"O glory of the Heaven!
O sole delight of Earth!
To Thee all power be given,
God's uncreated birth;
Of mankind lover true,
Endurer of his wrong,
Who dost the world renew,
Still be thou our salvation, and our song.'
From top of Olivet such notes did rise,
When man's Redeemer did transcend the skies.
Translated "Du Bartas his Divine Weekes and Workes ;" and wrote sundry small poems, of little value. An entertaining Essay has been published by Mr. Dunster, to show Milton's early obligations to Sylvester's Du Bartas. It is difficult from this heavy, yet richly-freighted volume, to make any extracts of moderate length, without including, with the precious ore, much of the inseparable dross attaching to it. The following is an average specimen of the style of the whole.
The peopling of Europe after the Flood.
SOM word's allusion is no certain ground
Whereon a lasting monument to found:
Sith fairest rivers, mountains strangely steep,
And largest seas, never so vast and deep
(Though self-eternall, resting still the same)
'Through sundry chances often change their name:
Sith it befalls not alwayes, that his seed
Who builds a town, doth in the same succeed:
And (to conclude) sith under heaven, no race
Perpetually possesseth any place:
But, as all tenants at the High Lord's will,
We hold a field, a forrest, or a hill :
And (as when winde the angry ocean moves)
Wave hunteth wave, and billow billow shoves;
So do all nations iustle each the other,
And so one people doth pursue another;
And scarce the second hath a first un-housed,
Before a third him thence again have rowsed.
The sacrilegious greedy appetite
Of gold and scepters glistering glorious bright,
The thirst of vengeance, and that puffing breath
Of elvish honour, built on blood and death,
On desolation, rapes, and robberies,
Flames, ruins, wracks, and brutish butcheries,
Un-bound all countries, making war-like nations
Through every clymat seek new habitations.
speak not heer of those Arabian rovers,
Numidian shepheards, or Tartarian drovers,
Who, shifting pastures for their store of cattle,
Do here and there their hayrie tents imbattle:
Like the black swarms of swallows swiftly-light,
Which twice a-yeer cross with their nimble flight
The pine-plough'd sea, and (pleased with purest ayr)
Seek every season for a fresh repair:
But other Nations fierce, who far and nigh
With their own bloods-price purchast victory;
Who, better knowing how to win then wield;
Conquer, then keep; to batter, then to build;
And bravely choosing rather war then peace,
Have over-spread the world by land and seas.
For, as Hymettus and Mount Hybla were
Not over-spread and covered in one year
With busie bees; but yearly twice or thrice
Each hyve supplying new-com colonies
(Heaven's tender nurcelings) to those fragrant mountains,
At length their rocks dissolved in hony fountains:
Or rather, as two fruitfull elms that spred
Amidst a cloase with brooks environed,
Ingender other elms about their roots;
Those, other still; and still, new-springing shoots
So over-growe the ground, that in fewe yeers
The sometimes-mead a great thick grove appears:
Even so the' ambitious Babel-building rout,
Disperst, at first go seat themselves about
Mesopotamia: after (by degrees)
Their happy spawn, in sundry colonies
Crossing from sea to sea, from land to land,
All the green-mantled nether globe hath mann'd:
So that, except the' Almighty (glorious Iudge
Of quick and dead) this world's ill dayes abbridge,
Ther shall no soyl so wilde and savage be,
But shall be shadowed by great Adam's Tree.
Therefore, those countries neerest Tigris' spring,
In those first ages were most flourishing,
Most spoken-of, first warriours, first that guide,
And give the law to all the earth beside.
Babylon (living under the' awfull grace
Of Royall Greatnes) swayed the' imperiall mace,
Before the Greeks had any town at all,
Or warbling lute had built the Dircean wall:
Yer Gauls had houses, Latins burgages,
Our Britains tents, or Germans cottages.
The Hebrews had with angels' conversation,
Held the' idol-altars in abhomination,
Knew the Unknowen, with eyes of faith they saw
The' invisible Messias, in the law:
The Chaldees, audit of the stars had made,
Had measured Heaven, conceived how the' Earth's thick shade
Eclipst the silver brows of Cynthia bright,
And her brown shadow quencht her brother's light.
The Memphian priests were deep philosophers,
And curious gazers on the sacred stars,
Searchers of Nature, and great mathematicks;
Yer any letter, knew the ancient'st Attiks.
Proud Ægypt glistered all with golden plate,
Yer the lame Lemnian (under Ætna grate)
Had hammer'd yron; or the Vultur-rented
Prometheus, 'mong the Greeks, had fire invented.
Gauls were not yet; or, were they (at the least)
They were but wilde; their habit, plumes; their feast,
But mast and acorns, for the which they gap't
Under the trees when any winde had hapt:
When the bold Tyrians (greedy after gain)
Durst rowe about the salt-blew Africk main;
Traffikt abroad, in scarlet robes were drest,
And pomp and pleasure Euphrates possest.
For, as a stone, that midst a pond ye fling,
About his fall first forms a little ring,
Wherein, new circles one in other growing
(Through the smooth waters gentle-gentle flowing)
Still one the other more and more compell
From the pond's centre, where the stone first fell;
Till at the last the largest of the rounds
From side to side 'gainst every bank rebounds:
So, from the' earth's centre (which I heer suppose
About the place where God did tongues trauspɔse).
Man (day by day his wit repolishing)
Makes all the arts through all the earth to spring,
As he doth spread, and shed in divers shoals
His fruitfull offspring under both the poles.
Principal Works:-Translation of Homer, Tragedies, &c. the following extracts from the later, there is a stern but noble strength of sentiment, with diction corresponding. Had Chapman translated Homer into nervous blank verse like this, he would have left little for either Pope or Cowper to do after him.
Virtue the only safe Pilot.
MAN is a torch borne in the wind; a dream
But of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance;
And as great seamen, using all their wealth
And skills in Neptune's deep invisible paths,
In tall ships richly built and ribb'd with brass,
To put a girdle round about the world,
When they have done it (coming near their haven)
Are fain to give a warning-piece, and call
A poor stayed fisherman, that never pass'd
His country's sight, to waft and guide them in:
So, when we wander farthest through the waves
Of glassy glory, and the gulphs of state,
Topt with all titles, spreading all our reaches,
As if each private arm would sphere the earth,
We must to VIRTUE for her guide resort,
Or we shall shipwreck in our safest port.
SIN is a coward, and insults
But on our weakness, in his truest valour;
And so our ignorance tames us, that we let
His shadows frighten us;-like empty clouds,
In which our faulty apprehensions forge
The forms of dragons, lions, elephants,
When they hold no proportion.-
Before I was secure 'gainst death and hell;
But now am subject to the heartless fear
Of every shadow and of every breath,
And would change firmness with an aspen-leaf;
So confident a spotless conscience is;
So weak a guilty: oh! the dangerous siege
Sin lays about us! and the tyranny
He exercises, when he hath expugn'd!
Like to the horror of a winter's thunder,
Mix'd with a gushing storm, that suffer nothing
To stir abroad on earth, but their own rages,
Is sin; when it hath gather'd head above us,
No roof, no shelter can secure us so,
But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe.
The dangerous Prosperity of the Wicked.
As you may see a mighty promontory,
More digg'd and under-eaten than can warrant
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