No More Learning

In wavy gold thy summer vales are dress'd;
Thy autumns bind with copious fruit oppress'd:
With flocks and herds each grassy plain is stored;
And fish of every fin thy seas afford:
Their affluent joys the grateful realms confess;
And bless the power that still delights to bless,
Gracious permit this prayer, imperial dame!
Forbear to know my lineage, or my name:
Urge not this breast to heave, these eyes to weep;
In sweet oblivion let my sorrows sleep!
My woes awaked, will violate your ear,
And to this gay censorious train appear
A whiny vapour melting in a tear. "

"Their gifts the gods resumed (the queen rejoin'd),
Exterior grace, and energy of mind,
When the dear partner of my nuptial joy,
Auxiliar troops combined, to conquer Troy.
My lord's protecting hand alone would raise
My drooping verdure, and extend my praise!
Peers from the distant Samian shore resort:
Here with Dulichians join'd, besiege the court:
Zacynthus, green with ever-shady groves,
And Ithaca, presumptuous, boast their loves:
Obtruding on my choice a second lord,
They press the Hymenaean rite abhorr'd.
Misrule thus mingling with domestic cares,
I live regardless of my state affairs;
Receive no stranger-guest, no poor relieve;
But ever for my lord in secret grieve! --
This art, instinct by some celestial power,
I tried, elusive of the bridal hour:

"'Ye peers, (I cry,) who press to gain a heart,
Where dead Ulysses claims no future part;
Rebate your loves, each rival suit suspend,
Till this funeral web my labours end:
Cease, till to good Laertes I bequeath
A pall of state, the ornament of death.
For when to fate he bows, each Grecian dame
With just reproach were licensed to defame,
Should he, long honour'd in supreme command,
Want the last duties of a daughter's hand. '
The fiction pleased; their loves I long elude;
The night still ravell'd what the day renew'd:
Three years successful in my heart conceal'd,
My ineffectual fraud the fourth reveal'd:
Befriended by my own domestic spies,
The woof unwrought the suitor-train surprise.
From nuptial rites they now no more recede,
And fear forbids to falsify the brede.
My anxious parents urge a speedy choice,
And to their suffrage gain the filial voice.
For rule mature, Telemachus deplores
His dome dishonour'd, and exhausted stores--
But, stranger! as thy days seem full of fate,
Divide discourse, in turn thy birth relate:
Thy port asserts thee of distinguish'd race;
No poor unfather'd product of disgrace. "

"Princess!
(he cries,) renew'd by your command,
The dear remembrance of my native land
Of secret grief unseals the fruitful source;
Fond tears repeat their long-forgotten course!
So pays the wretch whom fate constrains to roam,
The dues of nature to his natal home! --
But inward on my soul let sorrow prey,
Your sovereign will my duty bids obey.

"Crete awes the circling waves, a fruitful soil!
And ninety cities crown the sea-born isle:
Mix'd with her genuine sons, adopted names
In various tongues avow their various claims:
Cydonians, dreadful with the bended yew,
And bold Pelasgi boast a native's due:
The Dorians, plumed amid the files of war,
Her foodful glebe with fierce Achaians share;
Cnossus, her capital of high command;
Where sceptred Minos with impartial hand
Divided right: each ninth revolving year,
By Jove received in council to confer.
His son Deucalion bore successive sway:
His son, who gave me first to view the day!
The royal bed an elder issue bless'd,
Idomeneus whom Ilion fields attest
Of matchless deeds: untrain'd to martial toil,
I lived inglorious in my native isle.
Studious of peace, and Aethon is my name.
'Twas then to Crete the great Ulysses came.
For elemental war, and wintry Jove,
From Malea's gusty cape his navy drove
To bright Lucina's fane; the shelfy coast
Where loud Amnisus in the deep is lost.
His vessel's moor'd (an incommodious port! )
The hero speeded to the Cnossian court:
Ardent the partner of his arms to find,
In leagues of long commutual friendship join'd.
Vain hope! ten suns had warm'd the western strand
Since my brave brother, with his Cretan band,
Had sail'd for Troy: but to the genial feast
My honour'd roof received the royal guest:
Beeves for his train the Cnossian peers assign,
A public treat, with jars of generous wine.
Twelve days while Boreas vex'd the aerial space,
My hospitable dome he deign'd to grace:
And when the north had ceased the stormy roar,
He wing'd his voyage to the Phrygian shore. "

Thus the fam'd hero, perfected in wiles,
With fair similitude of truth beguiles
The queen's attentive ear: dissolved in woe,
From her bright eyes the tears unbounded flow,
As snows collected on the mountain freeze;
When milder regions breathe a vernal breeze,
The fleecy pile obeys the whispering gales,
Ends in a stream, and murmurs through the vales:
So, melting with the pleasing tale he told,
Down her fair cheek the copious torrent roll'd:
She to her present lord laments him lost,
And views that object which she wants the most,
Withering at heart to see the weeping fair,
His eyes look stern, and cast a gloomy stare;
Of horn the stiff relentless balls appear,
Or globes of iron fix'd in either sphere;
Firm wisdom interdicts the softening tear.