PASSAGES FOR TRANSLATION

INTO LATIN ELEGIAC VERSE

HAPPY INSENSIBILITY

HE lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

THE

had he thy reason, would he skip and play? pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food and licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

A. POPE

2

CHARMS AND KNOTS

I

WHO
HO read a chapter when they rise

shall ne'er be troubled with ill eyes.

II

A poor man's rod, when thou dost ride,
is both a weapon and a guide.

III

Who shuts his hand hath lost his gold,
who opens it hath it twice told.

IV

Who goes to bed and does not pray
maketh two nights to every day.

V

Who by aspersions throw a stone

at the head of others, hit their own.

VI

Who looks on ground with humble eyes,
finds himself there and seeks to rise.

VII

When the hair is sweet through pride or lust,
the powder doth forget the dust.

VIII

In shallow waters heaven doth show:

but who drinks on to hell may go.

G. HERBERT

4

5

IN the lines you have sent are the Muses and Graces, you've the Nine in your wit and the Three in your faces.

II

FRIEND, your t

RIEND, for your epitaphs I'm grieved,

one half will never be believed,

the other never read.

III

O bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus

along;

but such is thy avarice and such is thy pride,
that the beasts must have starved and the poet died.

TO A FRIEND ON HIS BIRTHDAY

N parent knees a naked newborn child

ON

A. POPE

weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled;

so live, that, sinking to thy life's last sleep,

calm thou may'st smile, whilst all around thee weep. SIR W. JONES

E

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

RE sin could blight or sorrow fade

death came with friendly care,

to heaven the opening bud conveyed
and bade it blossom there.

6

7

S. T. COLERIDGE

THE ENVIOUS SNOWS

HE envious snows came down in haste

THE

to prove her breast less fair

but when they found themselves surpassed
dissolved into a tear.

EPIGRAM

This but a barbarous skill;

HE adorning thee with so much art

'tis like the poisoning of the dart,
too apt before to kill.

A. COWLEY

8

9

10

II

12

13

14

THO

TO SLEEP

HOUGH death's strong image in thy form we trace, come sleep! and fold me in thy soft embrace; come genial sleep! that sweetest blessing give

to die thus living and thus dead to live.

LOVE

SWEET is Love and sweet is the Rose,

each has a flower and each has a thorn; roses die when the cold wind blows,

love, it is killed by lady's scorn!

NA

LORD STRANGFORD

EPITAPH ON SIR ISAAC NEWTON

ATURE and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said 'Let Newton be;' and all was light.

THE VICISSITUDES OF HUMAN LIFE

A. POPE

ΠΑΙΓΝΙΟΝ ἐστι τύχης μερόπων βίος, οἰκτρός, αλήτης,
πλούτου καὶ πενίης μεσσόθι ῥεμβόμενος,
καὶ τοὺς μὲν κατάγουσι πάλιν σφαιρηδὸν ἀείρει,
τοὺς δ ̓ ἀπὸ τῶν νεφελῶν εἰς Αίδην κατάγει.

PALLADAS

THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD
HE tear down childhood's cheek that flows

Tis like the dewdrop on the rose;

when next the summer breeze comes by
and waves the bush, the flower is dry.

ΜΕ

FILIAL PIETY

SIR W. SCOTT

E let the tender office long engage
to rock the cradle of reposing age,

with lenient aft extend a mother's breath,

make languor smile and smoothe the bed of death, explore the thought, explain the asking eye,

and save awhile one parent from the sky.

APOLOGY FOR VAGRANTS

A. POPE

OLD on Canadian hills or Minden's plain perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain; bent o'er her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew, the big drops mingling with the milk he drew gave the sad presage of his future years— the child of misery baptized in tears.

J. LANGHORNE

15

EPITAPH ON JAMES CRAGGS IN

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

TATESMAN, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere;

STA

in action faithful and in honour clear:

who broke no promise, served no private end;
who gained no title and who lost no friend;
ennobled by himself, by all approved;

praised wept and honoured by the Muse he loved.

A. POPE

16

17

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE
SISTER TO SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

U

NDERNEATH this sable herse lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother: Death, ere thou hast slain another learned and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.

B. JONSON

LOVE OUTLIVES TIME

DEVOURING Time with stealing pace

makes lofty oaks and cedars bow;

and marble towers and gates of brass
in his rude march he levels low:
but Time destroying far and wide
Love from the soul can ne'er divide.

B. BOOTH

18

SPIRIT OF PLATO

EAGLE, Why Snarest thoury pure home

AGLE, why soarest thou above that tomb?

floatest thou?

I am the image of swift Plato's spirit
ascending heaven: Athens does inherit
his corpse below.

P. B. SHELLEY