MELIBUS

But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Africs,

Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes,

And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered.

Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of my country

And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward

Seeing, with wonder behold? my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ears! Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured,

And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither discord

Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields we have planted!

Graft, Melibæus, thy pear-trees now; put in order thy vineyards.
Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime.

Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous cavern

Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging.

Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd, Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.

TITYRUS

Nevertheless this night together with me canst thou rest thee
Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples,
Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance;
And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance,
And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.
Translation of H. W. Longfellow.

(

MY HEART'S DESIRE

From the Georgics. Copyright 1881, by James R. Osgood & Co.

Y HEART'S desire, all other desires above,

MY

Is aye the minister and priest to be

Of the sweet Muses, whom I utterly love.

So might they graciously open unto me

The heavens, and the courses that the stars do run

Therein, and all the labors of moon and sun,

And the source of the earthquake, and the terrible swell

Of mounting tides, all barriers that break

And on themselves recoil. Me might they tell

Wherefore the suns of the wintry season make
Such haste to their bath in the ocean bed, and why
The reluctant nights do wear so slowly by.

Yet if it be not given me to fulfill

This my so great desire to manifest

Some part of Nature's marvel, or ere the chill

Of age my abounding pulses do arrest,

Yet will I joy the fresh wild vales among,

And the streams and the forest love, myself unsung!
Oh, would that I might along thy meadows roam,
Spercheus, or the inspirèd course behold
Of Spartan maids on Taygetus! Who will come
And lead me into the Hæmian valleys cold,
Where, in the deep shade, I may sit me down?
For he is verily happy who hath known
The wonderful wherefore of the things of sense,
And hath trodden under foot implacable Fate,
And the manifold shapes of Fear, and the violence
Of roaring Acheron, the insatiate;

Yet blessed is he as well, that homely man,
Who knoweth the gods of the country-side and Pan,
Silvanus old, and the Nymphs their sisterhood!

Him not the purple of kings, the fagots of power,
Lure ever aside from his meek rectitude,

Nor the brethren false whom their own strifes devour, Nor the Dacian hordes that down the Ister come,

Nor the throes of dying States, nor the things of Rome. Not his the misery of another's need,

Nor envy of his abundance; but the trees
Glad unto his gathering their fruits concede,

And the willing fields their corn. He never sees
What madness is in the forum, nor hath awe
Of written codes, or the rigor of iron law.
There be who vex incessantly with their oars

The pathless billows of ocean; who make haste
Unto the fray, or hover about the doors

Of palace chambers, or carry ruthless waste To the homes of men, and to their firesides woe. One heapeth his wealth and hideth his gold, that so He may drink from jeweled cups and take his rest Upon purple of Tyre. One standeth in mute amaze Before the Rostra, - vehemently possest

With greed of the echoing plaudits they upraise, The plebs and the fathers in their places set.

These joy in hands with the blood of their brothers wet: And forth of their own dear thresholds, many a time, Driven into exile, they are fain to seek

The alien citizenship of some far clime.

But the tillers of earth have only need to break,

Year after year, the clods with the rounded share,

And life is the fruit their diligent labors bear

For the land at large, and the babes at home, and the

beeves

In the stall, and the generous bullocks.

Evermore

The seasons are prodigal of wheaten sheaves

And fruits and younglings, till, for the coming store Of the laden lands, the barns too strait are grown:

For winter is near, when olives of Sicyon

Are bruised in press, and all the lusty swine

Come gorged from thickets of arbutus and oak;
Or the autumn is dropping increase, and the vine
Mellowing its fruit on sunny steeps, while the folk
Indoors hold fast by the old-time purity,

And the little ones sweetly cling unto neck and knee.
Plump kids go butting amid the grasses deep,

And the udders of kine their milky streams give down;
Then the hind doth gather his fellows, and they keep
The merry old feast-days, and with garlands crown,
Lenæan sire, the vessels of thy libation,

By turf-built altar-fires with invocation!

And games are set for the herdsmen, and they fling
At the bole of the elm the rapid javelin,

Or bare their sturdy limbs for the rustic ring;

Oh, such, methinks, was the life the old Sabine Led in the land, and the illustrious two,

Romulus and Remus! Thus Etruria grew

To greatness, and thus did Rome, beyond a doubt,
Become the crown of the cities of earth, and fling
A girdle of walls her seven hills round about,

Before the empire of the Dictæan king

Began, or the impious children of men were fain
To feast on the flesh of kindly oxen slain.

Ay, such the life that in the cycle of gold
Saturn lived upon earth, or ever yet

Men's ears had hearkened the blare of trumpets bold,
Or the sparkle of blades on cruel anvils beat.

But the hour is late, and the spaces vast appear.
We have rounded in our race, and the time is here
To ease our weary steeds of their steaming gear.

Translation of Harriet Waters Preston.

[Priam's palace is sacked, and the old king himself is slain, with his son, by Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, Achilles's youthful heir. The episode is part of the long story related by Æneas in Carthage to Dido the queen.]

F

ORWARD we fare,

Called to the palace of Priam by war-shouts rending the air.

Here of a truth raged battle, as though no combats beside
Reigned elsewhere, no thousands about all Ilion died.
Here we beheld in his fury the war-god; foemen the roof
Scaling, the threshold blocked with a penthouse, javelin-proof.
Ladders rest on the walls, armed warriors climb by the door
Stair upon stair, left hands, to the arrows round them that pour,
Holding a buckler, the battlement ridge in the right held fast.
Trojans in turn wrench loose from the palace turret and tower;
Ready with these, when the end seems visible,- death's dark hour
Closing around them now,- to defend their lives to the last.
Gilded rafters, the glory of Trojan kings of the past,
Roll on the enemy. Others, with javelins flashing fire,

Form at the inner doors, and around them close in a ring.
Hearts grow bolder within us to succor the palace, to bring
Aid to the soldier, and valor in vanquished hearts to inspire.
There was a gate with a secret door, that a passage adjoined
Thridding the inner palace-a postern planted behind.
Here Andromache, ill-starred queen, oft entered alone,
Visiting Hector's parents, when yet they sate on the throne;
Oft to his grandsire with her the boy Astyanax led.
Passing the covered way to the roof I mount overhead,
Where Troy's children were hurling an idle javelin shower.

From it a turret rose, on the topmost battlement height

Raised to the stars, whence Troy and the Danaan ships and the
white

Dorian tents were wont to be seen in a happier hour.
With bright steel we assailed it, and where high flooring of tower
Offered a joint that yielded, we wrenched it loose, and below
Sent it a-drifting. It fell with a thunderous crash on the foe,
Carrying ruin afar. But the ranks close round us again,
Stones and the myriad weapons of war unceasingly rain.

Facing the porch, on the threshold itself, stands Pyrrhus in bright
Triumph, with glittering weapons, a flashing mirror of light.

As to the light some viper, on grasses poisonous fed,
Swollen and buried long by the winter's frost in his bed,
Shedding his weeds, uprises in shining beauty and strength,
Lifts, new-born, his bosom, and wreathes his slippery length,
High to the sunlight darting a three-forked flickering tongue,-
Periphas huge strides near, and the brave Automedon, long

Charioteer to Achilles, an armor-bearer to-day.

All of the flower of Scyros beside him, warriors young,

Crowd to the palace too, while flames on the battlement play. Pyrrhus in front of the host, with a two-edged axe in his hand, Breaches the stubborn doors, from the hinges rends with his brand Brass-clamped timbers, a panel cleaves, to the heart of the oak Strikes, and a yawning chasm for the sunlight gapes at his stroke. Bare to the eye is the palace within: long vistas of hall Open; the inmost dwelling of Priam is seen of them all: Bare the inviolate chambers of kings of an earlier day,

And they descry on the threshold the armed men standing at bay.

Groaning and wild uproar through the inner palace begin;
Women's wailings are heard from the vaulted cloisters within.
Shrieks to the golden stars are rolled. Scared mothers in fear
Over the vast courts wander, embracing the thresholds dear,
Clasping and kissing the doors. On strides, as his father in might,
Pyrrhus: no gate can stay him, nor guard withstand him to-night;
Portals yield at the thunder of strokes plied ever and aye;
Down from the hinges the gates are flung on their faces to lie.
Entry is broken; the enemy's hosts stream inwards and kill
All in the van, each space with a countless soldiery fill.
Not so rages the river, that o'er its barriers flows

White with foam, overturning the earth-built mounds that oppose,
When on the fields as a mountain it rolls, by meadow and wold,
Sweeping to ruin the herd and the stall. These eyes did behold
Pyrrhus maddened with slaughter; and marked on the sill of the gat
Both the Atridæ brethren. I saw where Hecuba sate,
Round her a hundred brides of her sons,- -saw Priam with blood
Staining the altar-fires he had hallowed himself to his god.
Fifty his bridal chambers within,- each seeming a sweet
Promise of children's children,—in dust all lie at his feet!
Doors emblazoned with spoils, and with proud barbarian gold,
Lie in the dust! Where flames yield passage, Danaans hold!

"What was the fate," thou askest, "befell King Priam withal ?»
When he beholds Troy taken, his gates in confusion fall,
Foes in the heart of his palace, the old man feebly essays
Round his trembling shoulders the armor of bygone days;