Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/407

 POEMS IN VARIOUS METRES

��365

��Xec Manes pietas tua chara fefellit amici;

Vidimus arridentem operoso ex sere poe- tam.

Nee satis hoc visum est in utruinque, et nee pia cessant

Officia in tumulo; cupis integros rapere Oreo,

Quk potes, atque avidas Parcarum eludere leges:

Amborum genus, et varia sub sorte perac- tam 20

Describis vitam, moresque, et dona Mi- nerva? ;

/Emulus illius Mycalen qui natus ad altam

Rettulit ^olii vitam facundus Homeri.

Ergo ego te, Clius et magni nomine Phcebi,

Manse pater, jubeo longum salvere per jevum,

Missus Hyperboreo juvenis peregrinus ab axe.

Nee tu longinquam bonus aspernabere Musam,

Quse nuper, gelida vix enutrita sub Arcto,

Imprudens Italas ausa est volitare per urbes.

Nos etiam in nostro modulantes flumine cygnos 30

Credimus obscuras noctis sensisse per um- bras,

Quk Thamesis late puris argenteus urnis

Oceani glaucos perfundit gurgite criues;

Quin et in has quondam pervenit Tityrus

oras.

Sed neque nos genus incultum, nee in- utile Phcebo,

Qua plaga septeno mundi sulcata Trione

Brumalem patitur longa sub nocte Booten.

Nos etiam colimus Phcebum, nos munera Phoebo,

Flaventes spicas, et lutea mala canistris,

Halantemque crocum (perhibet nisi vana vetustas) 40

Misimus, et lectas Druidum de gente cho- reas.

(Gens Druides antiqua, sacris operata de- ornm,

Heroum laudes imitandaque gesta cane- bant.)

Hinc quoties festo cingunt altaria cantu

Delo in herbosa Graiae de more puellse,

Carminibus Isetis memorant Corineida Loxo,

Fatidicamque Upin, cum flavicoma Heca- erge,

Nuda Caledonio variatas pectora fuco.

��piety was true even to the ghost of your friend, as that monument tells in which he still smiles at us from the wrought bronze Even this did not satisfy you ; your kindly offices did not cease at the tomb. You longed to save both your poet friends from Oicus, and, so much as lay in you, to cheat the avid laws of the Pare*. And so you told the ancestry of both, their habits, theii gifts of mind, the various fortune of their li%*es, emulous of him who was born on high Mycale, fluent Herodotus, chronicler of yEolian Homer. Therefore, sire, in the name of Clio and of Phcebus, I, who come a wandering youth from the north, send you greeting and long life. You, who are so kind, will not scorn a stranger's Muse, she who, nourished sparely in the frozen north, lately dared a venturesome flight through the cities of Italy. 1 I too, methinks, have heard, through the obscure shades of night, the swans singing in my river at home, where Thames, bending above her argent urns, lets her glaucous locks stream wide into the ocean. What do I say ? did not Chaucer himself, our Tityrus, come once to these shores ?

In truth, we who endure the long nights under wintry Bootes, in that region of the world which is wheeled over by the seven- fold Wain, are no untaught race, useless to Apollo. We, too, worship him ; of old we sent him gifts to his own island, borne by a chosen baud of Druids, an ancient race, skilled in the sacred rites of the gods, and singers of the noble deeds of heroes. We sent him yellowing ears of grain, and bas- kets of golden apples, and odorous crocus- flowers, though perchance these lost their fragrance on the long journey. Often, in memory of this pilgrimage, the Greek girls circle the altars in grassy Delos, as is their gracious wont, and in glad songs commemo- rate Loxo, daughter of Corineus, and pro- phetic Upis, and Hecaerge of the yellow hair, Druid maids, whose nude breasts were stained with Caledonian woad.

1 The reference is to the Latin verses contributed bj Milton to the Italian academies.

�� �