'd the god) his race derives
From Ithaca, and wondrous woes survives;
Laertes' son: girt with circumfluous tides,
He still calamitous constraint abides.
Him in Calypso's cave of late!
view'd,
When streaming grief his faded cheek bedow'd.
But vain his prayer, his arts are vain, to move
The enamour'd goddess, or elude her love:
His vessel sunk, and dear companions lost,
He lives reluctant on a foreign coast.
But oh, beloved by Heaven! reserved to thee
A happier lot the smiling Fates decree:
Free from that law, beneath whose mortal sway
Matter is changed, and varying forms decay,
Elysium shall be thine: the blissful plains
Of utmost earth, where Rhadamanthus reigns.
Joys ever young, unmix'd with pain or fear,
Fill the wide circle of the eternal year:
Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime:
The fields are florid with unfading prime;
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the blest inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.
This grace peculiar will the gods afford
To thee, the son of Jove, and beauteous Helen's lord. '

"He ceased, and plunging in the vast profound,
Beneath the god and whirling billows bound.
Then speeding back, involved in various thought,
My friends attending at the shore I sought,
Arrived, the rage of hunger we control
Till night with silent shade invests the pole;
Then lose the cares of life in pleasing rest.
Soon as the morn reveals the roseate east,
With sails we wing the masts, our anchors weigh,
Unmoor the fleet, and rush into the sea.
Ranged on the banks, beneath our equal oars
White curl the waves, and the vex'd ocean roars
Then, steering backward from the Pharian isle,
We gain the stream of Jove-descended Nile;
There quit the ships, and on the destined shore
With ritual hecatombs the gods adore;
Their wrath atoned, to Agamemnon's name
A cenotaph I raise of deathless fame.
These rites to piety and grief discharged,
The friendly gods a springing gale enlarged;
The fleet swift tilting o'er the surges flew,
Till Grecian cliffs appear'd a blissful view!

"Thy patient ear hath heard me long relate
A story, fruitful of disastrous fate.
And now, young prince, indulge my fond request;
Be Sparta honoured with his royal guest,
Till, from his eastern goal, the joyous sun
His twelfth diurnal race begins to run.
Meantime my train the friendly gifts prepare,
The sprightly coursers and a polish'd car;
With these a goblet of capacious mould,
Figured with art to dignify the gold
(Form'd for libation to the gods), shall prove
A pledge and monument of sacred love. "

"My quick return (young Ithacus rejoin'd),
Damps the warm wishes of my raptured mind;
Did not my fate my needful haste constrain,
Charm'd by your speech so graceful and humane,
Lost in delight the circling year would roll,
While deep attention fix'd my listening soul.
But now to Pyle permit my destined way,
My loved associates chide my long delay:
In dear remembrance of your royal grace,
I take the present of the promised vase;
The coursers, for the champaign sports retain;
That gift our barren rocks will render vain:
Horrid with cliffs, our meagre land allows
Thin herbage for the mountain goat to browse,
But neither mead nor plain supplies, to feed
The sprightly courser, or indulge his speed:
To sea-surrounded realms the gods assign
Small tract of fertile lawn, the least to mine.