Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/75

Rh given from a translation by the author of 'Lorna Doone,' but it may serve to show that Catullus was capable of picturing and conceiving the amount of devotion which his nuptial songs connect with happy and like-minded unions:—

One image from the rest of the poem cannot pass unnoticed—that of Acme bending back her head in Septimius's embrace, to kiss with rosy mouth what Mr Blackmore translates "eyes with passion's wine opprest;" but the whole piece deserves to the full the unstinted praise it has met with from critics and copyists.

The Epithalamium of Julia and Manlius, however, is a poem of more considerable proportions; and at the same time that it teems with poetic beauties, handles its subject with such skill and ritual knowledge as to supply a correct programme of the marriage ceremonial among the Romans. Strictly speaking, it is not so much a nuptial ode or hymn in the sense in which the playmates of Helen serenade her in