No More Learning

Amid all such vanities, then, is there nothing left for which men may
reasonably pray?

Say, then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,
Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice?
Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust.
_Their_ thoughts are wise, _their_ dispensations just.
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow;
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;
More dear to them than to himself is man.
By blind desire, by headlong passion driven,
For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven;
Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,
If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe.
But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove),
That thou mayst still ask something from above,
Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,
And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer:
O THOU, who know'st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;
A soul prepared to meet the frown of fate,
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains,
Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.
THE PATH TO PEACE IS VIRTUE. We should see,
If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee:
But _we_ have deified a name alone,
And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!


FOOTNOTES:

[Q] Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum,
about 55 A. D. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death
is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience.
But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in
declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery
of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile
for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal
denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in
his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce
a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free
and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a
complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has,
with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been
incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and
"The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.




FRIEDRICH KLOPSTOCK[R]




The Messiah


_I. --The Mount of Olives_

Rejoice, ye sons of earth, in the honour bestowed on man. He who was
before all worlds, by Whom all things in this visible creation were
made, descended to our earth as your Redeemer. Near Jerusalem, once
the city where God displayed His grace, the Divine Redeemer withdrew
from the multitude and sought retirement. On the side where the sun
first gilds the city with its beams rises a mountain, whose summit He
had oft honoured with His presence when during the solitary night He
spent the hours in fervent prayer.

Gabriel, descending, stands between two perfumed cedars and addresses
Jesus.

Wilt Thou, Lord, here devote the night to prayer,
Or weary, dost thou seek a short repose?
Permit that I for Thine immortal head
A yielding couch prepare. Behold the shrubs
And saplings of the cedar, far and near,
Their balmy foliage already show.