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Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant
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And swim, unmarked, the glassy sea.
"And we have none to love or aid,
But wander, heedless of mankind,
With shadows by the cloud-rack made,
With moaning wave and sighing wind.
"Yet sometimes, as in elder days,
We come before the painter's eye,
Or fix the sculptor's eager gaze,
With no profaner witness nigh.
"And then the words of men grow warm
With praise and wonder, asking where
The artist saw the perfect form
He copied forth in lines so fair."
As thus they spoke, with wavering sweep
Floated the graceful forms away;
Dimmer and dimmer, through the deep,
I saw the white arms gleam and play.
Fainter and fainter, on mine ear,
Fell the soft accents of their speech,
Till I, at last, could only hear
The waves run murmuring up the beach.
THE RUINS OF ITALICA.[39 - The poems of the Spanish author, Francisco de Rioja, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, are few in number, but much esteemed. His ode on the Ruins of Italica is one of the most admired of these, but in the only collection of his poems which I have seen, it is said that the concluding stanza, in the original copy, was deemed so little worthy of the rest that it was purposely omitted in the publication. Italica was a city founded by the Romans in the south of Spain, the remains of which are still an object of interest.]
FROM THE SPANISH OF RIOJA
I
Fabius, this region, desolate and drear,
These solitary fields, this shapeless mound,
Were once Italica, the far-renowned;
For Scipio, the mighty, planted here
His conquering colony, and now, o'erthrown,
Lie its once-dreaded walls of massive stone,
Sad relics, sad and vain,
Of those invincible men
Who held the region then.
Funereal memories alone remain
Where forms of high example walked of yore.
Here lay the forum, there arose the fane —
The eye beholds their places, and no more.
Their proud gymnasium and their sumptuous baths
Resolved to dust and cinders, strew the paths;
Their towers, that looked defiance at the sky,
Fallen by their own vast weight, in fragments lie.
II
This broken circus, where the rock-weeds climb,
Flaunting with yellow blossoms, and defy
The gods to whom its walls were piled so high,
Is now a tragic theatre, where Time
Acts his great fable, spreads a stage that shows
Past grandeur's story and its dreary close.
Why, round this desert pit,
Shout not the applauding rows
Where the great people sit?
Wild beasts are here, but where the combatant;
With his bare arms, the strong athleta where?
All have departed from this once gay haunt
Of noisy crowds, and silence holds the air.
Yet, on this spot, Time gives us to behold
A spectacle as stern as those of old.
As dreamily I gaze, there seem to rise,
From all the mighty ruin, wailing cries.
III
The terrible in war, the pride of Spain,
Trajan, his country's father, here was born;
Good, fortunate, triumphant, to whose reign
Submitted the far regions, where the morn
Rose from her cradle, and the shore whose steeps
O'erlooked the conquered Gaditanian deeps.
Of mighty Adrian here,
Of Theodosius, saint,
Of Silius, Virgil's peer,
Were rocked the cradles, rich with gold, and quaint
With ivory carvings; here were laurel-boughs
And sprays of jasmine gathered for their brows,
From gardens now a marshy, thorny waste.
Where rose the palace, reared for Cæsar, yawn
Foul rifts to which the scudding lizards haste.
Palaces, gardens, Cæsars, all are gone,
And even the stones their names were graven on.
IV
Fabius, if tears prevent thee not, survey
The long-dismantled streets, so thronged of old,
The broken marbles, arches in decay,
Proud statues, toppled from their place and rolled
In dust, when Nemesis, the avenger, came,
And buried, in forgetfulness profound,
The owners and their fame.
"And we have none to love or aid,
But wander, heedless of mankind,
With shadows by the cloud-rack made,
With moaning wave and sighing wind.
"Yet sometimes, as in elder days,
We come before the painter's eye,
Or fix the sculptor's eager gaze,
With no profaner witness nigh.
"And then the words of men grow warm
With praise and wonder, asking where
The artist saw the perfect form
He copied forth in lines so fair."
As thus they spoke, with wavering sweep
Floated the graceful forms away;
Dimmer and dimmer, through the deep,
I saw the white arms gleam and play.
Fainter and fainter, on mine ear,
Fell the soft accents of their speech,
Till I, at last, could only hear
The waves run murmuring up the beach.
THE RUINS OF ITALICA.[39 - The poems of the Spanish author, Francisco de Rioja, who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, are few in number, but much esteemed. His ode on the Ruins of Italica is one of the most admired of these, but in the only collection of his poems which I have seen, it is said that the concluding stanza, in the original copy, was deemed so little worthy of the rest that it was purposely omitted in the publication. Italica was a city founded by the Romans in the south of Spain, the remains of which are still an object of interest.]
FROM THE SPANISH OF RIOJA
I
Fabius, this region, desolate and drear,
These solitary fields, this shapeless mound,
Were once Italica, the far-renowned;
For Scipio, the mighty, planted here
His conquering colony, and now, o'erthrown,
Lie its once-dreaded walls of massive stone,
Sad relics, sad and vain,
Of those invincible men
Who held the region then.
Funereal memories alone remain
Where forms of high example walked of yore.
Here lay the forum, there arose the fane —
The eye beholds their places, and no more.
Their proud gymnasium and their sumptuous baths
Resolved to dust and cinders, strew the paths;
Their towers, that looked defiance at the sky,
Fallen by their own vast weight, in fragments lie.
II
This broken circus, where the rock-weeds climb,
Flaunting with yellow blossoms, and defy
The gods to whom its walls were piled so high,
Is now a tragic theatre, where Time
Acts his great fable, spreads a stage that shows
Past grandeur's story and its dreary close.
Why, round this desert pit,
Shout not the applauding rows
Where the great people sit?
Wild beasts are here, but where the combatant;
With his bare arms, the strong athleta where?
All have departed from this once gay haunt
Of noisy crowds, and silence holds the air.
Yet, on this spot, Time gives us to behold
A spectacle as stern as those of old.
As dreamily I gaze, there seem to rise,
From all the mighty ruin, wailing cries.
III
The terrible in war, the pride of Spain,
Trajan, his country's father, here was born;
Good, fortunate, triumphant, to whose reign
Submitted the far regions, where the morn
Rose from her cradle, and the shore whose steeps
O'erlooked the conquered Gaditanian deeps.
Of mighty Adrian here,
Of Theodosius, saint,
Of Silius, Virgil's peer,
Were rocked the cradles, rich with gold, and quaint
With ivory carvings; here were laurel-boughs
And sprays of jasmine gathered for their brows,
From gardens now a marshy, thorny waste.
Where rose the palace, reared for Cæsar, yawn
Foul rifts to which the scudding lizards haste.
Palaces, gardens, Cæsars, all are gone,
And even the stones their names were graven on.
IV
Fabius, if tears prevent thee not, survey
The long-dismantled streets, so thronged of old,
The broken marbles, arches in decay,
Proud statues, toppled from their place and rolled
In dust, when Nemesis, the avenger, came,
And buried, in forgetfulness profound,
The owners and their fame.
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