Jenks's Portland Gazette

MUSES.

THE WARNING.

Translated from the German of Frederick Matthison.

SEE ye, in silent summer night the moon
Beam through the melancholy cypress boughs,
When Nature, from her labours rested,
In slumbers sinking, scarcely seems to breathe,
And ev'ry heart dissolves in sweetest sadness?
See ye, by Leman's lake, Montblanc's tall head,
Glistering with gold from Phœbus' parting rays?
See ye, how down yon rugged rocks, the Rhine
Tumbles, in lofty tow'ring hills of foam,
With roar like storms of ever during thunder?
See ye, by tempests swell'd, the raging ocean
Now, with unbridled fury, up tow'rd heaven
Sling shatter'd fleets; then downwards in a moment,
With crash tremendous, in th' abyss ingulph them!
Then, heaving once again, the breathless shores
Rise high, and dash them on the rocky shore?
See ye all these, ye puny poetasters?-
Oh! let me then conjure you by the Graces,
The Muses, and the spirit of Mæonides,
By Oberon's and Idris' magic world-
The heights sublime to which our Klopstock's genius
Soar'd from its earliest dawn--by the soft tones
From harps of Fingal's bards--by Petrarch's fount-
The laurels which encompass Maro's tomb-
By that oft paradise of fairy art,
Where once Rinaldo's hero powers lay prostrate-
By Milton's salutation to the light-
By the dark flower of Dante's gloomy scenes-
The death of Ugolino-
Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be, or not to be"-
By th'overflowings of a father's heart
For lost Narcissa--Gesner's pastoral scenes
By all to poets sacred, I conjure you,
Profane not by a froth of empty words
Whate'er is holiest deem'd in speech or song
By god-like Nature!--Oh! profane them not
By tributes fram'd from tempests of the soul;
By swelling sounds, forced thoughts, and big bombast,
Usher'd by feeble tone of o'erstrain'd feeling
For, ah! be satisfied--she, mighty mistress,
Contemns such Cain-like offerings.--With a nod,
Angrily to the Norns of Time She gives
Her mandate to disperse the noxious vapours:
To her such incense is abomination.