IN QUANTITY. ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER. Hexameters and Pentameters. HESE lame hexameters the strong wing'd music of Homer! No-but a most burlesque barba MILTON. Alcaics. 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, Me rather all that bowery loneliness, Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even. Hendecasyllabics. 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 O blatant Magazines, regard me rather- Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. O 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 bridge1 of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: 1 Or, ridge. As when in heaven the stars about the moon And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, Iliad VIII. 542-561. |