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Elegies and Epic Poem Translated Into English Verse by Laurence Reynolds
Elegies and Epic Poem Translated Into English Verse by Laurence Reynolds Author:Tibullus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ELEGY THE SECOND. This Poem clearly indicates the occasion on which it was written, when Tibullus, bound by his promise, was compelled to accompany Messalla, ... more »and leave his Delia and all the sweets of retirement, for the dangers and vain pomp of war. The ideas throughout are extremely natural, pastoral, and pathetic. Who was the man that forged at first That eause of woe, the battle blade? He with a savage heart was cursed, That savage heart of steel was made. Then slaughter for the human race, Then war's dread combats first began, And laggard Death, with quickened pace And brow more ghastly, rushed on man. THE ELEGIES OF ALBIUS TIBULLUS. 15 Why 'gainst that hapless man inveigh? The sword he gave us to destroy The fierce, the dangerous beasts of prey, To our own misery we employ. Insatiate gold! thine is the crime; No human slaughter stained the sword In our forefathers' happy time, When beechen goblets graced the board. Then on the undivided plain, No towers, no palisades arose— But 'mid his well-fed sheep, the swain Securely sank to sweet repose.— Had my life for that time been east, No deadly arms I should have known— Nor had the clarion's startling blast, Roused my heart trembling to its tone. But now I'm torn to fight afar— And some barbarian foe the dart Now bears, that in the coming war, Is doomed, perchance, to pierce my heart. Gods of my fathers, in the fray Preserve me—for it was your aid That reared me, when in childhood's day, Around your feet I gaily played. Because of wood from age decayed, You're rudely formed, my gods, blush not— You're now the same, as when you made Your dwelling in my father's cot. Mankind were reverent and good, When simple were your rites divine, And wh...« less