III
Then Sobra, the old, old man,— Three hundred and sixty years Had he lived in this land of tears, Bowed down and said, "O Khan!
"If you bid me, I will speak. There's no sap in dry grass, No marrow in dry bones! Alas, The mind of old men is weak!
"I am old, I am very old: I have seen the primeval man, I have seen the great Gengis Khan, Arrayed in his robes of gold.
"What I say to you is the truth; And I say to you, O Khan, Pursue not the star-white man, Pursue not the beautiful youth.
"Him the Almighty made, And brought him forth of the light, At the verge and end of the night, When men on the mountain prayed.
"He was born at the break of day, When abroad the angels walk; He hath listened to their talk, And he knoweth what they say.
"Gifted with Allah's grace, Like the moon of Ramazan When it shines in the skies, O Khan, Is the light of his beautiful face.
"When first on earth he trod, The first words that he said Were these, as he stood and prayed, There is no God but God!
"And he shall be king of men, For Allah hath heard his prayer, And the Archangel in the air, Gabriel, hath said, Amen!"
THE SIEGE OF KAZAN
Black are the moors before Kazan,
And their stagnant waters smell of blood:
I said in my heart, with horse and man,
I will swim across this shallow flood.
Under the feet of Argamack,
Like new moons were the shoes he bare,
Silken trappings hung on his back,
In a talisman on his neck, a prayer.
My warriors, thought I, are following me;
But when I looked behind, alas!
Not one of all the band could I see,
All had sunk in the black morass!
Where are our shallow fords? and where
The power of Kazan with its fourfold gates?
From the prison windows our maidens fair
Talk of us still through the iron grates.
We cannot hear them; for horse and man
Lie buried deep in the dark abyss!
Ah! the black day hath come down on Kazan!
Ah! was ever a grief like this?
THE BOY AND THE BROOK
Down from yon distant mountain height
The brooklet flows through the village street;
A boy comes forth to wash his hands,
Washing, yes washing, there he stands,
In the water cool and sweet.
Brook, from what mountain dost thou come,
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I come from yon mountain high and cold,
Where lieth the new snow on the old,
And melts in the summer heat.
Brook, to what river dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the river there below
Where in bunches the violets grow,
And sun and shadow meet.
Brook, to what garden dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the garden in the vale
Where all night long the nightingale
Her love-song doth repeat.
Brook, to what fountain dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the fountain at whose brink
The maid that loves thee comes to drink,
And whenever she looks therein,
I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin,
And my joy is then complete.
TO THE STORK
Welcome, O Stork! that dost wing
Thy flight from the far-away!
Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring,
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay.
Descend, O Stork! descend
Upon our roof to rest;
In our ash-tree, O my friend,
My darling, make thy nest.
To thee, O Stork, I complain,
O Stork, to thee I impart
The thousand sorrows, the pain
And aching of my heart.
When thou away didst go,
Away from this tree of ours,
The withering winds did blow,
And dried up all the flowers.
Dark grew the brilliant sky,
Cloudy and dark and drear;
They were breaking the snow on high,
And winter was drawing near.
From Varaca's rocky wall,
From the rock of Varaca unrolled,
the snow came and covered all,
And the green meadow was cold.
O Stork, our garden with snow
Was hidden away and lost,
Mid the rose-trees that in it grow
Were withered by snow and frost.
FROM THE LATIN
VIRGIL'S FIRST ECLOGUE
MELIBOEUS. Tityrus, thou in the shade of a spreading beech-tree reclining, Meditatest, with slender pipe, the Muse of the woodlands. We our country's bounds and pleasant pastures relinquish, We our country fly; thou, Tityrus, stretched in the shadow, Teachest the woods to resound with the name of the fair Amaryllis.
TITYRUS. O Meliboeus, a god for us this leisure created, For he will be unto me a god forever; his altar Oftentimes shall imbue a tender lamb from our sheepfolds. He, my heifers to wander at large, and myself, as thou seest, On my rustic reed to play what I will, hath permitted.
MELIBOEUS. Truly I envy not, I marvel rather; on all sides In all the fields is such trouble. Behold, my goats I am driving, Heartsick, further away; this one scarce, Tityrus, lead I; For having here yeaned twins just now among the dense hazels, Hope of the flock, ah me! on the naked flint she hath left them. Often this evil to me, if my mind had not been insensate, Oak-trees stricken by heaven predicted, as now I remember; Often the sinister crow from the hollow ilex predicted, Nevertheless, who this god may be, O Tityrus, tell me.
TITYRUS. O Meliboeus, the city that they call Rome, I imagined, Foolish I! to be like this of ours, where often we shepherds Wonted are to drive down of our ewes the delicate offspring. Thus whelps like unto dogs had I known, and kids to their mothers, Thus to compare great things with small had I been accustomed. But this among other cities its head as far hath exalted As the cypresses do among the lissome viburnums.
MELIBOEUS. And what so great occasion of seeing Rome hath possessed thee?
TITYRUS. Liberty, which, though late, looked upon me in my inertness, After the time when my beard fell whiter front me in shaving,— Yet she looked upon me, and came to me after a long while, Since Amaryllis possesses and Galatea hath left me. For I will even confess that while Galatea possessed me Neither care of my flock nor hope of liberty was there. Though from my wattled folds there went forth many a victim, And the unctuous cheese was pressed for the city ungrateful, Never did my right hand return home heavy with money.
MELIBOEUS. I have wondered why sad thou invokedst the gods, Amaryllis, And for whom thou didst suffer the apples to hang on the branches! Tityrus hence was absent! Thee, Tityrus, even the pine-trees, Thee, the very fountains, the very copses were calling.
TITYRUS. What could I do? No power had I to escape from my bondage, Nor had I power elsewhere to recognize gods so propitious. Here I beheld that youth, to whom each year, Meliboeus, During twice six days ascends the smoke of our altars. Here first gave he response to me soliciting favor: "Feed as before your heifers, ye boys, and yoke up your bullocks."
MELIBOEUS. Fortunate old man! So then thy fields will be left thee, And large enough for thee, though naked stone and the marish All thy pasture-lands with the dreggy rush may encompass. No unaccustomed food thy gravid ewes shall endanger, Nor of the neighboring flock the dire contagion inject them. Fortunate old man! Here among familiar rivers, And these sacred founts, shalt thou take the shadowy coolness. On this side, a hedge along the neighboring cross-road, Where Hyblaean bees ever feed on the flower of the willow, Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep shall persuade thee. Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner shall sing to the breezes, Nor meanwhile shalt thy heart's delight, the hoarse wood-pigeons, Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from aerial elm-trees.
TITYRUS. Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed in the ether, And the billows leave the fishes bare on the sea-shore. Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, shall the exiled Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German drink of the Tigris, Than the face of him shall glide away from my bosom!
MELIBOEUS. But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty Afries, Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan Oaxes, And to the Britons from all the universe utterly sundered. Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the bounds of my country And the roof of my lowly cottage covered with greensward Seeing, with wonder behold,—my kingdoms, a handful of wheat-ears! Shall an impious soldier possess these lands newly cultured, And these fields of corn a barbarian? Lo, whither discord Us wretched people hath brought! for whom our fields we have planted! Graft, Meliboeus, thy pear-trees now, put in order thy vine-yards. Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy aforetime. Never again henceforth outstretched in my verdurous cavern Shall I behold you afar from the bushy precipice hanging. Songs no more shall I sing; not with me, ye goats, as your shepherd, Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or blooming laburnum.
TITYRUS. Nevertheless, this night together with me canst thou rest thee Here on the verdant leaves; for us there are mellowing apples, Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted cream in abundance; And the high roofs now of the villages smoke in the distance, And from the lofty mountains are falling larger the shadows.
OVID IN EXILE
AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE.
TRISTIA, Book III., Elegy X.
Should any one there in Rome remember Ovid the exile,
And, without me, my name still in the city survive;
Tell him that under stars which never set in the ocean
I am existing still, here in a barbarous land.
Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, and the Bessi and Getae;
Names how unworthy to be sung by a genius like mine!
Yet when the air is warm, intervening Ister defends us:
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war with his waves.
But when the dismal winter reveals its hideous aspect,
When all the earth becomes white with a marble-like frost;
And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow hurled under Arcturus,
Then these nations, in sooth, shudder and shiver with cold.
Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor the rain can dissolve it;
Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever remain.
Hence, ere the first ha-s melted away, another succeeds it,
And two years it is wont, in many places, to lie.
And so great is the power of the Northwind awakened, it levels
Lofty towers with the ground, roofs uplifted bears off.
Wrapped in skins, and with trousers sewed, they contend with the weather,
And their faces alone of the whole body are seen.
Often their tresses, when shaken, with pendent icicles tinkle,
And their whitened beards shine with the gathering frost.
Wines consolidate stand, preserving the form of the vessels;
No more draughts of wine,—pieces presented they drink.
Why should I tell you how all the rivers are frozen and solid,
And from out of the lake frangible water is dug?
Ister,—no narrower stream than the river that bears the papyrus,—
Which through its many mouths mingles its waves with the deep;
Ister, with hardening winds, congeals its cerulean waters,
Under a roof of ice, winding its way to the sea.
There where ships have sailed, men go on foot; and the billows,
Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats of horses indent.
Over unwonted bridges, with water gliding beneath them,
The Sarmatian steers drag their barbarian carts.
Scarcely shall I be believed; yet when naught is gained by a falsehood,
Absolute credence then should to a witness be given.
I have beheld the vast Black Sea of ice all compacted,
And a slippery crust pressing its motionless tides.
'T is not enough to have seen, I have trodden this indurate ocean;
Dry shod passed my foot over its uppermost wave.
If thou hadst had of old such a sea as this is, Leander!
Then thy death had not been charged as a crime to the Strait.
Nor can the curved dolphins uplift themselves from the water;
All their struggles to rise merciless winter prevents;
And though Boreas sound with roar of wings in commotion,
In the blockaded gulf never a wave will there be;
And the ships will stand hemmed in by the frost, as in marble,
Nor will the oar have power through the stiff waters to cleave.
Fast-bound in the ice have I seen the fishes adhering,
Yet notwithstanding this some of them still were alive.
Hence, if the savage strength of omnipotent Boreas freezes
Whether the salt-sea wave, whether the refluent stream,—
Straightway,—the Ister made level by arid blasts of the North-wind,—
Comes the barbaric foe borne on his swift-footed steed;
Foe, that powerful made by his steed and his far-flying arrows,
All the neighboring land void of inhabitants makes.
Some take flight, and none being left to defend their possessions,
Unprotected, their goods pillage and plunder become;
Cattle and creaking carts, the little wealth of the country,
And what riches beside indigent peasants possess.
Some as captives are driven along, their hands bound behind them,
Looking backward in vain toward their Lares and lands.
Others, transfixed with barbed arrows, in agony perish,
For the swift arrow-heads all have in poison been dipped.
What they cannot carry or lead away they demolish,
And the hostile flames burn up the innocent cots.
Even when there is peace, the fear of war is impending;
None, with the ploughshare pressed, furrows the soil any more.
Either this region sees, or fears a foe that it sees not,
And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.
No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves,
No fermenting must fills and o'erflows the deep vats.
Apples the region denies; nor would Acontius have found here
Aught upon which to write words for his mistress to read.
Naked and barren plains without leaves or trees we behold here,—
Places, alas! unto which no happy man would repair.
Since then this mighty orb lies open so wide upon all sides,
Has this region been found only my prison to be?