A Miltonic Exercise

(TERCENTENARY, 1608-1908)

"Stops of various Quills."--LYCIDAS.


What need of votive Verse
To strew thy Laureat Herse
With that mix'd Flora of th' Aonian Hill?
Or Mincian vocall Reed,
That Cam and Isis breed,
When thine own Words are burning in us still?

Bard, Prophet, Archimage!
In this Cash-cradled Age,
We grate our scrannel Musick, and we dote:
Where is the Strain unknown,
Through Bronze or Silver blown,
That thrill'd the Welkin with thy woven Note?

Yes,--"we are selfish Men":
Yet would we once again
Might see Sabrina braid her amber Tire;

Or watch the Comus Crew
Sweep down the Glade; or view
Strange-streamer'd Craft from Javan or Gadire!

Or could we catch once more,
High up, the Clang and Roar
Of Angel Conflict,--Angel Overthrow;
Or, with a World begun,
Behold the young-ray'd Sun
Flame in the Groves where the Four Rivers go!

Ay me, I fondly dream!
Only the Storm-bird's Scream
Foretells of Tempest in the Days to come;
Nowhere is heard up-climb
The lofty lyric Rhyme,
And the "God-gifted Organ-voice" is dumb.^[1]

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

A Broken Sword.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Masque Of The Months.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

To The Mammoth-Tortoise Of The Mascarene Islands.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

In The Royal Academy.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

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In Quantity

On Translations of Homer

Hexameters acrd Pentameters.

These lame hexameters the strong-wingd music of Homer!
Nobut 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 skilld to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starrd from Jehovahs gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan
Rings to the roar of an angel onset
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
Th...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Il Penseroso

Hence vain deluding joyes,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bested,
Or fill the fixèd mind with all your toyes;
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that poeple the Sun Beams,
Or likest hovering dreams
The fickle Pensioners of Morpheus train.
But hail thou Goddess, sage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose Saintly visage is too bright
To hit the Sense of human sight;
And therefore to our weaker view,
Ore laid with black staid Wisdoms hue.
Black, but such as in esteem,
Prince Memnons sister might beseem,
Or that starrd Ethiope Queen that strove
To set her beauties praise above
The Sea Nymphs, and their powers offended,
Yet thou art high...

John Milton

Tempora Mutantur.

    There once was a time when I revelled in rhyme, with Valentines deluged my cousins,

    Translated Tibullus and half of Catullus, and poems produced by the dozens.

    Now my tale is nigh told, for my blood's running cold, all my laurels lie yellow and faded.

    "We have come to the boss;" [1] like a weary old hoss, poor Pegasus limps, and is jaded.

    And yet Mr. Editor, like a stern creditor, duns me for this or that article,

    Though he very well knows that of Verse and of prose I am stripped to the very last particle.

    What shall I write of?    What subject indite of? All my vis viva is failing;

    Emeritus sum; Mons Parnassus is dumb, and my prayers to the Nine unavailing. -

    Thus in vain have I often attempted to soft...

Edward Woodley Bowling

LAllegro

Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There, under Ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heavn yclepd Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some Sager sing)
The frolic Wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on Beds of Violets blew,
And fresh-blown roses washed in de...

John Milton

To Mr. John Rouse, Librarian of the University of Oxford,

An Ode on a Lost Volume of my Poems Which He Desired Me to Replace that He Might Add Them to My Other Works Deposited in the Library.

Strophe I

My two-fold Book! single in show
But double in Contents,
Neat, but not curiously adorn'd
Which in his early youth,
A poet gave, no lofty one in truth
Although an earnest wooer of the Muse
Say, while in cool Ausonian shades
Or British wilds he roam'd,
Striking by turns his native lyre,
By turns the Daunian lute
And stepp'd almost in air,

Antistrophe

Say, little book, what furtive hand
Thee from thy fellow books convey'd,
What time, at the repeated suit
Of my most learned Friend,
I sent thee forth an honour'd traveller
From our great city to the source of Thames,
Caerulean sire...

John Milton

To The Mammoth-Tortoise Of The Mascarene Islands.

"Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem
Callida nervis."
Hor. iii. 11.


Monster Chelonian, you suggest
To some, no doubt, the calm,--
The torpid ease of islets drest
In fan-like fern and palm;

To some your cumbrous ways, perchance,
Darwinian dreams recall;
And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;

So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine,--for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A LYRE immense, per se,

A LYRE to which the Muse might chant
A truly "Orphic tale,"
Could she but find that public want,
A Bard--of equal scale!

Oh, for a Bard of awful words,
And lungs serenely strong,
To sweep from your sonorous chords
Niagaras of song,

Till, dinned by that tremendous str...

Henry Austin Dobson