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(From The Ship Cincinnatus)
Translated by C. T. Brooks
DEAD dweller of Pompeii, with whose ashes | |
| Perchance, e’en now, the wanton winds are playing, | |
| That tease the grape and rose through viny meshes, | |
| Among the sunny locks of noonday straying! | |
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| Thine is the house, which I, thy guest, belated | 5 |
| Two thousand years, am at this moment greeting! | |
| Thou art a man with whom one well were mated, | |
| And me thy Lar invites to friendly meeting. | |
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| Thy “Salve!” still the old mosaics sound it | |
| Long after thee, up from the threshold glancing; | 10 |
| ’T is good for me, as once each neighbor found it, | |
| Who now, with thee, in fickle winds is dancing. | |
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| Thou wilt not scorn my visit, though a late one, | |
| Nor yet will I reproach the house’s master, | |
| Who bids me sit, he the rich man and great one, | 15 |
| For purple cushion, on this moss-clad plaster. | |
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| Well may thy Lares (’t is my heart’s desire) | |
| With my house-cobolds learn to exchange good wishes! | |
| Though they each other pelt with brands of fire, | |
| Heaven grant they only may not burn our dishes! | 20 |
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| Roof and gold beams all gone? and, in their places, | |
| Does Heaven’s blue canopy alone smile o’er us? | |
| Well, I ’m an easy guest, I ’ll say, “How graces | |
| Mine host’s blue silk o’erhead the scene before us?” | |
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| And though the sun upon my skull lies stinging, | 25 |
| It is the Rose of Silence (I will swear it), | |
| That even on Pæstum’s roses scorn is flinging,— | |
| How kind in honor of thy guest to wear it! | |
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| Yon ivy-vine where the cicada, swinging, | |
| Sits overhead, is the slack rope, suspended, | 30 |
| On which thy tumbler entertains us, springing;— | |
| No fall for him needs now be apprehended! | |
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| Here, too, is Love! His works immortal proving, | |
| Limned by the painter-poets on the ceiling! | |
| Racy and bold, in sooth! But then, in loving, | 35 |
| Better too bold than shy, the flame revealing! | |
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| Trophies of Bacchus, Amphoras, a rabble | |
| Of Bacchanals, lie round us, tipsy creatures; | |
| Their mouths are stopped with ashes, yet they gabble | |
| Still of their jolly god’s inspired features! | 40 |
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| Lo, the Papyrus-roll!—fair greeting, Muses! | |
| Though black and crisp, it holds in sacred keeping | |
| Pearls of your finery, as the muscle loses | |
| No pearly tear within its dark shrine sleeping. | |
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| Now let us go to thy garden’s feast of roses! | 45 |
| Alas, its mourning walls their treasure cherish, | |
| Like a sad urn, where, burned and black, reposes | |
| Fair Spring, who, as a youth, was doomed to perish! | |
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| Yet see! new violets nod, and roses yonder, | |
| Vines, palms, and plane-trees, Nature’s fresh plantations, | 50 |
| Blooming outside, look down in silent wonder, | |
| As we on graves of long-gone generations! | |
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| And see, still other guests my entrance follow! | |
| As I in rooms whence thou hast long departed, | |
| So makes herself at home the twittering swallow | 55 |
| In nests a thousand years ago deserted! | |
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| Round the rose-churchyard see, in these calm hours, | |
| Like a lost ghost, a venturous goldfinch hover! | |
| Hears he the spirits of the garden flowers? | |
| Dreams he of sires that here flew, warbling, over? | 60 |
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| But well I know, the ring of being, keeping | |
| One vast and shining track of glory, marches, | |
| Through star and tree and rose and sun-ball sweeping, | |
| Through man and angel, as aloft it arches! | |
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| Creation’s song, harmoniously sounded | 65 |
| By all,—not one can, by himself, repeat it! | |
| What by my stammering lips is never rounded, | |
| Rose, star, and tree, they must for me complete it! | |
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| ’T will be but part of me the grave encloses, | |
| A part of me shall still live on and flourish; | 70 |
| ’T is part of me, that breathes in scent of roses, | |
| And flames in suns, and vine and palm doth nourish! | |
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| Ay, ’t is a part of me, down hillsides leaping | |
| In fountains, winds along through earth’s green places, | |
| As butterfly, on bright-hued wings, is sweeping, | 75 |
| And with the swallow dawning summer traces! | |
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| So shall my “Salve!” greet each generation, | |
| As, o’er their roses, vines, and fountains sweeping, | |
| Borne on the wind’s wild wings, with exultation, | |
| My restless dust shall fly abroad unsleeping! | 80 |
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