The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems | Page 3

totos funde floras quidquid annus adtulit;
50
Hybla, florum rumpe vestem quantus Ætnæ campus est.
Ruris hic erunt puellæ, vel puellæ montium,
Quæque silvas, quæque
lucos, quæque fontes incolunt:
Jussit omnes adsidere mater alitis dei,
Jussit et nudo puellas nil
Amori credere. 55
Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet.
She has set
up her court, has Our Lady, in Hybla,
and deckt it with blooms:--
With the Graces at hand for assessors
Dione dispenses

her dooms.
Now burgeon, O Hybla! put forth and abound, till 50
Proserpina's field,
To the foison thy lap overflowing its laurel of
Sicily
yield.
Call, assemble the nymphs--hamadryad and dryad--
the echoes who court
From the rock, who the rushes inhabit, in
ripples
who swim and disport.
"I admonish you maids--I, his mother, who
suckled
the scamp ere he flew--
An ye trust to the Boy flying naked, some
pestilent 55
prank ye shall rue."
_Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye
who have
loved, love anew!_
Et rigentibus virentes ducit umbras floribus:
Cras erit quum primus
Æther copulavit nuptias,
Et pater totum creavit vernis annum nubibus,

In sinum maritus imber fluxit almæ conjugis, 60
Unde fetus mixtus
omnes aleret magno corpore.
Ipsa venas atque mentem permeanti
spiritu
Intus occultis gubernat procreatrix viribus,
Perque coelum,
perque terras, perque pontum
subditum
Pervium sui tenorem seminali tramite 65
She has coax'd her the shade of the hazel to cover
the wind-flower's birth.
Since the day the Great Father begat it,
descending
in streams upon Earth;
When the Seasons were hid in his loins, and
the

Earth lay recumbent, a wife,
To receive in the searching and genital
shower the 60
soft secret of life.
As the terrible thighs drew it down, and conceived,
as the embryo ran
Thoro' blood, thoro' brain, and the Mother gave all
to the making of man,
She, she, our Dione, directed the seminal
current to
creep,
Penetrating, possessing, by devious paths all the
height, all the deep.
She, of all procreation procuress, the share to the
65
furrow laid true;
Inbuit, jussitque mundum nosse nascendi vias.
_Cras amet qui
nunquam amavit; quique amavit
cras amet._
Ipsa Trojanos nepotes in Latinos transtulit,
Ipsa Laurentem puellam
conjugem nato dedit;
Moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem;
70
Romuleas ipsa fecit cum Sabinis nuptias,
Unde Ramnes et
Quirites proque prole posterum
Romuli matrem crearet et nepotem
Cæsarem.
_Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras
amet._
She, she, to the womb drave the knowledge, and open'd the ecstasy
through. Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved,
love anew!
Her favour it was fill'd the sail of the Trojan for Latium bound; Her
favour that won her Aeneas a bride on Laurentian ground, And anon
from the cloister inveigled the Virgin, the Vestal,
to Mars; 70
As her wit by the wild Sabine rape recreated her Rome

for its wars, With the Ramnes, Quirites, together ancestrally proud as
they drew From Romulus down to our Caesar--last, best of that bone,
of that thew. Now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have
loved, love anew!
Rura fecundat voluptas: rura Venerem sentiunt: 75
Ipse Amor puer
Dionse rure natus dicitur.
Hunc ager, cum parturiret ipsa, suscepit
sinu:
Ipsa florum delicatis educavit osculis.
_Cras amet qui
nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras,
amet_.
Ecce jam super genestas explicant tauri latus, 80
Quisque tutus quo
tenetur conjugali foedere:
Subter umbras cum maritis ecce balantum
greges;
Et canoras non tacere diva jussit alites.
Pleasure planteth a field; it conceives to the passion, 75
the pang, of his joy.
In a field was Dione in labour delivered of Cupid
the
Boy;
And the field in its fostering lap from her travail
received him: he drew
Mother's milk from the delicate kisses of
flowers;
and he prosper'd and grew--
_Now learn ye to love who loved
never--now ye who have
loved, love anew!_
Lo! behold ye the bulls, with how lordly a flank 80
they besprawl on the broom!--
Yet obey the uxorious yoke, and are
tamed to
Dione her doom.
Or behear ye the sheep, to the husbanding rams
how they bleat to the shade!
Or behear ye the birds, at the Goddess'

command
how they sing unafraid!
Jam loquaces ore rauco stagna cycni perstrepunt;
Adsonat Terei
puella subter umbram populi, 85
Ut putes motus amoris ore dici
musico,
Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro.
Ilia cantat, nos
tacemus. Quando ver venit meum?
Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut
tacere desinam?
Perdidi Musam tacendo, nec me Apollo respicit; 90

Sic Amyclas, cum tacerent, perdidit silentium.
_Cras amet qui
nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras
amet_.
Be it harsh as the swannery's clamour that shatters the hush of the lake,
Be it dulcet as where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, 85 So
melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own, She
plaineth--her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone. Hark!
Hush! Draw around to the circle ... Ah, loitering Summer! Say when
For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow again?
I am old; I am dumb; I have waited to sing till Apollo withdrew-- 90 So