Flee-what of late sore burden was to me, Now a sad memory and a bitter pain, Those shining Cyclads flee, That stud the far-off main. L ODE 24. TO VIRGIL. UNSHAMED, unchecked, for one so dear Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear ! Sleeps He the sleep that knows no morn? Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light, When shall again his like be born? Many a kind heart for Him makes moan; That which it took not as a loan: Were sweeter lute than Orpheus given Into his dark assemblage, who Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer. Hard lot! Yet light their griefs who BEAR The ills, which they may not undo. ODE 28. TO ARCHYTAS. MEASURER of earth and ocean and the multitudi nous sand, Scant the grains of tributary dust, Lack whereof, Archytas, holds thee captive on Apu lia's strand. Vainly in his wisdom did he trust, Who could journey disembodied o'er the firmament, and stand At the gates of heaven; for die he must. Perished thus the sire of Pelops, messmate of the gods above: Thus Tithonus, caught into the air: Minos too, the man admitted to the hidden things of Jove. Panthous' son himself is prisoner there In those shades-twice doomed to Orcus: tho' the letters on the shield Proved how he had lived in Ilion's day, Nor had aught, save skin and sinew, unto grim death deigned to yield. No mean scholar he, e'en thou would'st say, In the lore of truth and nature. But the fate of all is sealed: All must tread, unlighted, death's highway. -Into grisly War's arena some are by the Furies flung: 'Neath the hungry sea-wave some lie dead: Fused in undistinguished slaughter die the old man and the young: Spares not Hell's fierce queen a single head. Me too westward-bound Orion's constant mate, the South-west-wind, Whelmed but lately in the Illyrian wave: And, oh mariner, deny not-to a dead man's bones unkind, And a head that must not own a grave One scant heap of homeless sea-sand. the Eastern gale So whene'er |