Transcriber’s Note: In the original, even-numbered pages were blank. Those page numbers have been omitted from this e-text.

HORÆ NAUSEÆ.

BY
LAWRENCE PEEL.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY BRADBURY AND EVANS, WHITEFRIARS.
MDCCCXLI.

CONTENTS.

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE SPANISH.

GIL POLO.

Love is not blind, but I alone, who steer

My wishes headlong unto death:

Love is no child, but I; who in a breath

Laugh and lament, and hope and fear:

What folly then to speak of “flames of Love!”

Love’s fire from untamed passion springs,

High and presumptuous thoughts are Cupid’s wings,

Or hopes as vain on which he soars above.

Love has no chains, Love bears no bow

To take, or strike the sound, and free:

No power has he save that which we bestow;

A poet’s fiction gave him birth,

The dream of fools, adored on earth

By none except the sons of vanity.

QUEVEDO.

No more shall custom dash my coward heart,

Nor shadowy forms nor gloomy fears o’erpower

My soul, that waits the cold, dark, final hour:

Soul! be thyself, arm, courage is thy part.

If Death, though clad in sorrow’s sable weeds,

Bring peace, a stranger to my troubled breast,

I’ll give him welcome so he give me rest,

And thank him as his brandish’d dart he speeds.

Forgive me that I harbour’d childish fears

Of thee, the struggling soul who comest to aid,

As now the disentangled mesh it clears,

Mortality’s frail snare: no more afraid

I welcome thee with smiles, not greet with tears,

For well I know my Ransom hath been paid.

QUEVEDO.

I saw, its lofty ramparts undermined,

Crumbling to earth, my native town decay;

I saw my fathers’ house, nor saw resign’d,

Alike assail’d Time’s not disdained prey:

Upon its black and Time-dishonour’d wall

My sword ancestral eager I survey’d;

Devouring Time, triumphant over all,

Had eaten into its corroded blade:

My shorten’d staff still yielded as I prest

The prop on which my age must yet rely,

And all on which my hand or eye could rest

Gave sad and solemn warning that we die.

ARGENSOLA.

Father of all! unfold, since thou art just,

Why does thy providence all coldly see

Pale innocence enchain’d that would be free,

Whilst fraud ascends the judgment-seat august.

Who nerves the arm of power which dares oppose

An impious resistance to thy will?

Shall holy zeal and timid reverence still

Groan at the feet of thy obdurate foes?

See! impious hands victorious banners wave!

Hark! virtue moans scarce heard amid the shout

Of insolent triumph, and its boisterous mirth!

Thus I complaining spoke: A form shone out,

Gravely it spoke: “Is thy soul’s centre earth?

Oh blind one! not to see beyond the grave!”

ON THE PROOFS OF A DEITY.
ORIGINAL.

Talk not of proofs: God must be seen, and felt,

And known by meditation; not deduced

Like some hard problem, or a riddle spelt

By frequent guessing. Proofs on proofs adduced,

Speak they so plainly as the wailing cry

Of her first infant tells the mother’s heart

A mother’s love doth well from God on high?

Who hath not heard, in solitude apart,

God’s voice upon the wind? Who hath not seen

And felt Him present? seen Him earth pervade?

Each spring, their wither’d crowns renew with green

In aged trees? seen Him in depths of shade?

And glorious sunshine? and reveal’d in light

Of stars? and in the sea’s resistless might?

VILLEGAS.

I.

Now, Spring the year’s contracted brow

Unknits, and robes in brightest green

The trees; and, victims to the plough,

Fresh flowers are strew’d where snows were seen.

The honours of the time complete,

Come forth, and welcome in the spring,

Which spreads a carpet for thy feet,

A verdant broider’d offering

For thee, whom, honour’d as her queen,

She mourns away, and welcomes seen.

II.

Here in this flowing mirror see,

Worthy of thy reflected face,

Exulting in its waters free,

Charms which art’s rivalry disgrace.

The bygone waters would return,

The waters present stay their course;

The coming waters from their urn

A passage prematurely force;

All jealous, striving to possess

The image of thy loveliness.

III.

Nature is eloquent to teach:

Her lessons do not thou disdain:

The birds, though unendow’d with speech,

Can carol love, in song complain.

Come, seek their school: their love-taught notes

The text of nature will expound;

The thrilling music of their throats

Teach us what bliss in love is found;

And all their pretty wanton ways,

Mutely reprove our dull delays.

MELENDEZ.
CUPID A BUTTERFLY.

Observing once, with secret spite,

The rustic maidens, wild with fright,

Fly from him when his arms he bore,

Revenge the wily Cupid swore;

And straight a stratagem design’d,

For Cupid’s malice is refined.

He seems a butterfly complete,

With down upon his baby feet;

His little arms are changed to wings;

And sportive into air he springs.

Now through the meadows he meanders,

And now from flower to flower he wanders;

Hovers o’er this, on that alights,

Whose honied cup his lip invites.

The maidens think him what he seems,

Not one of aught deceptive dreams,

And eager in the chase they strive:

One stoops to take him up alive,

As on the ground fatigue he feigns;

Again he flies and mocks her pains;

A second calls with accents kind;

Another panting lags behind.

He sees them in the contest warm,

Then starts into his proper form,

And sets their simple hearts on fire,

To gratify his childish ire.

But from that time, in love we see

The butterfly’s inconstancy.

Love tarries not, but onward springs;

Alas! the urchin kept his wings.

MELENDEZ.

I.

When I was yet a little boy,

And Dorila as young,

Forth to the fields we went with joy,

Where the first violets sprung.

II.

Her hands arranged, with natural grace,

For each a garland gay;

And thus, midst childish sports, apace

The moments danced away.

III.

Our age advanced, as they withdrew,

Unwatch’d by us the while;

By slow degrees our knowledge grew,

Till innocence seem’d guile.

IV.

The sight of me would now provoke

A smile, I scarce knew why,

From Dorila; and if I spoke,

A laugh was the reply.

V.

The flowers I pluck’d she swiftly twined,

Her own had little care;

It took her twice as long to bind

My chaplet in my hair.

VI.

One summer’s eve two doves we spied;

Their trembling bills were cross’d;

Then first we knew for what we sigh’d:

The lesson was not lost.

A FABLE.
ALTERED FROM THE SPANISH OF YRIARTE.

A Piedmontese, from fair to fair,

Display’d a Vestris in a bear;

An ape likewise, whose tricks self-taught

The grinning crowd’s approval caught,

(Judgment as that of critics sound,

Who think all’s wit where mischief’s found):

And last it was his luck to own,

A treasure in itself alone;

A pig, to letters train’d, polite

Of course, the beast was erudite.

With open mouth, each wondering lout

Would view its orthographic snout

Choose letters, and hard words compose,

Without the due didactic blows.

Then, if some rude unletter’d hind,

Impell’d by generous shame, repined,

Felt his own ignorance, and thought

That letters might, though late, be taught;

How would the burly shaven priest

Exorcise the sleek, learned beast;

Judge it possess’d, a hog of hell,

Whose devil-directed nose could spell,

Pointing to knowledge, and to sin;

Whilst secretly he’d grieve within

O’er spelling true, ah! not his own!

And think the pig, their rival grown,

Might shake their intellectual throne;

And force his convent, fond of rule,

Once more to put themselves to school!

The bear, first favourite no more,

Surly, as though his ears were sore,

The fickle public to regain,

And give the “pas” to dance again,

Tries and retries his steps with care,

Since to be perfect’s not in bear.

The pig and ape, spectators mute,

Observe the labours of the brute

Shuffling, and struggling hard for ease,

And ever labouring to please.

At length Sir Bruin thinks he spies

Derision in pig’s watchful eyes;

And criticism seems to sneak

In that dry tongue-distended cheek.

“Good! Eh?” he daring asks; “my style

Is all my own, it’s new.” “It’s vile,”

The Ape cries, midst the Hog’s dissent,

Who finds the dancing excellent;

Praises the grace of hams and paws,

Applauded, (he could spare applause,)

So natural! and owns that pigs

Shine less in minuets and jigs;

And even the critic he defies

To equal that which he decries.

Then Bruin, with a thoughtful air,

Cries, “Friend, your panegyric spare;

A censuring Ape I might distrust,

His blame’s too general to be just;

But, oh! preserve me from my friends!

I must dance ill—a Hog commends.”

TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE.

BOOK I.—ODE III.

I.

Thee, may the Cyprian queen divine,

And Helen’s brethren, glittering sign,

And Æolus, the winds’ stern sire,

(Save Iapyx all his subjects bound,)

Ship! prosperous guide; that safe ashore

Our Virgil, to the Attic ground

Thou mayst, thy trusted freight, give o’er,

And save one half my soul entire.

II.

His bosom fenced brass triply stout,

Who first in fragile bark put out,

Braving the ocean; undeterr’d

By south-west winds, in contest dire

With north-east blasts; sad Hyades,

Or by the south wind’s fiercer ire,

Lord o’er the Adriatic seas

Calm’d at its sovereign will, or stirr’d.

III.

What shapes of death could him affright,

Who view’d those ill-famed summits, hight

Acroceraunia, and the swell

And swimming monsters of the main

With steadfast eye? God’s wise decree

Disjoins the lands remote in vain,

If impious, o’er the severing sea

The bark contemptuous sails propel.

IV.

Man, bold to endure where gain’s the cause,

Bursts through divine and human laws.

When bold Prometheus, for our race,

Plunder’d of fire the mansions blest

By wicked fraud, o’er earth new bands

Of fevers brooded; forward prest

The pestilence, and new commands

Quicken’d death’s first retarded pace.

V.

On pinions, unto man denied,

Once Dædalus void æther tried.

By force hell’s bounds Alcides past.

Nought is too arduous for man:

We foolish, heaven itself invade,

Our desperate crimes fresh outbreaks plan;

And force Jove’s hand, by mercy stay’d,

The angry bolts to launch at last.

BOOK I.—ODE V.

What slender youth, whom many roses crown,

Whose hair rich liquid unguents steal adown,

Wooes thee, coy Pyrrha, in some pleasant grot?