Homage To Sextus Propertius - III
Midnight, and a letter comes to me from our mistress:
Telling me to come to Tibur:
At once!!
'Bright tips reach up from twin towers,
'Anienan spring water falls into flat-spread pools.'
What is to be done about it?
Shall I entrust myself to entangled shadows,
Where bold hands may do violence to my person?
Yet if I postpone my obedience
because of this respectable terror,
I shall be prey to lamentations worse than a nocturnal assailant.
And I shall be in the wrong,
it will last a twelve month,
For her hands have no kindness me-ward,
Nor is there anyone to whom lovers are not sacred at midnight
And in the Via Sciro.
If any man would be a lover
he may walk on the Scythian coast,
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The Bellaires
The good Bellaires
Do not understand the conduct of this world's affairs.
In fact they understood them so badly
That they have had to cross the Channel.
Nine lawyers, four counsels, five judges and three
proctors of the King,
Together with the respective wives, husbands, sisters
and heterogeneous connections of the good Bellaires,
Met to discuss their affairs;
But the good Bellaires have so little understood their
affairs
That now there is no one at all
Who can understand any affair of theirs. Yet
Fourteen hunters still eat in the stables of
The good Squire Bellaire;
But these may not suffer attainder,
For they may not belong to the good Squire Bellaire
But to his wife.
On the contrary, if they do not belong to his wife,
He will plead
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Homage To Sextus Propertius - XI
1
The harsh acts of your levity!
Many and many.
I am hung here, a scare-crow for lovers.
2
Escape! There is, O Idiot, no escape,
Flee if you like into Ranaus,
desire will follow you thither,
Though you heave into the air upon the gilded Pegasean back,
Though you had the feathery sandals of Perseus
To lift you up through split air,
The high tracks of Hermes would not afford you shelter.
Amor stands upon you, Love drives upon lovers,
a heavy mass on free necks.
It is our eyes you flee, not the city,
You do nothing, you plot inane schemes against me,
Languidly you stretch out the snare
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Canto 49
For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.
Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk's bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.
Where wine flag catches the sunset
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Canto XLIX: For the Seven Lakes
For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.
Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk's bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.
Where wine flag catches the sunset
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Impressions Of Francois-Marie Arouet (De Voltaire)
I
Phyllidula and the Spoils of Gouvernet
Where, Lady, are the days
When you could go out in a hired hansom
Without footmen and equipments?
And dine in a soggy, cheap restaurant?
Phyllidula now, with your powdered Swiss footman
Clanking the door shut,
and lying;
And carpets from Savonnier, and from Persia,
And your new service at dinner,
And plates from Germain,
And cabinets and chests from Martin (almost lacquer),
And your white vases from Japan,
And the lustre of diamonds,
Etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera?
II
To Madame du Châtelet
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Homage To Sextus Propertius - X
.Light, light of my eyes, at an exceeding late hour I was wandering,
And intoxicated,
and no servant was leading me,
And a minute crowd of small boys came from opposite,
I do not know what boys,
And I am afraid of numerical estimate,
And some of them shook little torches,
and others held onto arrows,
And the rest laid their chains upon me,
and they were naked, the lot of them,
And one of the lot was given to lust.
'That incensed female has consigned him to our pleasure.'
So spoke. And the noose was over my neck.
And another said 'Get him plumb in the middle!
'Shove along there, shove along!'
And another broke in upon this:
'He thinks that we are not gods,'
'And she has been waiting for the scoundrel,
and in a new Sidonian night cap,
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Homage To Sextus Propertius - VIII
Jove, be merciful to that unfortunate woman
Or an ornamental death will be held to your debit,
The time is come, the air heaves in torridity,
The dry earth pants against the canicular heat,
But this heat is not the root of the matter:
She did not respect all the gods;
Such derelictions have destroyed other young ladies aforetime,
And what they swore in the cupboard
wind and wave scattered away.
Was Venus exacerbated by the existence of a comparable equal?
Is the ornamental goddess full of envy?
Have you contempted Juno's Pelasgian temples,
Have you denied Pallas good eyes ?
Or is it my tongue that wrongs you
with perpetual ascription of graces?
There comes, it seems, and at any rate
through perils, (so many) and of a vexed life,
The gentler hour of an ultimate day.
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Planh For The Young English King
If all the grief and woe and bitterness,
All dolour, ill and every evil chance
That ever came upon this grieving world
Were set together they would seem but light
Against the death of the young English King.
Worth lieth riven and Youth dolorous,
The world overshadowed, soiled and overcast,
Void of all joy and full of ire and sadness.
Grieving and sad and full of bitterness
Are left in teen the liegemen courteous,
The joglars supple and the troubadours.
O'er much hath ta'en Sir Death that deadly warrior
In taking from them the young English King,
Who made the freest hand seem covetous.
'Las! Never was nor will be in this world
The balance for this loss in ire and sadness!
O skilful Death and full of bitterness,
Well mayst thou boast that thou the best chevalier
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Homage To Sextus Propertius - IV
DIFFERENCE OF OPINION WITH
LYGDAMUS
Tell me the truths which you hear of our constant young lady,
Lygdamus,
And may the bought yoke of a mistress lie with
equitable weight on your shoulders;
For I am swelled up with inane pleasurabilities
and deceived by your reference
To things which you think I would like to believe.
No messenger should come wholly empty,
and a slave should fear plausibilities;
Much conversation is as good as having a home.
Out with it, tell it to me, all of it, from the beginning,
I guzzle with outstretched ears.
Thus? She wept into uncombed hair,
And you saw it.
Vast waters flowed from her eyes ?
You, you Lygdamus
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