MARTIAL ELEGY.

FROM THE GREEK OF TYRTEUS.

How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand,
In front of battle for their native land!

But oh! what ills await the wretch that yields,
A recreant outcast from his country's fields;
The mother whom he loves shall quit her home,
An aged father at his side shall roam ;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face,
They pine for food, and beg from place to place.

Stain of his breed! dishonouring manhood's form, All ills shall cleave to him :-Affliction's storm Shall bind him wandering in the vale of years, Till lost to all but ignominious fears, He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name, And children like himself inured to shame.

But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life-blood where we stand,
To save our children :-fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.

Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight, Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast Permit the man of age (a sight unblessed) To welter in the combat's foremost thrust, His hoary head dishevelled in the dust, And venerable bosom bleeding bare.

But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,

The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.

SPECIMENS OF TRANSLATIONS FROM MEDEA.

In

Σκαιοὺς δὲ λέγων, κουδέν τι σοφούς,
Τοὺς πρόσθε βροτοὺς, οὐκ ἂν ἁμάρτοις.

Medea, v. 194, p. 33, Glasg. edit.

TELL me, ye bards, whose skill sublime
First charmed the ear of youthful Time,
With numbers wrapt in heavenly fire,
Who bade delighted Echo swell
The trembling transports of the lyre,
The murmur of the shell-
Why to the burst of joy alone
Accords sweet music's soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?
While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep,
Bends not despairing grief to hear
Your golden lute with ravished ear?
Has all your art no power to bind
The fiercer pangs that shake the mind.
And lull the wrath at whose command
Murder bares her gory hand?
When flushed with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm!
The breast with other raptures warm!
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
Each in slumbers steep the heart of pain!

Its

SPEECH OF THE CHORUS,

IN THE SAME TRAGEDY.

To Dissuade Medea from her Purpose of Putting her Children to
Death, and Flying for Protection to Athens.

O HAGGARD queen! to Athens dost thou guide
Thy glowing chariot, steeped in kindred gore;
Or seek to hide thy foul infanticide

Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?

The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime,
Wooes the deep silence of sequestered bowers,
And warriors, matchless since the first of time,
Rear their bright banners o'er unconquered towers!

Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain,
Twines in the dance with nymphs for ever fair,
While Spring eternal on the lilied plain,

Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!

The tuneful Nine (so sacred legends tell)

First waked their heavenly lyre these scenes among; Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell; Still in your vales they swell the choral song!

But there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,

The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now
Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair
Waved in high auburn o'er her polished brow!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Where silent vales, and glades of green array,
The murmuring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave,
There, as the muse hath sung, at noon of day,

The Queen of Beauty bowed to taste the wave;

And blessed the stream, and breathed across the land The soft sweet gale that fans yon summer bowers; And there the sister Loves, a smiling band,

Crowned with the fragrant wreaths of rosy flowers!

"And go," she cries, "in yonder valleys rove,

With Beauty's torch the solemn scenes illume; Wake in each eye the radiant light of Love, Breathe on each cheek young Passion's tender bloom!

"Entwine, with myrtle chains, your soft control,
To sway the hearts of Freedom's darling kind!
With glowing charms enrapture Wisdom's soul,
And mould to grace ethereal Virtue's mind."

STROPHE II.

The land where Heaven's own hallowed waters play, Where friendship binds the generous and the good, Say, shall it hail thee from thy frantic way,

Unholy woman! with thy hands embrued

In thine own children's gore! Oh! ere they bleed,
Let nature's voice thy ruthless heart appal !
Pause at the bold, irrevocable deed-

The mother strikes-the guiltless babes shall fall!

Think what remorse thy maddening thoughts shall sting, When dying pangs their gentle bosoms tear ! Where shalt thou sink, when lingering echoes ring The screams of horror in thy tortured ear?

No! let thy bosom melt to Pity's cry

In dust we kneel-by sacred Heaven implore-
Oh! stop thy lifted arm, ere yet they die,
Nor dip thy horrid hands in infant gore!

ANTISTROPHE II.

Say, how shalt thou that barbarous soul assume,
Undamped by horror at the daring plan?
Hast thou a heart to work thy children's doom?
Or hands to finish what thy wrath began ?

When o'er each babe you look a last adieu,

And gaze on Innocence that smiles asleep, Shall no fond feeling beat to Nature true,

Charm thee to pensive thought—and bid thee weep?

When the young suppliants clasp their parent dear, Heave the deep sob, and pour the artless prayerAy! thou shalt melt ;—and many a heart-shed tear Gush o'er the hardened features of despair!

Nature shall throb in every tender string-
Thy trembling heart the ruffian's task deny ;
Thy horror-smitten hands afar shall fling
The blade, undrenched in blood's eternal dye.

(254)

CHORUS.

Hallowed Earth! with indignation

Mark, oh mark, the murderous deed!

Radiant eye of wide creation,

Watch th' accursed infanticide !

Yet, ere Colchia's rugged daughter
Perpetrate the dire design,
And consign to kindred slaughter
Children of thy golden line!

Shall mortal hand, with murder gory,
Cause immortal blood to flow?
Sun of Heaven!-arrayed in glory,
Rise, forbid, avert the blow !

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