Echoes from the Sabine Farm

TO MISTRESS PYRRHA

 
IWhat perfumed, posie-dizened sirrah,
With smiles for diet,
Clasps you, O fair but faithless Pyrrha,
On the quiet?
For whom do you bind up your tresses,
As spun-gold yellow,—
Meshes that go with your caresses,
To snare a fellow?
 
 
How will he rail at fate capricious,
And curse you duly,
Yet now he deems your wiles delicious,—
You perfect, truly!
Pyrrha, your love's a treacherous ocean;
He'll soon fall in there!
Then shall I gloat on his commotion,
For I have been there!
 

TO MISTRESS PYRRHA
II

 
What dainty boy with sweet perfumes bedewed
Has lavished kisses, Pyrrha, in the cave?
For whom amid the roses, many-hued,
Do you bind back your tresses' yellow wave?
 
 
How oft will he deplore your fickle whim,
And wonder at the storm and roughening deeps,
Who now enjoys you, all in all to him,
And dreams of you, whose only thoughts he keeps.
 
 
Wretched are they to whom you seem so fair;—
That I escaped the storms, the gods be praised!
My dripping garments, offered with a prayer,
Stand as a tablet to the sea-god raised.
 

TO MELPOMENE

 
Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared:
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!
 
 
I shall not altogether die: by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,—
My works shall be my monument eternal!
 
 
While this great Roman empire stands and gods protect our fanes,
Mankind with grateful hearts shall tell the story
How one most lowly born upon the parched Apulian plains
First raised the native lyric muse to glory.
 
 
Assume, revered Melpomene, the proud estate I've won,
And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying,
Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebrated son
The Delphic laurel-wreath of fame undying!
 

TO PHYLLIS
I

 
Come, Phyllis, I've a cask of wine
That fairly reeks with precious juices,
And in your tresses you shall twine
The loveliest flowers this vale produces.
 
 
My cottage wears a gracious smile;
The altar, decked in floral glory,
Yearns for the lamb which bleats the while
As though it pined for honors gory.
 
 
Hither our neighbors nimbly fare,
The boys agog, the maidens snickering;
And savory smells possess the air,
As skyward kitchen flames are flickering.
 
 
You ask what means this grand display,
This festive throng and goodly diet?
Well, since you're bound to have your way,
I don't mind telling, on the quiet.
 
 
'T is April 13, as you know,
A day and month devote to Venus,
Whereon was born, some years ago,
My very worthy friend, Mæcenas.
 
 
Nay, pay no heed to Telephus;
Your friends agree he doesn't love you.
The way he flirts convinces us
He really is not worthy of you.
 
 
Aurora's son, unhappy lad!
You know the fate that overtook him?
And Pegasus a rider had,—
I say he had, before he shook him!
 
 
Hoc docet (as you must agree)
'T is meet that Phyllis should discover
A wisdom in preferring me,
And mittening every other lover.
 
 
So come, O Phyllis, last and best
Of loves with which this heart's been smitten,
Come, sing my jealous fears to rest,
And let your songs be those I've written.
 

TO PHYLLIS
II

 
Sweet Phyllis, I have here a jar of old and precious wine,
The years which mark its coming from the Alban hills are nine,
And in the garden parsley, too, for wreathing garlands fair,
And ivy in profusion to bind up your shining hair.
 
 
Now smiles the house with silver; the altar, laurel-bound,
Longs with the sacrificial blood of lambs to drip around;
The company is hurrying, boys and maidens with the rest;
The flames are flickering as they whirl the dark smoke on their crest.
 
 
Yet you must know the joys to which you have been summoned here
To keep the Ides of April, to the sea-born Venus dear,—
Ah, festal day more sacred than my own fair day of birth,
Since from its dawn my loved Mæcenas counts his years of earth.
 
 
A rich and wanton girl has caught, as suited to her mind,
The Telephus whom you desire,—a youth not of your kind.
She holds him bound with pleasing chains, the fetters of her charms,—
Remember how scorched Phaëthon ambitious hopes alarms.
 
 
The winged Pegasus the rash Bellerophon has chafed,
To you a grave example for reflection has vouchsafed,—
Always to follow what is meet, and never try to catch
That which is not allowed to you, an inappropriate match.
 
 
Come now, sweet Phyllis, of my loves the last, and hence the best
(For nevermore shall other girls inflame this manly breast);
Learn loving measures to rehearse as we may stroll along,
And dismal cares shall fly away and vanish at your song.
 

TO CHLOE
I

 
Why do you shun me, Chloe, like the fawn,
That, fearful of the breezes and the wood,
Has sought her timorous mother since the dawn,
And on the pathless mountain tops has stood?
 
 
Her trembling heart a thousand fears invites,
Her sinking knees with nameless terrors shake,—
Whether the rustling leaf of spring affrights,
Or the green lizards stir the slumbering brake.
 
 
I do not follow with a tigerish thought,
Or with the fierce Gætulian lion's quest;
So, quickly leave your mother, as you ought,
Full ripe to nestle on a husband's breast.
 

TO CHLOE
II

 
Chloe, you shun me like a hind
That, seeking vainly for her mother,
Hears danger in each breath of wind,
And wildly darts this way and t' other;
 
 
Whether the breezes sway the wood
Or lizards scuttle through the brambles,
She starts, and off, as though pursued,
The foolish, frightened creature scrambles.
 
 
But, Chloe, you're no infant thing
That should esteem a man an ogre;
Let go your mother's apron-string,
And pin your faith upon a toga!
 

III
A PARAPHRASE

 
How happens it, my cruel miss,
You're always giving me the mitten?
You seem to have forgotten this:
That you no longer are a kitten!
 
 
A woman that has reached the years
Of that which people call discretion
Should put aside all childish fears
And see in courtship no transgression.
 
 
A mother's solace may be sweet,
But Hymen's tenderness is sweeter;
And though all virile love be meet,
You'll find the poet's love is metre.
 

IV
A PARAPHRASE, CIRCA 1715

 
Since Chloe is so monstrous fair,
With such an eye and such an air,
What wonder that the world complains
When she each am'rous suit disdains?
 
 
Close to her mother's side she clings,
And mocks the death her folly brings
To gentle swains that feel the smarts
Her eyes inflict upon their hearts.
 
 
Whilst thus the years of youth go by,
Shall Colin languish, Strephon die?
Nay, cruel nymph! come, choose a mate,
And choose him ere it be too late!
 

V
A PARAPHRASE, BY DR. I.W

 
Why, Mistress Chloe, do you bother
With prattlings and with vain ado
Your worthy and industrious mother,
Eschewing them that come to woo?
 
 
Oh, that the awful truth might quicken
This stern conviction to your breast:
You are no longer now a chicken
Too young to quit the parent nest.
 
 
So put aside your froward carriage,
And fix your thoughts, whilst yet there's time,
Upon the righteousness of marriage
With some such godly man as I'm.
 

VI
A PARAPHRASE, BY CHAUCER

 
Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken,
Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken;
Like as a lyttel deere you ben y-hiding
Whenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding.
 
 
Sothly it ben faire to give up your moder
For to beare swete company with some oder;
Your moder ben well enow so farre shee goeth,
But that ben not farre enow, God knoweth;
 
 
Wherefore it ben sayed that foolysh ladyes
That marrye not shall leade an aype in Hadys;
But all that do with gode men wed full quicklye
When that they be on dead go to ye seints full sickerly.
 

TO MÆCENAS

 
Than you, O valued friend of mine,
A better patron non est!
Come, quaff my home-made Sabine wine,—
You'll find it poor but honest.
 
 
I put it up that famous day
You patronized the ballet,
And the public cheered you such a way
As shook your native valley.
 
 
Cæcuban and the Calean brand
May elsewhere claim attention;
But I have none of these on hand,—
For reasons I'll not mention.
 

ENVOY

 
So, come! though favors I bestow
Cannot be called extensive,
Who better than my friend should know
That they're at least expensive?
 

TO BARINE

 
If for your oath broken, or word lightly spoken,
A plague comes, Barine, to grieve you;
If on tooth or on finger a black mark shall linger
Your beauty to mar, I'll believe you.
 
 
But no sooner, the fact is, you bind, as your tact is,
Your head with the vows of untruth,
Than you shine out more charming, and, what's more alarming,
You come forth beloved of our youth.
 
 
It is advantageous, but no less outrageous,
Your poor mother's ashes to cheat;
While the gods of creation and each constellation
You seem to regard as your meat.
 
 
Now Venus, I own it, is pleased to condone it;
The good-natured nymphs merely smile;
And Cupid is merry,—'t is humorous, very,—
And sharpens his arrows the while.
 
 
Our boys you are making the slaves for your taking,
A new band is joined to the old;
While the horrified matrons your juvenile patrons
In vain would bring back to the fold.
 
 
The thrifty old fellows your loveliness mellows
Confess to a dread of your house;
But a more pressing duty, in view of your beauty,
Is the young wife's concern for her spouse.