When the mind drops her burden: when-the pain Of travel past-our own cot we regain,
And nestle on the pillow of our dreams!
'Tis this one thought that cheers us as we roam. Hail, O fair Sirmio! Joy, thy lord is here!
Joy too, ye waters of the Garda Mere!
And ring out, all ye laughter-peals of home.
(Charles Stuart Calverley)
LOVE AND DEATH
FRIEND, if the mute and shrouded dead
Are touched at all by tears,
By love long fled and friendship sped
And the unreturning years,
O then, to her that early died,
O doubt not, bridegroom, to thy bride
Thy love is sweet and sweeteneth
The very bitterness of death.
SUFFENUS, whom so well you know,
My Varus, as a wit and beau,
Of smart address and smirking smile,
Will write you verses by the mile.
You cannot meet with daintier fare
Than title-page and binding are;
But when you once begin to read
You find it sorry stuff indeed,
And you are ready to cry out
Upon this beau-"O what a lout!"
No man on earth so proud as he
Of his own precious poetry,
Or knows such perfect bliss as when
He takes in hand that nibbled pen.
Have we not all some faults like these?
Are we not all Suffenuses?
In others the defect we find,
But cannot see our sack behind.
VARUS, whom I chanced to meet
The other evening in the Street,
Engaged me there, upon the spot,
To see a mistress he had got.
She seemed, as far as I can gather,
Lively and smart and handsome rather.
There, as we rested from our walk,
We entered into various talk—
As, how much might Bithynia bring?
And had I found it a good thing?
I answered, as it was the fact,
The province had been stript and sackt;
That there was nothing for the prætors,
And still less for us wretched creatures,
His poor companions and toad-eaters.
"At least," says she, "you bought some fellows
To bear your litter; for they tell us,
Our only good ones come from there."
I chose to give myself an air;
"Why, truly, with my poor estate,
The difference wasn't quite so great
Betwixt a province, good or bad,
That where a purchase could be had,
Eight lusty fellows, straight and tall,
I shouldn't find the wherewithal
To buy them." But it was a lie;
For not a single wretch had I-
No single cripple fit to bear
A broken bedstead or a chair.
She, like a strumpet, pert and knowing,
Said "Dear Catullus, I am going
To worship at Serapis' shrine-
Do lend me, pray, those slaves of thine.”
I answered—“It was idly said,—
They were a purchase Cinna made
(Caius Cinna, my good friend)—
It was the same thing in the end,
Whether a purchase or a loan—
I always used them as my own;
Only the phrase was inexact-
He bought them for himself in fact.
But you have caught the general vice
Of being too correct and nice,
Overcurious and precise;
And seizing with precipitation
The slight neglects of conversation.”
STRANGER, the bark you see before you says
That in old times and in her early days
She was a lively vessel that could make
The quickest voyages, and overtake
All her competitors with sail or oar;
And she defies the rude Illyrian shore,
And Rhodes with her proud harbor, and the seas
That intersect the scattered Cyclades,
And the Propontic and the Thracian coast,
(Bold as it is) to contradict her boast.
She calls to witness the dark Euxine sea
And mountains that had known her as a tree,
Before her transformation, when she stood
A native of the deep Cytorian wood,
Where all her ancestors had flourished long,
And, with their old traditionary song,
Had whispered her responses to the breeze.
And waked the chorus of her sister trees.
You witnessed her first outset and descent,
Adventuring on an unknown element.
From thence she bore her master safe and free
From danger and alarm through many a sea;
Nor ever once was known to lag behind,
Foremost on every tack, with wind.
every
At last, to this fair inland lake, she says
She came to pass the remnant of her days,
Leaving no debt due to the Deities
For vows preferred in danger on the seas:
Clear of incumbrance, therefore, and all other
Contentious claims, to Castor or his brother
As a free gift and offering she devotes
Herself, as long as she survives and floats.
ACME AND SEPTIMIUS
WHILST on Septimius' panting Breast
(Meaning nothing less than Rest)
Acme lean'd her loving head,
Thus the pleas'd Septimius said.
My dearest Acme, if I be
Once alive, and love not thee
With a Passion far above
All that e'er was called Love,
In a Lybian desert may
I become some Lion's prey,
Let him, Acme, let him tear
My Breast, when Acme is not there.
The God of Love who stood to hear him,
(The God of Love was always near him)
Pleas'd and tickl'd with the sound,
Sneez'd aloud, and all around
The little Loves that waited by,
Bow'd and blest the Augurie.
Acme enflam'd with what he said,
Rear'd her gently-bending head,
And her purple mouth with joy
Stretching to the delicious Boy.
Twice (twice could scarce suffice)
She kissed his drunken, rolling eyes.
My little Life, my All (said she)
So may we ever servants be
To this best God, and ne'er retain
Our hated Liberty again,
So may thy passion last for me,
As I a passion have for thee,
Greater and fiercer much than can
Be conceiv'd by Thee a Man.
Into my Marrow is it gone,
Fixed and settled in the Bone,
It reigns not only in my heart,
But runs, like life, through ev'ry part.
She spoke; the God of Love aloud
Sneez'd again, and all the crowd
Of little loves that waited by,
Bow'd and blessed the Augurie.
This good omen thus from heaven
Like a happy signal given,
Their loves and lives (all four) embrace,
And hand in hand run all the race.
To poor Septimius (who did now
Nothing else but Acme grow)
Acme's bosom was alone,
The whole world's Imperial Throne,
And to faithful Acme's mind
Septimius was all human kind.
If the Gods would please to be
But advis'd for once by me,
I'd advise 'em when they spy
Any illustrious piety,
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