15

20

For when the rising spring adorns the mead,
And a new scene of nature stands display'd,
When teeming buds, and cheerful greens appear,
And western gales unlock the lazy year:
The joyous birds thy welcome first express,
Whose native songs thy genial fire confess;
Then savage beasts bound o'er their slighted food,
Struck with thy darts, and tempt the raging flood.
All nature is thy gift; earth, air, and sea:
Of all that breathes, the various progeny,
Stung with delight, is goaded on by thee.
O'er barren mountains, o'er the flowery plain,
The leafy forest, and the liquid main,
Extends thy uncontroll'd and boundless reign. 25
Through all the living regions dost thou move,
And scatter'st, where thou go'st, the kindly seeds
of love.

Since then the race of every living thing

Obeys thy power; since nothing new can spring
Without thy warmth, without thy influence bear, 30
Or beautiful, or lovesome can appear;
Be thou my aid, my tuneful song inspire,
And kindle with thy own productive fire;
While all thy province, Nature, I survey,
And sing to Memmius an immortal lay

35

Of heaven and earth, and every where thy wondrous power display:

To Memmius, under thy sweet influence born, Whom thou with all thy gifts and graces dost

adorn.

And, panting on thy breast, supinely lies, While with thy heavenly form he feeds his famish'd eyes;

30

Sucks in with open lips thy balmy breath,
By turns restored to life, and plunged in pleasing

death.

There while thy curling limbs about him move,
Involved and fetter'd in the links of love,
When, wishing all, he nothing can deny,
Thy charms in that auspicious moment try;
With winning eloquence our peace implore,
And quiet to the weary world restore.

THE BEGINNING OF THE

SECOND BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

65

A soul serene, a body void of pain.
So little this corporeal frame requires;
So bounded are our natural desires,
That wanting all, and setting pain aside,
With bare privation sense is satisfied.
If golden sconces hang not on the walls,
To light the costly suppers and the balls;
If the proud palace shines not with the state
Of burnish'd bowls, and of reflected plate;
If well-tuned harps, nor the more pleasing sound
Of voices, from the vaulted roofs rebound;

Yet on the grass, beneath a poplar shade,
By the cool stream our careless limbs are laid; 35
With cheaper pleasures innocently bless'd,
When the warm spring with gaudy flowers is
dress'd.

40

Nor will the raging fever's fire abate,
With golden canopies and beds of state :
But the poor patient will as soon be sound
On the hard mattress, or the mother ground.
Then since our bodies are not eased the more
By birth, or power, or fortune's wealthy store,
Tis plain, these useless toys of every kind
As little can relieve the labouring mind:
Unless we could suppose the dreadful sight
Of marshall'd legions moving to the fight,
Could, with their sound and terrible array,
Expel our fears, and drive the thoughts of death

away.

45

50

55

But, since the supposition vain appears,
Since clinging cares, and trains of inbred fears,
Are not with sounds to be affrighted thence,
But in the midst of pomp pursue the prince,
Not awed by arms, but in the presence bold,
Without respect to purple, or to gold;
Why should not we these pageantries despise ;
Whose worth but in our want of reason lies?
For life is all in wandering errors led;
And just as children are surprised with dread,
And tremble in the dark, so riper years
Een in broad daylight are possess'd with fears;
And shake at shadows fanciful and vain,
As those which in the breasts of children reign.
These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell,
No rays of outward sunshine can dispel ;
But nature and right reason must display
Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul
to day.

THE LATTER PART OF THE

THIRD BOOK OF LUCRETIUS;

AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH.

60

65

WHAT has this bugbear death to frighten man,
If souls can die, as well as bodies can?
For, as before our birth we felt no pain,
When Punic arms infested land and main,
When heaven and earth were in confusion hurl'd,
For the debated empire of the world,
Which awed with dreadful expectation lay,
Sure to be slaves, uncertain who should sway:
So, when our mortal flame shall be disjoin'd,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were
lost,

10

Though time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.
When once an interrupting pause is made,
That individual being is decay'd.

We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
Which to that other mortal shall accrue,
Whom of our matter time shall mould anew.
For backward if you look on that long space
Of ages past, and view the changing face

Of matter, toss'd and variously combined
In sundry shapes, 'tis easy for the mind

30

Must be, when those misfortunes shall arrive;
And since the man who is not, feels not woe,
(For death exempts him, and wards off the blow,
Which we, the living, only feel and bear)
What is there left for us in death to fear?
When once that pause of life has come between,
"Tis just the same as we had never been.
And therefore if a man bemoan his lot,
That after death his mouldering limbs shall rot,
Or flames, or jaws of beasts devour his mass,
Know, he's an unsincere, unthinking ass.
A secret sting remains within his mind;
The fool is to his own cast offals kind.
He boasts no sense can after death remain;
Yet makes himself a part of life again;
As if some other He could feel the pain.
If, while we live, this thought molest his head,
What wolf or vulture shall devour me dead?
He wastes his days in idle grief, nor can
Distinguish 'twixt the body and the man;
But thinks himself can still himself survive;
And, what when dead he feels not, feels alive.
Then he repines that he was born to die,
Nor knows in death there is no other He,
No living He remains his grief to vent,
And o'er his senseless carcase to lament.
If after death 'tis painful to be torn

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50

55

60

65

70

By birds, and beasts, then why not so to burn,
Or drench'd in floods of honey to be soak'd,
Imbalm'd to be at once preserved and choked;
Or on an airy mountain's top to lie,
Exposed to cold and heaven's inclemency;
Or crowded in a tomb to be oppress'd
With monumental marble on thy breast?
But to be snatch'd from all the household joys,
From thy chaste wife, and thy dear prattling boys,
Whose little arms about thy legs are cast,
And climbing for a kiss prevent their mother's
haste,

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80

Inspiring secret pleasure through thy breast;
Ah! these shall be no more: thy friends oppress'd
Thy care and courage now no more shall free;
Ah! wretch, thou criest, ah! miserable me!
One woful day sweeps children, friends, and wife.
And all the brittle blessings of my life!
Add one thing more, and all thou say'st is true;
Thy want and wish of them is vanish'd too:

85

Which, well consider'd, were a quick relief To all thy vain imaginary grief.

90

For thou shalt sleep, and never wake again,
And, quitting life, shall quit thy living pain.
But we, thy friends, shall all those sorrows find,
Which in forgetful death thou leav'st behind;
No time shall dry our tears, nor drive thee from
our mind.

The worst that can befal thee, measured right, 95
Is a sound slumber, and a long good night.
Yet thus the fools, that would be thought the
wits,

Disturb their mirth with melancholy fits:
When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,
Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow, 100
They whine, and cry, Let us make haste to live,
Short are the joys that human life can give.
Eternal preachers, that corrupt the draught,
And pall the god, that never thinks, with thought;
Idiots with all that thought. to whom the worst
Of death, is want of drink, and endless thirst, 106
Or any fond desire as vain as these.

110

For, even in sleep, the body, wrapt in ease,
Supinely lies, as in the peaceful grave;
And, wanting nothing, nothing can it crave.
Were that sound sleep eternal, it were death;
Yet the first atoms then, the seeds of breath,
Are moving near to sense; we do but shake
And rouse that sense, and straight we are awake.
Then death to us, and death's anxiety,
Is less than nothing, if a less could be.
For then our atoms, which in order lay,
Are scatter'd from their heap, and puff'd away,
And never can return into their place,

115

When once the pause of life has left an empty space.

120

And last, suppose great Nature's voice should call To thee, or me, or any of us all,

"What dost thou mean, ungrateful wretch, thou vain,

Thou mortal thing, thus idly to complain,
And sigh and sob, that thou shalt be no more? 125
For if thy life were pleasant heretofore,
If all the bounteous blessings, I could give,
Thou hast enjoy'd, if thou hast known to live,
And pleasure not leak'd through thee like a sieve;
Why dost thou not give thanks, as at a plenteous
feast,

130

Cramm'd to the throat with life, and rise and take thy rest?

But if my blessings thou hast thrown away,
If indigested joys pass'd through, and would not

stay,

135

Why dost thou wish for more to squander still?
If life be grown a load, a real ill,
And I would all thy cares and labours end,
Lay down thy burden, fool, and know thy friend.
To please thee, I have emptied all my store,
I can invent, and can supply no more;
But run the round again, the round I ran before. 140
Suppose thou art not broken yet with years,
Yet still the self-same scene of things appears,
And would be ever, could'st thou ever live;
For life is still but life, there's nothing new to give."
What can we plead against so just a bill?
We stand convicted, and our cause goes ill.
But if a wretch, a man oppress'd by fate,
Should beg of Nature to prolong his date,
She speaks aloud to him with more disdain,
"Be still, thou martyr fool, thou covetous of pain."

145

131

133

But if an old decrepit sot lament;
"What thou (she cries) who hast out-lived content!
Dost thou complain, who hast enjoy'd my stcre?
But this is still the effect of wishing more.
Unsatisfied with all that Nature brings;
Loathing the present, liking absent things;
From hence it comes, thy vain desires, at strife
Within themselves, have tantalised thy life,
And ghastly death appear'd before thy sight,
Ere thou hast gorged thy soul and senses with
delight.

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163

Now leave those joys, unsuiting to thy age,
To a fresh comer, and resign the stage."
Is Nature to be blamed if thus she chide?
No sure; for 'tis her business to provide
Against this ever-changing frame's decay,
New things to come, and old to pass away.
One being, worn, another being makes;
Changed, but not lost; for Nature gives and takes:
New matter must be found for things to come,
And these must waste like those, and follow
Nature's doom.

All things, like thee, have time to rise and rot;
And from each other's ruin are begot;

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175

For life is not confined to him or thee:
'Tis given to all for use, to none for property.
Consider former ages past and gone,
Whose circles ended long ere thine begun,
Then tell me, fool, what part in them thou hast!
Thus may'st thou judge the future by the past.
What horror seest thou in that quiet state,
What bugbear dreams to fright thee after fate? 190
No ghost, no goblins, that still passage keep;
But all is there serene, in that eternal sleep.
For all the dismal tales, that Poets tell,
Are verified on earth, and not in hell.
No Tantalus looks up with fearful eye,
Or dreads the impending rock to crush him from
on high:

185

100

But fear of chance on earth disturbs our easy hours,
Or vain imagined wrath of vain imagined powers.
No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell;
Nor could the lobes of his rank liver swell
To that prodigious mass, for their eternal meal:
Not though his monstrous bulk had cover'd o'er
Nine spreading acres, or nine thousand more;
Not though the globe of earth had been the
giant's floor.

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200

Nor in eternal torments could he lie;
Nor could his corpse sufficient food supply.
But he's the Tityus, who by love oppress'd,
Or tyrant passion preying on his breast,
And ever anxious thoughts, is robb'd of rest.
The Sisyphus is he, whom noise and strife
Seduce from all the soft retreats of life,
To vex the government, disturb the laws:
Drunk with the fumes of popular applause,
He courts the giddy crowd to make him great,
And sweats and toils in vain, to mount the sove
reign seat.

For still to aim at power, and still to fail,
Ever to strive, and never to prevail,
What is it, but, in reason's true account,
To heave the stone against the rising mount?
Which urged, and labour'd, and forced up with

225

To vessels of their sex, which none could ever fill.
As for the dog, the furies, and their snakes,
The gloomy caverns, and the burning lakes,
And all the vain infernal trumpery,
They neither are, nor were, nor e'er can be.
But here on earth the guilty have in view
The mighty pains to mighty mischiefs due;
Racks, prisons, poisons, the Tarpeian rock,
Stripes, hangmen, pitch, and suffocating smoke;
And last, and most, if these were cast behind, 230
The avenging horror of a conscious mind,
Whose deadly fear anticipates the blow,
And sees no end of punishment and woe;
But looks for more, at the last gasp of breath:
This makes a hell on earth, and life a death.
Meantime when thoughts of death disturb thy head;
Consider, Ancus, great and good, is dead;
Ancus, thy better far, was born to die;
And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?
So many monarchs, with their mighty state,
Who ruled the world, were over-ruled by fate.
That haughty king, who lorded o'er the main,
And whose stupendous bridge did the wild waves
restrain,

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210

(In vain they foam'd, in vain they threaten'd

wreck,

Uneasy both in country and in town,
They search a place to lay their burden down.
One, restless in his palace, walks abroad,
And vainly thinks to leave behind the load:
But straight returns; for he's as restless there;
And finds there's no relief in open air.
Another to his villa would retire,

And spurs as hard as if it were on fire;
No sooner enter'd at his country door,
But he begins to stretch, and yawn, and snore;
Or seeks the city which he left before.
Thus every man o'erworks his weary will,
To shun himself, and to shake off his ill;

280

285

And study Nature well, and Nature's laws;
For in this moment lies not the debate,
But on our future, fix'd, eternal state;
That never-changing state, which all must keep,
Whom death has doom'd to everlasting sleep. 300
Why are we then so fond of mortal life,
Beset with dangers, and maintain'd with strife?
A life, which all our care can never save;
One fate attends us, and one common grave.
Besides, we tread but a perpetual round;
We ne'er strike out, but beat the former ground,
And the same mawkish joys in the same track are
found.

For still we think an absent blessing best,
Which cloys, and is no blessing when possess'd;
A new arising wish expels it from the breast.
The feverish thirst of life increases still;

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310

We call for more and more, and never have our fill;

Yet know not what to-morrow we shall try,
What dregs of life in the last draught may lie:
Nor, by the longest life we can attain,

One moment from the length of death we gain;
For all behind belongs to his eternal reign.
When once the fates have cut the mortal thread,
The man as much to all intents is dead,
Who dies to-day, and will as long be so,
As he who died a thousand years ago.

FROM THE FIFTH BOOK OF LUCRETIUS.

TUM PORRÒ PUer, &c.

THUS, like a sailor by a tempest hurl'd

Ashore, the babe is shipwreck'd on the world:

Naked he lies, and ready to expire;

Helpless of all that human wants require;

Exposed upon unhospitable earth,

From the first moment of his hapless birth.

Straight with foreboding cries he fills the room; Too true presages of his future doom.

315

320

So may the auspicious Queen of Love,
And the Twin Stars, the seed of Jove,
And he who rules the raging wind,
To thee, O sacred ship, be kind;
And gentle breezes fill thy sails,
Supplying soft Etesian gales:

As thou to whom the Muse commends
The best of poets and of friends,

Dost thy committed pledge restore,
And land him safely on the shore;
And save the better part of me,
From perishing with him at sea.
Sure he, who first the passage tried,
In harden'd oak his heart did hide,
And ribs of iron arm'd his side;
Or his at least, in hollow wood

10

18

All brooding on the blasted ground:
And limping Death, lash'd on by fate,
Comes up to shorten half our date.
This made not Dædalus beware,
With borrow'd wings to sail in air:
To hell Alcides forced his way,
Plunged through the lake, and snatch'd the

50

Who tempted first the briny flood:
Nor fear'd the winds' contending roar,
Nor billows beating on the shore;
Nor Hyades portending rain;
Nor all the tyrants of the main.

What form of death could him affright,
Who unconcern'd, with steadfast sight,
Could view the surges mounting steep,
And monsters rolling in the deep!
Could through the ranks of ruin go,
With storms above, and rocks below!
In vain did Nature's wise command
Divide the waters from the land,

If daring ships and men profane
Invade the inviolable main;
The eternal fences overleap,

20

25

30

And pass at will the boundless deep. No toil, no hardship can restrain

Ambitious man, inured to pain;

35

The more confined, the more he tries,

BEHOLD yon mountain's hoary height, Made higher with new mounts of snow; Again behold the winter's weight

Oppress the labouring woods below: And streams, with icy fetters bound, Benumb'd and cramp'd to solid ground.