Woman
Thou wilt not stay, then?
Wanderer
May God preserve thee,
And bless thy boy!
Woman
A happy journey!
Wanderer
Whither conducts the path
Across yon hill?
Woman
To Cuma.
Wanderer
How far from hence?
Woman
’Tis full three miles.
Wanderer
Farewell!
Oh Nature, guide me on my way!
The wandering stranger guide,
Who o’er the tombs
Of holy bygone times
Is passing,
To a kind sheltering place,
From North winds safe,
And where a poplar grove
Shuts out the noontide ray!
And when I come
Home to my cot
At evening,
Illumined by the setting sun,
Let me embrace a wife like this,
Her infant in her arms!
1772. * Compare with the beautiful description contained in the subsequent lines, an account of a ruined temple of Ceres, given by Chamberlayne in his Pharonnida (published in 1659)
“…. With mournful majesiy
A heap of solitary ruins lie,
Half sepulchred in dust, the bankrupt heir
To prodigal antiquity….”
——-
LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.
ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch’d out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover’d.
Suddenly a boy appear’d beside me,
Saying “Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
On the vacant pall with such composure?
Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
Both in painting cunningly, and forming?”
On the child I gazed, and thought in secret:
“Would the boy pretend to be a master?”
“Wouldst thou be for ever dull and idle,”
Said the boy, “no wisdom thou’lt attain to;
See, I’ll straightway paint for thee a figure,—
How to paint a beauteous figure, show thee.”
And he then extended his fore-finger,—
(Ruddy was it as a youthful rosebud)
Tow’rd the broad and far outstretching carpet,
And began to draw there with his finger.
First on high a radiant sun he painted,
Which upon mine eyes with splendour glisten’d,
And he made the clouds with golden border,
Through the clouds he let the sunbeams enter;
Painted then the soft and feathery summits
Of the fresh and quicken’d trees, behind them
One by one with freedom drew the mountains;
Underneath he left no lack of water,
But the river painted so like Nature,
That it seem’d to glitter in the sunbeams,
That it seem’d against its banks to murmur.
Ah, there blossom’d flowers beside the river,
And bright colours gleam’d upon the meadow,
Gold, and green, and purple, and enamell’d,
All like carbuncles and emeralds seeming!
Bright and clear he added then the heavens,
And the blue-tinged mountains far and farther,
So that I, as though newborn, enraptured
Gazed on, now the painter, now the picture.
Then spake he: “Although I have convinced thee
That this art I understand full surely,
Yet the hardest still is left to show thee.”
Thereupon he traced, with pointed finger,
And with anxious care, upon the forest,
At the utmost verge, where the strong sunbeams
From the shining ground appear’d reflected,
Traced the figure of a lovely maiden,
Fair in form, and clad in graceful fashion,
Fresh the cheeks beneath her brown locks’ ambush,
And the cheeks possess’d the selfsame colour
As the finger that had served to paint them.
“Oh thou boy!” exclaim’d I then, “what master
In his school received thee as his pupil,
Teaching thee so truthfully and quickly
Wisely to begin, and well to finish?”
Whilst I still was speaking, lo, a zephyr
Softly rose, and set the tree-tops moving,
Curling all the wavelets on the river,
And the perfect maiden’s veil, too, fill’d it,
And to make my wonderment still greater,
Soon the maiden set her foot in motion.
On she came, approaching tow’rd the station
Where still sat I with my arch instructor.
As now all, yes, all thus moved together,—
Flowers, river, trees, the veil,—all moving,—
And the gentle foot of that most fair one,
Can ye think that on my rock I linger’d,
Like a rock, as though fast-chain’d and silent?
1788. ——-