“Thee, too, ‘mid storied founts my lay
Shall shrine: thy bending holm I’ll sing,
Shading the grottoed rocks whence spring
Thy laughing waters far away.”
Though terseness and fidelity are two of the chief merits claimed by the advocates of the unrhymed measures, it is just here that they oftenest fail; and Lord Lytton is no exception. Space permits us to give but few instances. “Trodden by all, and only trodden once,” is Lord Lytton’s version of calcanda semel, i. 28—seven English words for two Latin, and the sense then but vaguely given at best. Feriuntque summos Fulgura montes is in like manner diluted into
“The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning
Are its high places.”
Awkwardness of style, too, is a much more frequent characteristic of Lord Lytton’s renderings than we should look for either from his own command of style or the freedom which disuse of rhyme is claimed to ensure. For instance, in ii. 2:
“Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinions,
Fame, the survivor,”