Part 25

Ah! with them may your Genius bring Some Celia, some Miss Mannering; For youthful friendship is a thing More precious than succeeding.

SAPPHO'S CURSING

Woman dead, lie there; No record of thee Shall there ever be, Since thou dost not share Roses in Pieria grown. In the deathful cave, With the feeble troop Of the folk that droop, Lurk and flit and crave, Woman severed and far-flown.

A SERVING MAN'S EPITAPH

A slave--oh yes, a slave! But in a freeman's grave. By thee, when work was done, Timanthes, foster-son, By thee whom I obeyed, My master, I was laid. Live long, from trouble free; But if thou com'st to me, Paying to age thy debt, Thine am I, master, yet.

A SONG TO A SINGER

Dura fida rubecula, Cur moraris in arbore Dum cadunt folia et brevi Flavet luce November.

Quid boni tibi destinat Hora crastina? quid petes Antris ex hiemalibus? Quid speras oriturum?

Est ut hospita te vocet Myrtis, et reseret fores, Ut te vere nitentibus Emiretur ocellis.

Quod si contigerit tibi, Ter beata vocaberis, Invidenda volucribus, Invidenda poetae.

AGE AND GIRLHOOD

A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; It doubles my toil, your importunate lay; I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; I clasp a good wisp, and in fragrance I lie; But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry."

A LEGEND OF PORTO SANTO

A time-worn sage without a home, A man of dim and tearful sight, Up from the hallowed haven clomb In lowly longing for the height.

He loiters on a half-way rock To hear the waves that pant and seethe, Which give the beats of Nature's clock To mortals conscious that they breathe.

The buxom waves may nurse a boat, May well nigh seem to soothe and lull The crying of a tethered goat, The trouble of a searching gull.

There might be comfort in the tide, There might be Lethe in the surge, Could they but hint that oceans hide, That pangs absolve, bereavements purge.

The thinker, not despairing yet, Upraises limbs not wholly stiff, Half envying him that draws the net, Half proud to combat with the cliff.

He groans, but soon around his lips Tear-channels bend into a smile, He thinks "They're saying in the ships I'm looking for the hidden isle.

I climb but as my humours lead, My thoughts are mazed, my will is faint, Yon men who see me roam, they need No Lethe-fount, no shriving saint."

Good faith! can we believe, or feign Believing, that such lands exist Through ages drenched with blotting rain, For ever folded in the mist?

Maybe some babe by sirens clothed Swam thence, and brought report thereof. Some hopeful virgin just betrothed Braved the incredulous pilot's scoff;

And murmuring to a friendly lute, While greybeards snored and beldames laughed, Some minstrel-corsair made pursuit Along the moon's white hunting-shaft;

Along the straight illumined track The bride, the singer, and the child Fled, far from sceptics, came not back, Engulped? Who knows? perhaps enisled.

Now were there such another crew, Now would their bark make room for me, Now were that island false or true, I'd go, forgetting, with the three.

TO A LINNET

My cheerful mate, you fret not for the wires, The changeless limits of your small desires; You heed not winter rime or summer dew, You feel no difference 'twixt old and new; You kindly take the lettuce or the cress Without the cognizance of more and less, Content with light and movement in a cage. Not reckoning hours, nor mortified by age, You bear no penance, you resent no wrong, Your timeless soul exists in each unconscious song.

A SONG FOR A PARTING