Virgil To Horace.

1.

Sweet is soft slumber, Horace, after toil,
To him who holds the glebe and ploughs the fruitful soil,
Sweet to salt-blooded mariners, on decks washed red with storm,
Deep sleep wherein past tempest and green waves
Make shadows multiform;

2

Sweet 'tis to Caesar, when the red star, grown
Swart with war's dust, doth fade, to loll upon a throne
Dispensing gifts, while on his lips a crafty half-smile dies,
And the soft whispers of approving Rome
Fan his half-closid eyes!

3.

It solved the long verhaltne God showers
The currents around and our is the Rhine!
In free mountains of German may live
And its forests he calls again.
So broke huge and with bold horror
A Mächt'ger Spring in the world
And all you saw wrestling, fencing, seek-
O heroes want to live in such Lenz!

Now peace has come good again,
Atoned for sin is some vor'ger time. -
But the fight is not taken from the world,
As long as the human being ernst'rem pursuit inaugurates.
It has the war entglommen the spark bold,

1. SHADOW .

Upon the very morn I should have wed
Death put his silence in a mourning house;
And, coming fresh from feast, I saw her lie
In stainless marriage samite, white and cold,
With orange blossoms in her hair, and gleams
Of the ungiven kisses of the bride
Playing about the edges of her lips.

Then I, Pygmalion, kiss'd her as she slept,
And drew my robe across my face whereon
The midnight revel linger'd dark, and pray'd;
And the sore trouble hollow'd out my heart
To hatred of a harsh unhallow'd youth

ON THE L EUCADIAN Rock


1.

O sweet, sweet, sweet!
While the Moon, with her dove's eyes fair,
And her beautiful yellow hair,
And the Sea-Snake coiling round her silvern feet,
Walk'd dumbly up above in the jewell'd air
Waving her luminous wings,
To sit upon this crag above the sea
Clasp'd close, so close, to thee,
Pale with much yearning, while the murmurings
Of the great waters seem'd to waft to me
The name of Phaon,
To whisper Phaon, Phaon,
Phaon, Phaon, Phaon, with deep intonm,
Hushfully, hushfully moaning!

2.

I am Brian Boy Magee —
My father was Eoghain Ban —
I was wakened from happy dreams
By the shouts of my startled clan;
And I saw through the leaping glare
That marked where our homestead stood,
My mother swing by her hair —
And my brothers lie in their blood.

In the creepy cold of the night
The pitiless wolves came down —
Scotch troops from that Castle grim
Guarding Knockfergus Town;
And they hacked and lashed and hewed
With musket and rope and sword,
Till my murdered kin lay thick
In pools by the Slaughter Ford.

Oh, when my Knight rode forth at morn,
The blue hills shone, sun-kissed, afar;
Oh, when my Knight was homeward borne.
Over him glittered the first pale star.

Raise the dirge for the bravest chief!
Foremost in danger on battle plain:
Deaf, oh deaf, is he to my grief —
Raise the dirge for Nial O'Cahan

Little he dreamt of a death-blow then,
With his hounds high-leaping around his knee:
Bound for the shady green woods of Prehen,

1.

'Mid the cloud enshrouded haze
Of Olumpos I arise,
With the full and rainy gaze
Of Apollo in mine eyes;
But I shade my dazzled glance
With my dripping pinions white
Where the sunlight sparkles dance
In a many-tinctured light:
My foot upon the woof
Of a fleecy cloudlet small,
I glimmer thro' the roof
Of the paven banquet-hall,
And a soft pink radiance dips
Thro' the floating mists divine,
Touching eyes and cheeks and lips
Of the mild-eyed gods supine,
And the growing glory rolls
Round their foreheads, while I stain,

1.

I hide myself in the cloud that flies
From the west and drops on the hill's gray shoulder,
And I gleam through the cloud with my panther-eyes,
While the stars turn paler, the dews grow colder;
I veil my naked glory in mist,
Quivering downward and dewily glistening,
Till his sleep is as pale as my lips unkist,
And I tremble above him, panting and listening.
As white as a star, as cold as a stone,
Dim as my light in a sleeping lake,
With his head on his arm he lieth alone.
And I sigh " Awake!
Wake, Endymion, wake and see!"

So nigh to a hedge-hog as man could be,
Was Jehosaphat Row.
The world couldn't show
Another like he.
Eyes like a haddock, sticking out of his head;
So thin as a hake;
A face like a gurnard, so long and so red;
A mouth like a cod, and teeth like a rake.
If you vexed en so much as the least little bit
He'd ill-wish 'ee with just a cast of his eye,
And your pig, or your cow, or something would die.
A proper old toad for the venom he'd spit.
The children at play
Would all run away
In a terrible fright
If Josh Row came in sight.

I' M sittin' in my li'll boat;
The lines is to the stern;
And all my thoughts are full of 'ee
Whichever way I turn.

If you was this here li'll boat
And I was but the sea,
Aw, my dear life, I tell 'ee, though,
It should be fine for thee.

My curling waves around the keel
Should dance with happy light;
I'd bear 'ee past the sunken rocks
And bring 'ee home all right.

If you was this here li'll boat
And I was but the sky,
Aw, dear, what sunshine you should have—
The day should never die.