While hope prolongs our happier hour, Still, where rosy pleasure leads, The hues of bliss more brightly glow, See the wretch, that long has tost 40 45 50 See Casimir Od.: "Alterno redeunt choro Risus et gemitus, et madidis prope Nascuntur mediis gaudia luctibus.". V. 45. "Here sweet, or strong, may every colour flow; Brown. Essay on Satire, ii. 358. V. 49. "O! jours de la convalescence ! Jours d'une pure volupté: C'est une nouvelle naissance, Un rayon d'immortalité. Quel feu tous les plaisirs ont volé dans mon âme, Tout m'intéresse, tout m' enflâme Pour moi, l'univers est nouveau. Les plus simples objects; le chante d'un Fauvette, ! At length repair his vigour lost, The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, Humble quiet builds her cell, Near the source whence pleasure flows; She eyes the clear crystalline well, And tastes it as it goes. 'While' far below the 'madding' crowd Mark where indolence and pride, 'Sooth'd by flattery's tinkling sound,' Go, softly rolling, side by side, Le matin d'un beau jour, la verdure des bois, Milles spectacles, qu'autrefois Transportent aujourd'hui, présentent des appas Et que la foule ne voit pas." Gresset. tom. i. p. 145. V. 55. "Communemque prius, ceu lumina solis." Ovid. Met. i. 135. "Nec solem proprium natura, nec aëra fecit." Ovid. Met. vi. 350. "Ne lucem, quoque hanc quæ communis est." Cicero. "Sol omnibus lucet." Pet. Arb. c. 100. "Communis cunctis viventibus aura." Prudent. Sym. ii. 86. "The common benefit of vital air." Dryden. To these, if Hebe's self should bring 'Mark ambition's march sublime 6 Phantoms of danger, death, and dread, Happier he, the peasant, far, From the pangs of passion free, That breathes the keen yet wholesome air Of rugged penury. He, when his morning task is done, V. 56." Balm from open'd Paradise." v. Fairfax. Tasso, iv. 75. Luke. "And Paradise was open'd in the wild." Pope. "And paradise was open'd in his face." Dryden. Absalom, ed. Derrick, vol. i. p. 116. V. 59. So Milton accents the word: "On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd." Par. Lost, b. vi. ver. 772. V. 65. Tout s'émousse dans l'habitude; L'amour s'endort sans volupté; Las des mêmes plaisirs, las de leur multitude, 'He, unconscious whence the bliss, Feels, and owns in carols rude, That all the circling joys are his, Of dear Vicissitude. From toil he wins his spirits light, Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.' 90 95 TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE FROM THEB. LIB. VI. VER. 704-724. THIRD in the labours of the disc came on, His vigorous arm he tried before he flung, 5 * This translation, written at the age of twenty, which Gray sent to West, consisted of about a hundred and ten lines. Mason selected twenty-seven lines, which he published, as Gray's first attempt at English verse; and to show how much he had imbibed of Dryden's spirited manner at that early period of his life. The orb on high tenacious of its course, 10 15 20 The ponderous mass sinks in the cleaving ground, 25 V. 12. v. Milt. P. L. iv. 181, "At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound." Luke. V. 14. v. Milt. P. L. iv. 140, "As the ranks ascend shade above shade, a woody theatre of stateliest view." Luke. |