THE RESURRECTION.'

A POEM.

TRANSLATED BY MR. NICHOLAS AMHURST.

[The translator in a short preface says, "These lines (the Latin) are esteemed by the best judges to be the finest sketch of the Resurrection that any age or language has produced. Nor does their only excellence consist in being an accurate poem; but also in being an exact copy of the painter's original upon the altar in Magdalen College; but so much improved with all the strongest figures, and most lively embellishments of a poetical description, that the reader receives a double satisfaction in seeing the two sister arts so useful to each other, in borrowing mutual helps and mutual advantages..

"It is indeed," continues he, "wonderful to find, in the narrow compass of a few pages, all the most dreadful circumstances of that last terrible crisis of time. The poem is a beautiful and succinct epitome of all that has or can ever be said on that important subject; the very text which the ingenious Dr. Young has so largely and elegantly paraphrased in his excellent poem on the Last Day."]

THE pencil's glowing lines and vast command,
And mankind rising from the painter's hand,
The awful Judge arrayed in beamy light,
And spectres trembling at the dreadful sight,
To sing, O muse, the pious bard inspire,
And waken in his breast the sacred fire.

The hallowed field, a bare white wall of late,
Now clothed in gaudy colours, shines in state;
And lest some little interval confess

Its ancient simple form and homely dress,
The skilful artist laid o'er every part
The first foundation of his future art:

O'er the wide frame his ductile colours led,

And with strong primings all the wall o'erspread.
As ere yon spangling orbs were hung on high,
Lest one great blank should yawn through boundless sky,
Through the wide heavenly arch and trackless road
In azure volumes the pure Æther flowed;

The sun at length burns out intensely bright,
And the pale Crescent sheds her borrowed light;
With thick-sown stars the radiant pole is crowned,
Of milky glories a long track is found,
O'erflows and whitens all the heavens around.

So when the ground-work of the piece was laid;
Nor yet the painter had his art displayed,

1 Resurrectio delineata ad altare Coll. Magd. Oxon. Vol. i. p. 243.

With slower hand, and pencil more divine,
He blends each colour, heightens every line;
Till various forms the breathing picture wears,
And a mute group of images appears.

Celestial guards the topmost height attend,
And crowds of angels o'er the wall descend;
With their big cheeks the deafening clarions wind,
Whose dreadful clangours startle all mankind:
E'en the dead hear; the labouring graves conceive,
And the swoln clod in picture seems to heave.
Ten thousand worlds revive to better skies,
And from their tombs the thronging corses rise.

So when famed Cadmus sowed the fruitful field,
With pregnant throes the quickened furrow swelled;
From the warm soil sprung up a warlike train,
And human harvests covered all the plain.

And now from every corner of the earth
The scattered dust is called to second birth;
Whether in mines it formed the ripening mass,
Or humbly mixed, and flourished in the grass.
The severed body now unites again,

And kindred atoms rally into men.

The various joints resume their ancient seats,
And every limb its former task repeats.
Here, an imperfect form returns to light,
Not half renewed, dishonest to the sight;
Maimed of his nose appears his blotted face,
And scarce the image of a man we trace:
Here, by degrees infused, the vital ray
Gives the first motion to the panting clay :
Slow to new life, the thawing fluids creep,
And the stiff joints wake heavily from sleep.
Here, on the guilty brow pale horrors glare,
And all the figure labours with despair.

From scenes like these now turn thy wondering sight,
And if thou canst withstand such floods of light,
Look! where thy Saviour fills the middle space,
The Son of God, true image of his face,
Himself eternal God, ere time began her race.

See! what mild beams their gracious influence shed,
And how the pointed radiance crowns his head!
Around his temples lambent glories shine,
And on his brow sits majesty divine;

His eye-balls lighten with celestial fires,
And every grace to speak the God conspires!

But, ah! how changed! ah! how unlike the same
From him who patient wore the mortal frame!

?

Who through a scene of woes drew painful breath, And struggled with a sad, slow, long-drawn death; Who gave on Golgotha the dreadful

groan, Bearer of others' sins and sufferings not his own. But death and hell subdued, the Deity Ascends triumphant to his native sky; And rising far above th' æthereal height, The sun and moon diminish to his sight.

And now to view he bared his bleeding side, And his pierced hands and feet in crimson dyed; Still did the nails the recent scars reveal, And bloody tracks of the transfixing steel. Hither in crowds the blessed shape their flight, And throng the mansions of immortal light. They mark each fatal word, each dreadful nod And bless the righteous sentence of their God. The fruitful matron, and the spotless maid, And infants with a longer life repaid, Stand round, and, drinking in celestial rays, On their Redeemer fix with ardent gaze, And all the heavens resound with hymns of praise. Each bosom kindles with seraphic joy, And conscious ecstasies the soul employ. Not equal raptures swell the sibyl's breast When by the inmate deity possessed; When Phoebus the prophetic maid inspires, And her limbs tremble with convulsive fires. So strong, so fierce, the painted flames arise, The pale spectator views them with surprise; Believes the blazing wall indeed to burn, And fears the frame should into ashes turn. Hither in ghastly crowds the guilty haste, Obscene with horror, and with shame defaced : With haggard looks the gloomy fiends appear; They gnash their foamy teeth and frown severe : A stern avenger with relentless mind, Waving a flamy falchion, stalks behind; With which, as once from Paradise he drove, He drives the sinner from the joys above. What shall he do forlorn? or whither fly, To shun the ken of an all-seeing eye? What would he give among the just to shine, And fall before Omnipotence divine! But, oh! too late in sighs he vents his woe, Too late his eyes with gushing tears o'erflow! Vain are his sighs, and fruitless are his tears, Vengeance and justice stop th' Almighty's ears.

See! with what various charms the piece is fraught, And with what pregnant marks of judgment wrought; With how much grace the living colours glow, Not brighter colours paint the watery bow, When the fresh showers her various lustre share, And every drop with spangles decks the air. Oh may the painter's labours never fade, Nor wasteful time their shining charms invade : No envious darkness shade the beauteous tints, Till the piece sees the last great day it paints.

THE BOWLING GREEN.1

TRANSLATED BY MR. NICHOLAS AMHURST.

WHERE, smooth and level as the summer-main,
A spacious area opens on the plain;

While with descending dews the herbage sweats,
Nor feels the rising sun's intenser heats,

The sharpened scythe prevents the grassy height,
And reaps the scanty harvest of the night:
The rolling stone renews its morning round,

To crush the springing turf, and sink the knotty ground.
And now the polished globes, a numerous band,
Prepared for motion by the artist's hand;
Glittering with oil, and splendid to the sight,
O'er the soft verdant surface speed their flight.
But lest some bowler should his cast disown,
By different marks the different orbs are known.
For gamesters vary; some prefer the bowl
That, biassed, wheels obliquely to the goal,
While others will a different choice approve
Of those which in a line directly move.

The chosen numbers part on either side,
As or consent or doubtful lots divide:
Each chief assumes his arms; when now behold
The jack exulting o'er the surface rolled;
At which their missive orbs the bowlers aim,
And who arrives the nearest, wins the game.
The leader poises in his hand the bowl,
And gently launches to the distant goal:
The current orb prolongs its circling course,
Till by degrees it loses all its force.
When now another o'er the level bounds,
And orb succeeding orb the block surrounds:
1 Sphæristerium. Vol. i. p. 246.

Scattered they lie, and barricade the green,
That scarce a single bowl can pass between.
When now with better skill, and nicer care,
The dexterous youth renews the wooden war,
Beyond the rest his winding timber flies,
And works insinuating, and wins the prize.
But if perchance he sees, with madness stung,
The lagging wood move impotent along;
If its faint motion languish on the way,
And, short of length, it press the verdant lay;
Nimbly he strides behind across the grass,
And bending, hovers o'er the rolling mass;
Lest foul disgrace should on his arm redound,
He blames the rising-rub, and guilty ground.
What sudden laughter echoes o'er the green,
When some unlucky, artless cast is seen!
When the too ponderous lead with stubborn force
Allures the globe from its appointed course!
The bowler chafes, and fruitless rage ensues,
His body to a thousand postures screws:
He blames he knows not what, with angry blood,
He frets, he stamps, and damns the erroneous wood:
The erroneous wood his fruitless rage disdains,
And still its former wayward course maintains.
But if a bowl, dismissed with equal strength,
Obtains exactly the intended length,

And, nicely passing through the crowding balls,
Prone on the passive jack incumbent falls;
With loud applause the splitting heavens they rend,
And all the caster and the cast commend.
When now the adverse foe projects around
His careful eyes, and marks the ambient ground;
And, studious the contiguous globes to part,
He summons all his strength and all his art;
The exerted vigour of his nerves applies,
And rapid from his arm the brandished engine flies.
Scarce half so swiftly to the Eleian goal,
With rival speed the whirling chariots roll;
While the fleet axle mocks the lagging wind,
And leaves the flying village far behind.

When, if the wooden guards immure the foe,
And break the vengeance of the whirling blow;
If the conflicting orbs are driven around,
And, loosely scattered, strew the Olympic ground:
He chides his fate, his fervid spleen boils high,
Calls the gods false, and damns the guilty sky.
But if his bowl with easy passage slide,
And with a clash the wedded orbs divide;