"AVAUNT ALL SPECIOUS PLIANCY OF MIND"

          AVAUNT all specious pliancy of mind
          In men of low degree, all smooth pretence!
          I better like a blunt indifference,
          And self-respecting slowness, disinclined
          To win me at first sight: and be there joined
          Patience and temperance with this high reserve,
          Honour that knows the path and will not swerve;
          Affections, which, if put to proof, are kind;
          And piety towards God. Such men of old
          Were England's native growth; and, throughout Spain         10
          (Thanks to high God) forests of such remain:
          Then for that Country let our hopes be bold;
          For matched with these shall policy prove vain,
          Her arts, her strength, her iron, and her gold.
                                                              1810.

"O'ERWEENING STATESMEN HAVE FULL LONG RELIED"

          O'ERWEENING Statesmen have full long relied
          On fleets and armies, and external wealth:
          But from 'within' proceeds a Nation's health;
          Which shall not fail, though poor men cleave with pride
          To the paternal floor; or turn aside,
          In the thronged city, from the walks of gain,
          As being all unworthy to detain
          A Soul by contemplation sanctified.
          There are who cannot languish in this strife,
          Spaniards of every rank, by whom the good                   10
          Of such high course was felt and understood;
          Who to their Country's cause have bound a life
          Erewhile, by solemn consecration, given
          To labour and to prayer, to nature, and to heaven.
                                                              1810.

THE FRENCH AND THE SPANISH GUERILLAS

          HUNGER, and sultry heat, and nipping blast
          From bleak hill-top, and length of march by night
          Through heavy swamp, or over snow-clad height--
          These hardships ill-sustained, these dangers past,
          The roving Spanish Bands are reached at last,
          Charged, and dispersed like foam: but as a flight
          Of scattered quails by signs do reunite,
          So these,--and, heard of once again, are chased
          With combinations of long-practised art
          And newly-kindled hope; but they are fled--                 10
          Gone are they, viewless as the buried dead:
          Where now?--Their sword is at the Foeman's heart;
          And thus from year to year his walk they thwart,
          And hang like dreams around his guilty bed.
                                                              1810.

EPITAPHS
1810.
TRANSLATED FROM CHIABRERA
I

          WEEP not, beloved Friends! nor let the air
          For me with sighs be troubled. Not from life
          Have I been taken; this is genuine life
          And this alone--the life which now I live
          In peace eternal; where desire and joy
          Together move in fellowship without end.--
          Francesco Ceni willed that, after death,
          His tombstone thus should speak for him. And surely
          Small cause there is for that fond wish of ours
          Long to continue in this world; a world                     10
          That keeps not faith, nor yet can point a hope
          To good, whereof itself is destitute.

EPITAPHS
II

          PERHAPS some needful service of the State
          Drew TITUS from the depth of studious bowers,
          And doomed him to contend in faithless courts,
          Where gold determines between right and wrong.
          Yet did at length his loyalty of heart,
          And his pure native genius, lead him back
          To wait upon the bright and gracious Muses,
          Whom he had early loved. And not in vain
          Such course he held! Bologna's learned schools
          Were gladdened by the Sage's voice, and hung                10
          With fondness on those sweet Nestorian strains.
          There pleasure crowned his days; and all his thoughts
          A roseate fragrance breathed.--O human life,
          That never art secure from dolorous change!
          Behold a high injunction suddenly
          To Arno's side hath brought him, and he charmed
          A Tuscan audience: but full soon was called
          To the perpetual silence of the grave.
          Mourn, Italy, the loss of him who stood
          A Champion stedfast and invincible,                         20
          To quell the rage of literary War!

EPITAPHS
III

          O THOU who movest onward with a mind
          Intent upon thy way, pause, though in haste!
          'Twill be no fruitless moment. I was born
          Within Savona's walls, of gentle blood.
          On Tiber's banks my youth was dedicate
          To sacred studies; and the Roman Shepherd
          Gave to my charge Urbino's numerous flock.
          Well did I watch, much laboured, nor had power
          To escape from many and strange indignities;
          Was smitten by the great ones of the world,                 10
          But did not fall; for Virtue braves all shocks,
          Upon herself resting immoveably.
          Me did a kindlier fortune then invite
          To serve the glorious Henry, King of France,
          And in his hands I saw a high reward
          Stretched out for my acceptance,--but Death came.
          Now, Reader, learn from this my fate, how false,
          How treacherous to her promise, is the world;
          And trust in God--to whose eternal doom
          Must bend the sceptred Potentates of earth.                 20

EPITAPHS
IV

          THERE never breathed a man who, when his life
          Was closing, might not of that life relate
          Toils long and hard.--The warrior will report
          Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field,
          And blast of trumpets. He who hath been doomed
          To bow his forehead in the courts of kings,
          Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,
          Envy and heart-inquietude, derived
          From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.
          I, who on shipboard lived from earliest youth,              10
          Could represent the countenance horrible
          Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage
          Of Auster and Bootes. Fifty years
          Over the well-steered galleys did I rule:--
          From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars,
          Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;
          And the broad gulfs I traversed oft and oft:
          Of every cloud which in the heavens might stir
          I knew the force; and hence the rough sea's pride
          Availed not to my Vessel's overthrow.                       20
          What noble pomp and frequent have not I
          On regal decks beheld! yet in the end
          I learned that one poor moment can suffice
          To equalise the lofty and the low.
          We sail the sea of life--a 'Calm' One finds,
          And One a 'Tempest'--and, the voyage o'er,
          Death is the quiet haven of us all.
          If more of my condition ye would know,
          Savona was my birth-place, and I sprang
          Of noble parents; seventy years and three                   30
          Lived I--then yielded to a slow disease.

EPITAPHS
V

          TRUE is it that Ambrosio Salinero
          With an untoward fate was long involved
          In odious litigation; and full long,
          Fate harder still! had he to endure assaults
          Of racking malady. And true it is
          That not the less a frank courageous heart
          And buoyant spirit triumphed over pain;
          And he was strong to follow in the steps
          Of the fair Muses. Not a covert path
          Leads to the dear Parnassian forest's shade,                10
          That might from him be hidden; not a track
          Mounts to pellucid Hippocrene, but he
          Had traced its windings.--This Savona knows,
          Yet no sepulchral honours to her Son
          She paid, for in our age the heart is ruled
          Only by gold. And now a simple stone
          Inscribed with this memorial here is raised
          By his bereft, his lonely, Chiabrera.
          Think not, O Passenger! who read'st the lines,
          That an exceeding love hath dazzled me;                     20
          No--he was One whose memory ought to spread
          Where'er Permessus bears an honoured name,
          And live as long as its pure stream shall flow.

EPITAPHS
VI

          DESTINED to war from very infancy
          Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took
          In Malta the white symbol of the Cross:
          Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun
          Hazard or toil; among the sands was seen
          Of Libya; and not seldom, on the banks
          Of wide Hungarian Danube, 'twas my lot
          To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded.
          So lived I, and repined not at such fate:
          This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong,                 10
          That stripped of arms I to my end am brought
          On the soft down of my paternal home.
          Yet haply Arno shall be spared all cause
          To blush for me. Thou, loiter not nor halt
          In thy appointed way, and bear in mind
          How fleeting and how frail is human life!

EPITAPHS
VII

          O FLOWER of all that springs from gentle blood,
          And all that generous nurture breeds to make
          Youth amiable; O friend so true of soul
          To fair Aglaia; by what envy moved,
          Lelius! has death cut short thy brilliant day
          In its sweet opening? and what dire mishap
          Has from Savona torn her best delight?
          For thee she mourns, nor e'er will cease to mourn;
          And, should the out-pourings of her eyes suffice not
          For her heart's grief, she will entreat Sebeto              10
          Not to withhold his bounteous aid, Sebeto
          Who saw thee, on his margin, yield to death,
          In the chaste arms of thy beloved Love!
          What profit riches? what does youth avail?
          Dust are our hopes;--I, weeping bitterly,
          Penned these sad lines, nor can forbear to pray
          That every gentle Spirit hither led
          May read them, not without some bitter tears.


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