Claudian

“ Nor large abundance dim the moral sight;
That want, stern monitress, should teach the mind
Hid paths of science step by step to find;
That strenuous act from patient thought should spring,
And art Experience to perfection bring.
And yet for this a tyrant am I styled,
And Nature mourns her wrong'd and suffering child:
The change from Saturn's milder rule deplores,
And calls me niggard of her boundless stores ”

“ The labouring pile great Nature's heart hath stirr'd
With fear to lose the everlasting bird:
She bids the flames keep faith, and, as of yore,
Th' immortal glory of the world restore.
And now with strength renew'd each member glows,
Full through each vein the blood returning flows;
Along the cindery shape strange movements pass,
Life thrills within, and plumage clothes the mass. ”

“ O! blest their lot, to whom their captors give
Freedom at least in sight of heaven to live:
But I the bitter loss at once abide
Of cheerful daylight, and my maiden pride,
The Stygian tyrant's slave—miscall'd a bride!
O! flowers too well beloved! O! Mother wise,
Whose counsels Venus taught me to despise—
1 call thee, Mother! where in Ida's vales
Resound the Lydian pipe's discordant wails;
Where in thine ears the blood-stain'd Galli scream,
Where in thine eyes the Curete falchions gleam—
O! haste thee thence—restrain the robber's might,
Stay the dread car, and give me back to light! ”

“ Than Parthian dart, the torrent, or the wind,
Or thoughts that hurry through an anxious mind.
Their curbs are hot with blood: the air is faint
With their foul breath; the sands their foam-drops taint.
The Nymphs disperse: sad Proserpine, conveyed
To that dread car, implores her sisters' aid.
Her Gorgon's visage soon Minerva bares,
Her bow keen Delia for the strife prepares;
Their uncle's hateful crime their soul alarms,
And common maidenhood incites to arms. ”

“ Where other heavens o'er-arch another earth;
Whence forth he springs his wand'ring course to run,
Where Æthiop kingdoms blacken in the sun;
O'er the parch'd lands his cooling dews bestows,
And slakes the thirst of nations as he flows. ”

“ Whom weary Time with life still new supplies—
Who not on common aliment is fed,
Who quaffs no draught from earthly fountain-head:
The sun's pure warmth sustains him, and the breeze
That wafts refreshment from the gentle seas. ”

“ Great Ceres' daughter—now her Mother's joy—
Too soon to work her mournful soul's annoy—
Amidst those sisters, o'er the grassy meads
With equal grace, and equal step proceeds.
Clothe her in arms—she wears Minerva's mien:
With shafts provide her—'tis the huntress Queen. ”

“ No helpful showers the mountain ridge supplies:
When other streams with wintry rains increase,
Then rests the Nile within his banks in peace:
When they in turn scarce trickle through the sand,
Then swells the Nile, and spreads o'er all the land. ”

“ For brands, whose flame her nightly toil might guide.
By golden Acis' bank a grove arose,
Acis, whose stream fair Galatea chose
Full oft to bathe in rather than the sea:
A tangled grove—and dense with many a tree,
It climb'd up Etna's flanks—'twas there, men say,
That Jove, victorious from the mighty fray,
His blood-stain' d shield and captured trophies laid,
And clothed with Phlegra's spoils the branchy glade.
There hang the giant limbs, the grinning jaws,
The face, whose threatening scowl the gazer awes:
Huge bones of serpents into heaps are cast ”

“ And soon had it been hurl'd; but Jove from heaven
His lightning sign of peace restored hath given,
And of permitted wedlock: witness bright
Bear the glad flames, and sanctify the rite;
And the deep thunder, as it rolls among
The parted clouds, intones its bridal song.
Then too, compelled the rescue to forsake,
Dian her bow restrain'd, and mourning spake.
"Farewell, a long farewell! remember thou,
That only to superior power we bow:
Our Sire's commandment, never disobeyed,
Forbids the proffer of our willing aid. ”

“ Enceladus himself, a shady pine hath on;
Which bows beneath their weight its stature tall,
Saved by its neighbour oak alone from fall.
Hence hath the place its guardian sanctities:
Men fear to touch the trophies of the skies:
No Cyclops harms its age, no flocks intrude,
E'en Polypheme avoids the holy solitude.
But Ceres is not stayed—no awe inspires
That solemn scene, and but her fury fires:
Her axe she reckless wields, intent to strike
Through Jove's loved trees, or Jove himself, alike. ”

“ Where'er they glide, the yellow harvests shine,
And grace the progress of the car divine.
Now scarce is Etna seen; and far behind
Trinacria lessens, dim and undefined.
How oft, alas! do tears her cheek bedew!
How oft, turned backward, on that fading view
Prescient of evil does she gaze, and say—
Farewell, loved land, than heavenly realms of day
More precious to my soul! ”

“ This nether realm to Heaven, that only findest
Permitted access to both worlds, and art
The licensed merchant of their common mart—
Go, in thy speed surpass the rapid air,
And thus to haughty Jove my mandate bear.
'So far hath fortune bow'd me to thy sway,
And taken with the heavens my power away,
Of strength and arms bereft, as of the day?
Or think'st thou, brother, that inert we lie,
Because no bolts we scatter through the sky,
No thunder ours, weak ears to terrify? ”

“ Or pale and wretched, as, in vision dread,
Thou stood'st at midnight o'er my slumbering head?"
Her footsteps now primeval Etna leave;
She hates the flowers that bloom'd but to deceive,
The place accursed for so foul a deed.
She marks the devious tracks; where'er they lead
Bends low her brands, their searching light lets fall;
But streaming tears obliterate them all.
Next, as through air she sails, their lustre, thrown
On some faint path, is noticed with a groan. ”

“ See! the shrines tremble: through the proud abode
Clear streams of light attest the coming God!
The deep earth groans! Cecropia's temple rings,
And high her holy brands Eleusis flings!
Thy snakes, Triptolemus, with hissing tongue,
Lift their worn necks, and, as they glide along,
Incline their rosy crests, and listen to the song.
Behold, in triple majesty sublime
Arises Hecatē; and in his prime
Mild Bacchus, with the ringlets ivy-crowned;
The Parthian tiger's hide his limbs hath bound,
Clasp' d by the golden claws that o'er it meet:
Mæonia's Thyrsus guides his staggering feet. ”

“ As when the miner's art, with hidden toil,
Has worked a passage through the stubborn soil,
Within the walls a strangely open'd gate
Betrays the town to unexpected fate;
From secret caves the soldiers rise to light,
And spring, like earth-born warriors, to the fight:
Ev'n so, resolved to find or make a way,
The third Saturnian struggles into day:
Rocks piled on rocks impede his wandering car,
And guard Jove's realm with adamantine bar:
Till he, at such delays indignant grown,
With mighty sceptre smites the solid stone. ”

“ Her Phrygian Mother, and their lion car;
And, wildly wandering over land and main,
Should some faint traces of the Maid obtain,
And so encouraged on her course proceed,
To shower on all the precious boon they need;
Rich harvests to diffuse, unknown before,
And teach her dragon yoke to plough th' Actean shore.
But if to Ceres any dare betray
The name of him who stole her child away,
I swear by heaven and earth, and by my sovereign sway,
Which binds the worlds in concord, be it one
Most near and dearest, sister, spouse, or son ”

“ They roam the glades, and cull the moisten'd flowers,
Till the high sun brings on the mid-day hours.
Then sudden night prevails! the island feels
The tramp of horse-hoofs, and the clang of wheels,
And greatly trembles: none the driver knows;
On, like a deadly blast, or death itself, he goes.
Drips from his car a blighting venom down;
The streamlets fail—the grass is sere and brown!
Touched by his breath, the flowrets withering lie:
The drooping lilies shrink, the roses die.
Then, wheeling round, retire the thundering steeds ”

“ Upon his steeds—her steers—their brightness to produce.
Now o'er the earth, by weary mortals hail'd,
Deep night and silence in their turn prevail'd.
Prepared her toilsome journey to commence,
Her breast she rends, and cries, departing thence,
"Not these the torches, daughter ever dear,
My mother's heart had hoped for thee to rear;
But such as gleam mid festive pomp and song,
When echoing heavens the nuptial strain prolong.
No, none amongst us, though of race divine,
Can 'scape the meshes which the Fates entwine. ”

“ Whose lack of offspring Proserpine supplied.
Her, fondling still, she follows everywhere:
Not more the calf its lowering parent's care,
Ere wide its feet begin the earth to throw,
Ere curves the crescent on its budding brow.
But now the days of maidenhood bring on
Age not unmeet for nuptial benison;
And tenderer thoughts in that pure mind are bred,
And innocent wishes strive with bashful dread.
And soon loud suitors seek the maiden's home;
Shield-bearing Mars, and archer Phœbus come:
Mars proffers Rhodope—the bride to gain—
Amyclæ, Delos, and his Clarian fane
Are Phœbus' gift ”

“ No common sceptre is it thine to grasp,
No common husband's arms thy beauties clasp:
'Tis I, the Ruler of Saturnian race,
Lord of the mighty void's illimitable space!
Another world is ours, another day—
Our stars as brilliant shed as pure a ray:
Beneath the beams of our Elysian sun,
Their pious course a happy people run—
And through an endless age of gold we prove
A blest continuance of the joys above.
Soft meads shall still be thine—soft breezes blow
O'er flowers more fair than on thy Henna grow ”

“ This said, he gave his joyful steeds the rein,
And sought, in milder mood, his realm again.
About him throng the souls, in number such
As leaves that fall at Auster's angry touch;
As drops that issue from a cloudy sky;
As waves that break, as sands that whirling fly.
The dead of every age may there be seen,
In haste to gaze upon their glorious Queen ”

“ And with Tartarean car profane the skies?
Seek Lethe's nymphs, unlovely though they be:
The dismal Furies are fit brides for thee.
Great Jove's peculiar realm forbear to haunt:
"With thine own night contented, hence! avaunt!
Vex not our world with bold intrusive tread,
Nor mix the living with the buried dead!"
As on they press, nor to her menace yield,
She smites the coursers with her Gorgon shield:
Strives with its hissing snakes to bar the way;
Displays their crests outstretched in dread array ”

“ The steeds of darkness, and the robber King,
My labouring spirit bids me dare to sing;
The car, whose sickening blight the pale stars fled,
And subterranean Juno's gloomy bed.
Hence, ye profane! all earth-born thoughts are gone,
And Phœbus reigns within my breast, alone. ”

“ These for her brands she chose, and, swift as thought,
Well pleased on both in turn her will she wrought.
With girded vest, bared arm, and brandish'd blade,
On each fair stem her deadly blows she laid:
With all her strength impelled them as they yield,
Till down they crash, recumbent on the field. ”

“ These hands shall loose the chains of Saturn old,
Victorious Darkness shall thy Light enfold,
And through Avernus' shades its brilliant car be roll'd."
Scarce had he spoken, when his herald past
The starry portals; Jove hath heard, and cast
Around His dubious thoughts, inquiring whom
Such bridal might allure to seek the Stygian gloom.
Nor dubious long the thought; in Henna's shade
One daughter Ceres reared, one only maid ”