Anointed me, she put a princely cloak Then came a handmaid with a golden ewer, I Translation of WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. MY STEED. While, mirrored in crystal, the far-shooting glow With dazzling effulgence is sparkling below. From a yoke that has never borne rudely on thee. Ah! pleasant the empire of those to confess caress. Behold how thy playmate is stretching be side, As loath to be vanquished in love or in pride, KNOW by the ardor thou canst not While upward he glances his eyeball of jet, restrain, By the curve of thy neck and the toss of thy mane, Half dreading thy fleetness may distance him yet. Ah, Marco, poor Marco! our pastime to-day By the foam of thy snorting, which spangles Were reft of one pleasure if he were away. my brow, The fire of the Arab is hot in thee now. I give thee the rein, so away at thy speed! How precious these moments! Fair Free dom expands Her pinions of light o'er the desolate lands; eye, Unchained as thy motion the breezes sweep by: Away to the mountain! What need we to Delicious they come o'er the flower-scented fear? Pursuit cannot press on my Fairy's career; Full light were the heel and well balanced the head That ventured to follow the track of thy tread earth, Like whispers of love from the isle of my birth, While the white-blossomed Cistus her perfume exhales And sighs out a spicy farewell to the gales. Where roars the loud torrent and starts the Unfeared and unfearing, we'll traverse the And thunders the rock-severed mass down Where pours the rude torrent the turbulent flood; The forest's red children will smile as we | Behold these lilies, which thy hands have By the log-fashioned hut and the pine-woven Fair copies of my life-and open laid To view, how soon they droop, how soon they fade! Shade not that dial: night will blind too soon; My non-aged day already points to noon; How simple is my suit, how small my boon! Nor do I beg this slender inch to wile E FRANCIS QUARLES. FRIENDSHIP. VERY one that flatters thee Is no friend in misery; Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find. Every man will be thy friend Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend ; But if store of crowns be scant, No man will supply thy want. If that one be prodigal, Bountiful they will him call, And with such-like flattering, "Pity but he were a king!" If he be addict to vice, Quickly him they will entice; But if fortune once do frown, Then farewell his great renown : They that fawned on him before Use his company no more. He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need; If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep; Of Love, and what they fear and what they hope, And how they live, that in his cloister dwell, No strength nor courage left, nor can I be (Rebellious as she is!) to shun his wars, set, Her hair dispersed or in a golden net, Her eyes inflaming with a light divine Is seen in her, and can be seen no more; I plainly see in this, yet must I not Refuse to serve the gods, as well as men, With like reward of old have felt like pain. Now know I how the mind itself doth part (Now making peace, now war, now truce), what art Poor lovers use to hide their stinging woe, And how their blood now comes and now I feel, how vain my joy, how oft I change Design and countenance, and (which is strange) I live without a soul; I know the way And how a soul hath neither strength nor art And how his threats the fearful lover feels, now low) |