Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a

promontory.

So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,

Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,

Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter

tremulously,

Then her pulses at the clamouring of her enemy fainted away.

Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous

agonies.

Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary,

Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Cámulodúne.

IN QUANTITY.

ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER.

Hexameters and Pentameters.

THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer!

No-but a most burlesque barbarous experiment. When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?

When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon ? Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,

Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.

MILTON.

Alcaics.

O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan

Rings to the roar of an angel onset— Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods Whisper in odorous heights of even.

Hendecasyllabics.

O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
All composed in a metre of Catullus,
All in quantity, careful of my motion,
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,
Lest I fall unawares before the people,

Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.

Should I flounder awhile without a tumble

Thro' this metrification of Catullus,

They should speak to me not without a welcome,

All that chorus of indolent reviewers.

Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble,
So fantastical is the dainty metre.

Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers.
O blatant Magazines, regard me rather—
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment—
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost
Horticultural art, or half coquette-like
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.

SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE

ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE.

So Hector spake; the Trojans roar'd applause ; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own;

And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep

In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine

And bread from out the houses brought, and

heap'd

Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain
Roll'd the rich vapour far into the heaven.
And these all night upon the bridge 1 of war
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed:
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart:
1 Or, ridge.

VOL. II.

X