O Grave, where is thy
victory?
Oxford Book of Latin Verse
BYRON.
Byron's version is a weak piece of youthful work. I add here Pope's
_Dying Christian to his Soul_, a noble poem suggested by that of
Hadrian, and emphasizing powerfully the contrast between pagan and
Christian sentiment:--
VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!
Hark, they whisper; angels say,
'Sister spirit, come away! '
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave, where is thy victory?
O Death, where is thy sting?
POPE.
_368_
HAPPY the man who his whole time doth bound
Within the enclosure of his little ground.
Happy the man whom the same humble place,
The hereditary cottage of his race,
From his first rising infancy has known,
And by degrees sees gently bending down
With natural propension to that earth
Which both preserved his life and gave him birth.
Him no false distant lights by Fortune set
Could ever into foolish wanderings get.
He never dangers either saw or feared;
The dreadful storms at sea he never heard,
He never heard the shrill allarms of war,
Or the worse noises of the lawyers' Bar.
No change of consuls marks to him the year;
The change of seasons is his calender.
The cold and heat Winter and Summer shows,
Autumn by fruits, and Spring by flowers he knows.
He measures time by landmarks, and has found
For the whole day the Dial of his ground.
A neighbouring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees.
He's only heard of near Verona's name,
And knows it, like the Indies, but by fame:
Does with a like concernment notice take
Of the Red Sea and of Benacus Lake.
Thus health and strength he to a third age enjoys,
And sees a long posterity of boys.
About the spacious world let others roam,
The Voyage Life is longest made at home.
COWLEY.
I append the version of a poet who was accounted in his time 'the best
translator since Pope'.
