CXXXV

FROM 'OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

O to be up and doing, O

Unfearing and unashamed to go
In all the uproar and the press
About my human business!
My undissuaded heart I hear
Whisper courage in my ear.
With voiceless calls, the ancient earth
Summons me to a daily birth.
Thou, O my love, ye, O my friends-
The gist of life, the end of ends-
To laugh, to love, to live, to die,
Ye call me by the ear and eye.

Forth from the casemate, on the plain
Where honour has the world to gain,
Pour forth, and bravely do your part,
O knights of the unshielded heart!
Forth and for ever forward!-out
From prudent turret and redoubt,
And in the mellay charge amain,
To fall, but yet to rise again!
Captive? ah, still, to honour bright,
A captive soldier of the right!
Or free and fighting, good with ill?
Unconquering, but unconquered still.

R. L. Stevenson.

CXXXVI
TO J. S.

Let Grief be her own mistress still.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done to weep or not to weep.

I will not say, "God's ordinance

Of Death is blown in every wind"; For that is not a common chance

That takes away a noble mind.

Tennyson.

CXXXV

RES AGE, TUTUS ERIS

Tumultuante cum strepit volgo forum expers pudoris et metus

agenda agam beatus, impiger, vacans mortalium negotiis.

quis alia suadet? monita respuens iubet pectus malis resistere.

vocem silentis audio:-terra in dies
antiqua me nasci iubet.

et aure et oculo me vocas, O lux mea,
et quidquid est sodalium,
ridere, amare, vivere, emori: quid est
quod vita poscat amplius?

linquamus arcem :-non nisi in campo decus
opima tollit praemia.

procurrite, equites, nuda corda obtendite;
virtute non scutis opus.
prodite, pergite, exuite prudentiam,
exuite propugnacula.

invadite acies ense confertissimas,
lapsi simul resurgite.

captine? iustam militi ne sit pudor causam tuentibus capi.

an liberi pugnatis ? ut victoria non detur, at vinci nefas.

E. D. S.

CXXXVI

FRATER ADEMTE VALE

Quid velit, ipse dolor iubeat:-tu cede iubenti : indulget lacrimis luxuriatque suis.

gaudia prae fletu sordent:-edicta doloris

fiant, seu iubeat seu vetet ille queri.

non dicam :—“ aeterna moriendum est lege deorum, nulli non Zephyri semina mortis habent." non ea communis sors est, quae misit ad umbras

pectora tam pura nobilitata fide.

CXXXVII

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again ;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and verge afresh

In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

We finish thus; and all our wretched race
Shall finish with its cycle, and give place

To other beings, with their own time-doom:

Infinite æons ere our kind began ;

Infinite æons after the last man

Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb.

We bow down to the universal laws,
Which never had for man a special clause
Of cruelty or kindness, love or hate :
If toads and vultures are obscene to sight,
If tigers burn with beauty and with might,
Is it by favour or by wrath of Fate?

All substance lives and struggles evermore
Through countless shapes continually at war,
By countless interactions interknit:
If one is born a certain day on earth
All times and forces tended to that birth,
Not all the world could change or hinder it.

James Thomson.

CXXXVII

ALID EX ALIO REFICIT NATURA

Nil igitur nobis brevis haec nisi vita ferendumst, certaque pax manet et semper munita sepulcri, sopitis quoniam expergiscendi haud venit hilum, nec nostri quidquam super est nisi carni' solutum quod putret; quae si mutans elementa foras se dididit, inde alio conclusa in corpore rerum fit tellus aer aqua plantae saecla virorum.

luminis haec finis nobis, haec pausa misellis decurso vitae si unorsis orbe peractast, cedimus, inque vicem nova crescit gens animantum et fati privo defungens ordine et aevi. namque erat infinita dies anteacta priusquam saecla fuere hominum, nosque infinita sequentur tempora, se supremus homo cum animalibu' primis addiderit terrae gremiumque rogumque petessens.

denique perpetua naturae lege tenemur

et vincimur ea; quid enim iam singula nobis
excipiantur, amor propritim odiumve creatis
iracundiave aut rusum ut clementia detur?
non mage quam in rana si volturiove repertast
deformis species, at tigribu' vividus ardet
cum virtute color, favor hoc facit irave fati.

semper enim vivunt corpuscula materiai innumerabilibus formis pugnantia secum, innumerabiliterque in coetus indupetita. nec, quem certa dies in luminis extulit oras, aetas ulla fuit quae non intenderit illuc, ullave iam vis est quae non hunc cirit in ortum, nil adeo validumst quod rem mutetve vetetve.

CXXXVIII

COLUMBUS
(12th October, 1492.)

From his adventurous prime
He dreamed the dream sublime:
Over his wandering youth
It hung, a beckoning star.
At last the vision fled,
And left him in its stead
The scarce sublimer truth,

The world he found afar.
The scattered isles that stand
Warding the mightier land

Yielded their maidenhood

To his imperious prow.
The mainland within call
Lay vast and virginal:
In its blue porch he stood:
No more did fate allow.

No more! but ah, how much,
To be the first to touch

The veriest azure hem

Of that majestic robe!
Lord of the lordly sea,
Earth's mightiest sailor he:
Great Captain among them,

The captors of the globe.
When shall the world forget
Thy glory and our debt,
Indomitable soul,

Immortal Genoese?

Not while the shrewd salt gale
Whines amid shroud and sail,
Above the rhythmic roll

And thunder of the seas.

W. Watson.

CXXXIX

BACH, IN THE FUGUES AND PRELUDES

Contentedly with strictest strands confined,
Sports in the sun that oceanic mind:

To leap their bourn these waves did never long, Or roll against the stars their rockbound song.

W. Watson.