XXVIII. Medley.
Reading edition
FRAGMENT FROM THE GREEK OF ARISTOTLE.
If there were beings who lived in the depths of the earth, in dwellings adorned with statues and paintings, and every thing which is possessed in rich abundance by those whom we esteem fortunate; and if these beings could receive tidings of the power and might of the gods, and could then emerge from their hidden dwellings through the open fissures of the earth, to the places which we inhabit; if they could suddenly behold the earth, and the sea, and the vault of heaven; could recognize the expanse of the cloudy firmament, and the might of the winds of heaven, and admire the sun in its majesty, beauty, and radiant effulgence; and, lastly, when night vailed the earth in darkness, they could behold the starry heavens, the changing moon, and the stars rising and setting in the unvarying course ordained from eternity, they would surely exclaim, “There are gods, and such great things must be the work of their hands.”
Translation from Humboldt’s “Cosmos.”
401
THE CREATION OF THE EARTH.
God said,
Be gather’d now, ye waters under heav’n,
Into one place, and let dry land appear.
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad backs upheave
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky.
So high as heav’d the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters: thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uproll’d
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry:
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command imprest
On the swift floods; as armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard, so the wat’ry throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found;
If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill,
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent error wand’ring, found their way,
And on the washy ooze deep channels wore,
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train.
The dry land Earth, and the great receptacle
Of congregated waters he call’d Seas;
And saw that it was good, and said, Let th’ earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind;
Whose seed is in herself upon the earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn’d,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower’d,
Op’ning their various colors, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet; and these scarce blown,
Forth flourish’d thick the clust’ring vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattl’d in her field; and th’ humble shrub,
402And bush with frizzled hair implicit: last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemm’d
Their blossoms: with high wood the hills were crown’d;
With tufts the valleys and each fountain side,
With borders 'long the rivers: that earth now
Seem’d like to heav’n, a seat where Gods might dwell
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades. * * * *
John Milton, 1608–1674.
EARTH.
Harp! lift thy voice on high,
And run in rapid numbers o’er the face
Of Nature’s scenery; and there were day
And night, and rising suns, and setting suns;
And clouds that seemed like chariots of saints,
By fiery coursers drawn—as brightly head
As if the glorious, lusty, golden locks
Of thousand cherubims had been shorn off,
And on the temples hung of morn and even;
And there were moons, and stars, and darkness streaked
With light; and voice of tempest heard secure.
And there were seasons coming evermore,
And going still—all fair and always new,
With bloom, and fruit, and fields of hoary grain.
And there were hills of flocks, and groves of song;
And flowery streams, and garden walks embowered,
Where side by side the rose and lily bloomed.
And sacred founts, wild hills, and moonlight glens;
And forests vast, fair lawns, and lovely oaks,
And little willows sipping at the brook;
Old wizard haunts, and dancing seats of mirth;
Gay, festive bowers, and palaces in dust;
Dark owlet nooks, and caves, and belted rocks;
And winding valleys, roofed with pendent shade;
And tall and perilous cliffs, that overlooked
The breath of Ocean, sleeping on his waves.
Sounds, sights, smells, tastes; the heaven and earth, profuse
In endless sweets, above all praise of song:
For not to use alone did Providence
Abound, but large example gave to man
403Of grace, and ornament, and splendor rich;
Suited abundantly to every taste
In bird, beast, fish, winged and creeping thing;
In herb and flower; and in the restless change
Which on the many-colored seasons made
The annual circuit of the fruitful earth.
Robert Pollock, 1799–1827.
THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES.
FROM THE “ILIAD.”
* * * * *
He also graved on it a fallow field,
Rich, spacious, and well tilled. Plowers not few,
There driving to and fro their sturdy teams,
Labor’d the land; and oft as in their course
They came to the field’s bourn, so oft a man
Met them, who in their hands a goblet placed,
Charged with delicious wine. They, turning, wrought
Each his own furrow, and impatient seem’d
To reach the border of the tilth, which black
Appear’d behind them as a glebe new-turn’d,
Though golden, sight to be admired by all!
There, too, he form’d the likeness of a field,
Crowded with corn, in which the reapers toil’d
Each with a sharp-tooth’d sickle in his hand.
Along the furrow here the harvest fell
In frequent handfuls, there they bound the sheaves.
Three binders of the sheaves their sultry task
All plied industrious, and behind them boys
Attended, filling with the corn their arms,
And offering still their bundles to be bound.
Amid them, staff in hand, the master stood
Silent exulting, while beneath an oak
Apart, his heralds busily prepared
The banquet, dressing a well-thriven ox,
New slain, and the attendant maidens mix’d
Large supper for the hinds of whitest flour.
There, also, laden with its fruit, he form’d
A vineyard all of gold; purple he made
The clusters, and the vines supported, stood
By poles of silver set in even rows.
The trench he color’d sable, and around
Fenced it with tin. One only path it show’d
404By which the gatherers, when they stripp’d the vines,
Pass’d and repass’d. There, youths and maidens blithe,
In pails of wicker bore the luscious fruit,
While in the midst a boy, on his shrill harp,
Harmonious play’d; still as he struck the chord,
Carolling to it with a slender voice,
They smote the ground together, and with song
And sprightly reed came dancing on behind.
There, too, a herd he fashion’d of tall beeves,
Part gold, part tin; they, lowing, from the stalls
Rush’d forth to pasture by a river-side,
Rapid, sonorous, fringed with whispering reeds.
Four golden herdsmen drove the kine a-field,
By nine swift dogs attended. Dreadful sprang
Two lions forth, and of the foremost herd,
Seized fast a bull. Him, bellowing, they dragg’d,
While dogs and peasants all flew to his aid.
The lions tore the hide of the huge prey,
And lapp’d his entrails and his blood. Meantime
The herdsmen, troubling them in vain, their hounds
Encouraged; but no tooth for lion’s flesh
Found they, and therefore stood aside and bark’d.
There, also, the illustrious smith divine
Amidst a pleasant grove a pasture found
Spacious, and sprinkled o’er with silver sheep
Numerous, and stalls, and huts, and shepherds’ tents.
Translation of William Cowper. Homer.
LINES.
FROM “CHILDE HAROLD.”
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwell in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring.
His quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn Ocean’s roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister’s voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e’er have been so moved.
It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
405Mellow’d and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken’d Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and, drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more:
He is an evening reveler, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill;
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instill,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues.
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires—’tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
All heaven and earth are still—though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, and to the lull’d lake and mountain coast,
All is concenter’d in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator, and defense.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone:
A truth which through our being then doth melt,
And purifies from self; it is a tone
The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm
Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone,
406Binding all things with beauty; ’twould disarm
The specter Death, had he substantial power to harm.
Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth o’ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall’d temple, there to seek
The spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak,
Unrear’d of human hands. Come and compare
Columns, and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature’s realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer.
The sky is changed! and such a change! Oh night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night: most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight—
A portion of the tempest, and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black—and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth.
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted;
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
Love was the very root of the fond rage,
Which blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed;
Itself expired, but leaving them an age
Of years all winters—war within themselves to rage.
Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way,
The mightiest of the storms hath ta’en his stand,
For here not one, but many, make their play,
And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand,
407The brightest through these parted hills hath fork’d
His lightnings—as if he did understand
That in such gaps as desolation work’d,
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk’d.
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye!
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt, and feeling, well may be,
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
Of your departing voices is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless—if I rest.
But where, of ye, O tempests! is the goal?
Are ye like those within the human breast?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?
Lord Byron, 1788–1824.
AN ITALIAN NOON.
LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS, OCTOBER, 1818.
* * * * *
Noon descends around me now;
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist,
Lake a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star,
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound,
To the point of heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky,
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath, the leaves unsodden
Where the infant frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellis’d lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dim and bladed grass no less
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandaled Apennine,
408In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit, which so long
Darken’d this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky;
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odor, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse,
Peopling the lone universe.
P. B. Shelley.
ITALIAN SONG.
Dear is my little native vale;
The ring-dove builds and warbles there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.
In orange grove and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my lov’d lute’s romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.
The shepherd’s horn, at break of day,
The ballet danc’d in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay,
Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.
Samuel Rogers.