Poems; original and translated :: :: University of Virginia Library

Devenere locos lætos et amœna vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas.
Quæ gratia currûm
Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes
Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos.

Beyond the Acherontian pool
And gloomy realms of Pluto's rule
The happy Soul hath come:
And hark, what music on the breeze?
Twas like the tune of summer-bees,
A myriad-floating hum.

From spirits like himself it flowed,
A welcome to his blest abode,
That melody of sound:
And lo, the sky all azure-clear,
And liquid-soft the atmosphere:
It is Elysian ground.

To mortals who on earth fulfil
The great Olympian Father's will
Are given these happy glades;
Where they from all corruption free
In unrestricted liberty
May dwell, etherial shades.

All shrubs for them of rich perfume,
Amaracus and myrtle bloom,
And flowers of brightest hue,
The rose, the hyacinthine bell,
And amaranth and asphodel,
Are ever young and new.

And silver sparkling rivers meet,
Or glide with undulation sweet
Their verdant shores along;
And echoes are in every dale
Of airy harp and nightingale
And babbling water-song.

There is no bound of time or place;
Each spirit moves in endless space
Advancing as he wills:
The summer lightnings gleam not so,
As life with ever varying flow
The tender bosom thrills.

And memory is unmixt with pain,
Though consciousness they still retain
Of joys they left behind:
Whate'er on earth they held most dear,
To pure enjoyment hallow'd here
In golden dream they find.

The pilgrim oft by whispering trees
Hath stretcht his weary limbs at ease,
And laid his burden down:

The reaping-man hath dropt his scythe,
Around him gather'd harvests blithe
The field with plenty crown.

The warrior-chief in soft repose
Bethinks him of his vanquish'd foes,
And martial sounds begin
To rattle in his slumbering ear,
The rolling drum, the soldier's cheer,
And dreadful battle-din.

The lover, whom untimely fate
Hath sever'd from a worthy mate,
Expects the destin'd hour,
When she shall come his bliss to share,
In beauty clad, divinely fair,
With love's immortal dower.

Meanwhile in many a vision kind
He sees her imaged to his mind,
And for her brow he weaves
A mystic bridal coronel,
Such as no poet's tongue can tell,
Nor human heart conceives.

And now the stranger with a band
Of fond companions hand in hand
Is led into the grove;
And straight for his beloved he looks;
Around the vales, the meads, the brooks,
His eyes impatient rove.

Whom on a bank of mossy green
Reclined he sees, by her is seen,
And in a moment both
Together rush, like sunbeams meet,
And in a perfect union sweet
Renew their early troth:

And all the fond Elysian band
Around the pair in rapture stand,
And songs triumphal chime:
Oh, this is love, and life to live,
Such joy as Hymen cannot give;
Soul-harmony sublime!