Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian

violators!

See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in
ignominy!

Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to
be satiated.

Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Cámu-
lodúne !

There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the
flourishing territory,

Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted
Britoness-

Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted,
inexorable.

Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian,
Trinobant,

Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry pre-
cipitously

Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke
in a hurricane whirl'd.

Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cú-
nobelíne !

There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables
of ebony lay,

Rolling on their purple couches in their tender
effeminacy.

There they dwelt and there they rioted; there -
there they dwell no more.

Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the
works of the statuary,

Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold
it abominable,

Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and volup-

tuousness,

Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and
humiliated,

Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the
brains of the little one out,

Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.'

So the Queen Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,

Yell'd and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubility.

Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated, Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineäments,

Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,

Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,

Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.

So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adver

saries

Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,

Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,

Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter

tremulously,

Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.

Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.

Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.

Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.

Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Cámulodúne.

IN QUANTITY.

MILTON.

Alcaics.

O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan

Rings to the roar of an angel onset Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even.

Hendecasyllabics.

O YOU chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
All composed in a metre of Catullus,
All in quantity, careful of my motion,
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,
Lest I fall unawares before the people,

Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble
Thro' this metrification of Catullus,

They should speak to me not without a welcome,
All that chorus of indolent reviewers.

Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble,
So fantastical is the dainty metre.

-

Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers.
O blatant Magazines, regard me rather
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost
Horticultural art, or half coquette-like
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.

SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE
ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE.

So Hector said, and sea-like roar'd his host;
Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke,
And each beside his chariot bound his own;
And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep
In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine
And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd
Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain
Roll'd the rich vapor far into the heaven.
And these all night upon the bridge of war
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed:
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the measurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars

* Or, ridge.

Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart:
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain; and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
And champing golden grain, the horses stood
Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.*
Iliad VIII. 542-561.

* Or, more literally —

And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds
Stood by their cars, waiting the throned morn.