***

FROM VERGIL’S FOURTH GEORGIC.

[VERSES 360 ET SEQ.]

[Published by Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]

And the cloven waters like a chasm of mountains
Stood, and received him in its mighty portal
And led him through the deep’s untrampled fountains

He went in wonder through the path immortal
Of his great Mother and her humid reign 5
And groves profaned not by the step of mortal

Which sounded as he passed, and lakes which rain
Replenished not girt round by marble caves
’Wildered by the watery motion of the main

Half ’wildered he beheld the bursting waves 10
Of every stream beneath the mighty earth
Phasis and Lycus which the ... sand paves,

[And] The chasm where old Enipeus has its birth
And father Tyber and Anienas[?] glow
And whence Caicus, Mysian stream, comes forth 15

And rock-resounding Hypanis, and thou
Eridanus who bearest like empire’s sign
Two golden horns upon thy taurine brow

Thou than whom none of the streams divine
Through garden-fields and meads with fiercer power, 20
Burst in their tumult on the purple brine

***

SONNET.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.

[Published with “Alastor”, 1816; reprinted, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]

DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI: 

Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly
With winds at will where’er our thoughts might wend,
So that no change, nor any evil chance 5
Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community: 
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my gentle love, 10
Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk, wherever we might rove,
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.

5 So 1824; And 1816.

***

THE FIRST CANZONE OF THE CONVITO.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.

[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1820.]

1. 
Ye who intelligent the Third Heaven move,
Hear the discourse which is within my heart,
Which cannot be declared, it seems so new. 
The Heaven whose course follows your power and art,
Oh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew, 5
And therefore may I dare to speak to you,
Even of the life which now I live—­and yet
I pray that ye will hear me when I cry,
And tell of mine own heart this novelty;
How the lamenting Spirit moans in it, 10
And how a voice there murmurs against her
Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.