But the neatest and prettiest specimen that has yet appeared comes from a highly cultivated lady who was attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth. Having been banished from the court on suspicion of too great familiarity with a nobleman then high in favor, the lady adopted this device,—the moon covered by a cloud,—and the following palindrome for a motto:—
ABLATA AT ALBA.
(Banished, but blameless.)
The merit of this kind of composition was never in any example so heightened by appropriateness and delicacy of sentiment.
Paschasius composed the recurrent epitaph on Henry IV.:—
Arca serenum me gere regem, munere sacra,
Solem, arcas, animos, omina sacra, melos.
A very curious continuous series of palindromes was printed in Vienna in 1802. It was written in ancient Greek by a modern Greek named Ambrosius, who called it Πόιημα καρκινικὸν. It contains 455 lines, every one of which is a literal palindrome. A few are selected at random, as examples:—
Ἰσα πασι Ση τε υη, Συ ὁ Μουσηγετης ις απασι.
Νεαν ασω μελιφωνον, ὦ φιλε, Μωσαν αεν.