The translations are a perfect model of beautiful and elegant versification.
We consider Milton's address to his father to be one of the most beautiful compositions extant, and rejoice in presenting it to the reader in an English form, so worthy of the original Latin poem.
TO HIS FATHER.
Oh that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush,
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That for my venerable father's sake,
All meaner themes renounc'd, my muse on wings
Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude:
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought:
Nought save the riches that from airy dream
In secret grottoes, and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquir'd.
He then sings the praises of song in the following animated strain.
Verse is a work divine; despise not thou
Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more)
Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still
Some scintillations of Promethean fire,
Bespeaks him animated from above.
The gods love verse; the infernal pow'rs themselves
Confess the influence of verse, which stirs
The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains
Of adamant both Pluto and the shades.
In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale
Tremulous Sybil, make the future known,
And he who sacrifices, on the shrine
Hangs verse, both when he smites the threat'ning bull,
And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide
To scrutinize the Fates envelop'd there.
He anticipates it as one of the employments of glorified spirits in heaven.
We too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies, and one eternal Now[734]
Shall be the only measure of our being,
Crown'd all with gold, and chanting to the lyre
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above,
And make the starry firmament resound.
The sympathy existing between the two kindred studies of poetry and music is described with happy effect.