The Country Town and Other Poems By the late William John Courthope ... With a Memoir by A. O. Prickard |
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AN EPISTLE OF THANKS TO THE REV. H. MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D. |
 | The Country Town and Other Poems |  |
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AN EPISTLE OF THANKS TO THE REV. H. MONTAGU BUTLER, D.D.
[_]
On receiving a copy of his Address (to the Classical Association) ‘On the Value of Translations from the Classics’
In Rome's Imperial agony, when first
The Gothic deluge on her confines burst,
And, her free virtues sapped by long decay,
The dykes of old civility gave way,
So wide around the waste of waters spread,
To the blind sense the world below seemed dead,
And Memory's self above could hardly trace
One rising relic of the vanished grace.
The Gothic deluge on her confines burst,
And, her free virtues sapped by long decay,
The dykes of old civility gave way,
So wide around the waste of waters spread,
To the blind sense the world below seemed dead,
And Memory's self above could hardly trace
One rising relic of the vanished grace.
Dark was the scene; but when the turning tide
Made the wild flood in gradual ebb subside,
The wandering conquerors with joy and awe
Ris'n from the waves a world of wonder saw;
Nor dully were content t'admire alone,
But with the bygone fashions fused their own;
Till, from the barbarous chaos framed anew,
Customs to Laws and Tribes to Kingdoms grew:
From arts exhausted fresh inventions sprung,
And antique science tuned each infant tongue.
Made the wild flood in gradual ebb subside,
The wandering conquerors with joy and awe
Ris'n from the waves a world of wonder saw;
Nor dully were content t'admire alone,
But with the bygone fashions fused their own;
Till, from the barbarous chaos framed anew,
Customs to Laws and Tribes to Kingdoms grew:
From arts exhausted fresh inventions sprung,
And antique science tuned each infant tongue.
Where'er the soul of German Freedom thrived,
The buried life of Greece and Rome revived.
On stocks of Attic taste and Latin lore
The wild barbaric graft new offsping bore.
Fresh skill from these our simple fathers learned,
And the just limits of the Arts discerned;—
The life of every subject to express,
In every theme to shun the more or less,
And show, in utterance of each inward thought,
Not how the phrase might stand, but how it ought.
The buried life of Greece and Rome revived.
On stocks of Attic taste and Latin lore
The wild barbaric graft new offsping bore.
85
And the just limits of the Arts discerned;—
The life of every subject to express,
In every theme to shun the more or less,
And show, in utterance of each inward thought,
Not how the phrase might stand, but how it ought.
Now, masters in our house, like spendthrift heir,
Glad to escape his guardian's hateful care,
And all his long minority forget,
We scorn our teachers, and deny our debt.
Proud of th' imperial speech we call our own,
We leave the laws our sires revered unknown,
And set, in savage ignorance, at nought
What Sophocles approved and Horace taught.
Their very memories banished from our head,
We deem the Greek, the Roman, language dead.
Barred from young souls, whose access once was free,
In durance pines divine Antigone,
And sweet Alcestis, to our ears unsung,
Embalmed reposes in an alien tongue.
Glad to escape his guardian's hateful care,
And all his long minority forget,
We scorn our teachers, and deny our debt.
Proud of th' imperial speech we call our own,
We leave the laws our sires revered unknown,
And set, in savage ignorance, at nought
What Sophocles approved and Horace taught.
Their very memories banished from our head,
We deem the Greek, the Roman, language dead.
Barred from young souls, whose access once was free,
In durance pines divine Antigone,
And sweet Alcestis, to our ears unsung,
Embalmed reposes in an alien tongue.
Not thus in your old school you learned of yore
With arrogant conceit the past t'explore;
But, with the generous faith of boyhood's heart,
At the pure fountains of Hellenic art
You drank; your debt for every ancient's aid
Acknowledged; and in kind the loan repaid.
Old tongues with new harmoniously you link;
You teach the English Muse in Greek to think;
And many a British bard, inspired by you,
Drinks in just ‘quantities’ Castalian dew,
And, clothed in Latin numbers, charms anew.
In you the Muse's classic lineage runs,
And Wellesley's art unites with Addison's.
With arrogant conceit the past t'explore;
But, with the generous faith of boyhood's heart,
At the pure fountains of Hellenic art
You drank; your debt for every ancient's aid
Acknowledged; and in kind the loan repaid.
Old tongues with new harmoniously you link;
You teach the English Muse in Greek to think;
And many a British bard, inspired by you,
Drinks in just ‘quantities’ Castalian dew,
And, clothed in Latin numbers, charms anew.
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And Wellesley's art unites with Addison's.
Still to your task of piety inclined,
Our duties to past days you call to mind;
And, since the ancient oracles are dumb,
You bid the moderns to the rescue come,
And what they can of olden treasure save
From barbarism's black resurgent wave.
Though to reanimate in English strain
The life of Grecian form be labour vain,
Wisely you urge that from a former date
The spirit of the age we may translate.
Not Bembo's art and imitative hand
Plutocracy's dire plague can now withstand;
But, with the modern blood you would infuse,
You, like Erasmus, may preserve the Muse,
And though ungrateful Oxford spurn the Greek,
An English Plato may in Jowett speak.
Our duties to past days you call to mind;
And, since the ancient oracles are dumb,
You bid the moderns to the rescue come,
And what they can of olden treasure save
From barbarism's black resurgent wave.
Though to reanimate in English strain
The life of Grecian form be labour vain,
Wisely you urge that from a former date
The spirit of the age we may translate.
Not Bembo's art and imitative hand
Plutocracy's dire plague can now withstand;
But, with the modern blood you would infuse,
You, like Erasmus, may preserve the Muse,
And though ungrateful Oxford spurn the Greek,
An English Plato may in Jowett speak.
Master and Friend! from whom your scholar caught
The swift contagion of the classic thought;
The times are changed, but, as your words I read,
The intervening years afar recede:
Once more in school, I take my customed seat,
A student at the loved Gamaliel's feet,
And note how well the records of old wit
The various fortunes of our age befit;
See in the vigour of my Crawley's page,
How still Corcyra's factions waste our age;
The swift contagion of the classic thought;
The times are changed, but, as your words I read,
The intervening years afar recede:
Once more in school, I take my customed seat,
A student at the loved Gamaliel's feet,
And note how well the records of old wit
The various fortunes of our age befit;
See in the vigour of my Crawley's page,
How still Corcyra's factions waste our age;
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On Tuesday's morn, in each revolving week,
Sit sympathetic, while the ‘merry Greek’
Proceeds the coats of Radicals to dust,
And dubs the Lib'ral argument ‘Unjust’.
Again on Herga's Hill I seem to hear
The Attic music of Etonian Frere,
While Epops, mourning the May midnight long,
Awakes his nightingale in English song.
Sit sympathetic, while the ‘merry Greek’
Proceeds the coats of Radicals to dust,
And dubs the Lib'ral argument ‘Unjust’.
Again on Herga's Hill I seem to hear
The Attic music of Etonian Frere,
While Epops, mourning the May midnight long,
Awakes his nightingale in English song.
Cease, idle dream! From disenchanted eyes
The Vision fades, the brief Illusion flies!
Of all that early band, inspired by you
To feel and act, alas! remain how few!
Yet when I hear the truths you taught of yore
Revived with ageless vigour at fourscore,
And the clear accents of the well-known voice
Proclaim the ancient gospel, I rejoice,
And thanks sincere for your prized gift commend
To these poor rhymes, dear Master and old Friend!
The Vision fades, the brief Illusion flies!
Of all that early band, inspired by you
To feel and act, alas! remain how few!
Yet when I hear the truths you taught of yore
Revived with ageless vigour at fourscore,
And the clear accents of the well-known voice
Proclaim the ancient gospel, I rejoice,
And thanks sincere for your prized gift commend
To these poor rhymes, dear Master and old Friend!
The writer's friend, the late Richard Crawley, Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, author of an admirable translation of Thucydides—which, in point of fact, appeared, alas! many years after the present writer had passed out of the status pupillaris.
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