Short Poems

Unhappy Italy, how internal strife has lost you that ancient courage and your fathers' rule of the world! Have you a nook which cannot tell of foreign servitude, of spoils, of miserable ruin? Speak, you vine-bearing, unshakeable hills, where Erethenus flows in pleasant streams and with full horns slips into the sea to join the waters of the Euganeans!

Great Ceres, now that the seed is sown, we, the rustic band, dance in unskilled chorus in your honour. Grant that no soaking rain rot the seed, no heavy frost crumble the furrows. Let no sterile crop of useless oats arise, no weed that harms the fair harvest. May the gusts of Eurus not crush the thick standing corn to the earth; may no hail break it; may no greedy birds and beasts of the earth steal the grain.
May the fields return plentifully and with large increase the seeds we have trusted to the well-tilled soil.

Hear the roar of the water,
Of the great and raging sea,
Raging ever on,
Because it can get no further,
And roaring all alone!

You, sprucely clothed, laugh at my threadbare gown;
'T is threadbare truly, Zoilus, but my own!

Damis, the vine-grower, consecrates to you, Bacchus, this flowering vine, whose heavy grape-clusters have never disappointed his prayer.
Do not make vain his hope, O lord. Let the whole vineyard glow with fruit.

They are one in love — Thyrsis the tiller of yonder little field, and Napaea.
We give undying amaranth to you, Cyprian, and lily-coronals woven for your sacred hair. Surely, Goddess, you will keep this love unharmed by age, and foster its eternal blossoming. Let it be fresh and white as her breast.
As these two flowers are twined in one wreath may one affection entwine us.

He must come to, and he shall come to
and he must come whether he will or no.

Live Princely Charles! for the World's Empire born!
With numerous Triumphs thy Great Age adorn.

White Niconoi, the only child of Terilla, slew the mountain-roaming beasts with her arrows; and now dedicates this bow to you, Latonian, goddess of groves. Her shafts are laid away in her quiver.
Her mother has wedded her to Icastus and bids her submit to the mastery of an unknown couch. Goddess, if she departs sadly from the deep woods, and with tears no longer frequents your band, be blithe and kindly towards her. By your divine right hand, best of goddesses, make her house gay with children.

Bills, bows, and Axes, quoth Robin Hood
But I have no time to tell
Yonders the Sheriff and his Company.
But I hope all will be well.
Hei, down, derry, derry, down.

Teleson gives to Ceres these spikes of wheat, to Lyaeus these coronals, and to Pales these two bowls of white milk.
May Ceres foster his land and Lyaeus his vines; may Pales grant abundant sweet pasture to his cattle.