Luis Vaz de Camões (1572), Cantos IV.95–97

Ó glória de mandar! Ó vã cobiça
Desta vaidade, a quem chamamos Fama!
Ó fraudulento gosto, que se atiça
C’uma aura popular, que honra se chama!
Que castigo tamanho e que justiça
Fazes no peito vão que muito te ama!
Que mortes, que perigos, que tormentas,
Que crueldades neles experimentas!

Dura inquietação d’alma e da vida,
Fonte de desamparos e adultérios,
Sagaz consumidora conhecida
De fazendas, de reinos e de impérios:
Chamam-te ilustre, chamam-te subida,
Sendo dina de infames vitupérios;
Chamam-te Fama e Glória soberana,
Nomes com quem se o povo néscio engana!

A que novos desastres determinas
De levar estes reinos e esta gente?
Que perigos, que mortes lhe destinas
Debaixo dalgum nome preminente?
Que promessas de reinos, e de minas
D’ouro, que lhe farás tão facilmente?
Que famas lhe prometerás? que histórias?
Que triunfos, que palmas, que vitórias?

Richard Fanshawe (1655)

O Glory of commanding! O vain Thirst
Of that fame empty nothing, we call Fame!
O Ignis fatuus, kindled and nurst
With vulgar breath (and this we Honour name)!
What Plagues, what stings, what secret scourges curst,
Torment those Bosomes which thou doest inflame!
What deaths! what dangers! what impetuous forms!
What cruelties on them thy Hand performs!

Fell Tyrant of the soules! life’s swallowing Wave!
Mother of Plunders, and black Rapes unchast!
The secret miner, and the open Grave,
Of Patrimonies, Kingdoms, Empires vast!
They call thee noble, and they call thee Brave:
(Worthy t’have other names upon thee cast!)
They call thee Fame, and Glory soveraign:
Titles, with which the foolish Rout is tane.

What new disaster dire intendest Thou
To lead these Kingdoms, and these Folk into?
What deaths, what Horrors must they swallow now,
Under pretence to spread Religion true?
What holdings forth of golden Mines, and how
Great Kingdoms shall be conquer’d by a Few?
What Fames dost thou advance? what Histories?
What Palms? what Triumphs? and what Vidtories?

William Julius Mickle (1776)

O frantic thirst of honour and of fame,
The crowd’s blind tribute, a fallacious name;
What stings, what plagues, what secret scourges curs’d,
Torment those bosoms where thy pride is nurs’d!
What dangers threaten, and what deaths destroy
The hapless youth, whom thy vain gleams decoy!
By thee, dire tyrant of the noble mind,
What dreadful woes are pour’d on human kind:
Kingdoms and empires in confusion hurl’d,
What streams of gore have drench’d the hapless world!
Thou dazzling meteor, vain as fleeting air,
What new-dread horror dost thou now prepare!
High sounds thy voice of India’s pearly shore,
Of endless triumphs and of countless store:
Of other worlds so tower’d thy swelling boast,
Thy golden dreams when Paradise was lost,
When thy big promise steep’d the world in gore,
And simple innocence was known no more.
And say, has fame so dear, so dazzling charms?

Thomas Moore Musgrave (1826)

O thirst of pow’r-insatiate appetite
Of vain dominion, which the world calls Fame!
O pleasing phantom, which, inflam’d and fann’d
By popular applause, is Honor nam’d!
What just severity of punishment
Dost thou on thy immod’rate votary
Inflict! What perils, and what cruel deaths,
Are hazarded in thy blood-stain’d career!
Restless disturber both of life and soul, —
Source of most profligate licentiousness; —
Profuse destroyer of the public wealth,
And of all national prosperity!
Yet art thou hail’d, illustrious, and sublime,
Though indignation meriting and hate.
Fame, too, and Glory art thou call’d! — false Lights,
That, dazzling, lead the foolish world astray.
With what disasters hast thou now resolv’d
This happy Lusian State to overwhelm?
What perils, and what deaths hast thou decreed
Under some fatal but resplendent name?
What undiscover’d empires, and what mines
Of gold hast thou with luring promises
Reveal’d? What fame, what high recorded deeds,
What palms, and what triumphant victories?

Edward Quillinan (1853)

O passion of dominion! O fond lust
Of that poor vanity which men call Fame!
O treacherous appetite, whose highest gust
Is vulgar breath that taketh honour’s name!
O fell ambition, terrible but just
Art thou to breasts that cherish most thy flame!
Brief life for them is peril, storm, and rage,
This world a hell and death their heritage.

Shrewd prodigal ! whose riot is the dearth
Of states and principalities opprest;
Plunder and rape are of thy loathly birth;
Thou art alike of life and soul the pest.
High titles greet thee on this slavish earth;
Yet none so vile but they would fit thee best:
But Fame forsooth and Glory thou art styled,
And the blind herd is by a sound beguiled.

Ah, whither wilt thou lead us now astray,
Bent as thou art the fated land to wrong?
To what new forms of pain and death betray
With sounding names enticing us along?
What golden mines, what gorgeous realms of day,
Are now the promise of thy facile tongue?
What wondrous victories, what pomps of glory,
Ovations, triumphs, palms, immortal story?

Thomas Mitchell (1854)

O glory of commanding! Vain desire
For this vanity, which some of us call fame!
O cheating appetite, whereof the fire
By popular breath is fanned, which we honour name!
What chastisement extreme, what justice dire
Dost thou not exact in the breast that loves thy flame!
What deaths! what dangers! and what torments!
What cruelties in such experiments?

Painful inquietude of the soul and of life;
Source of backslidings, and adulteries;
Sagacious well-known consumer and vile thief,
Of men’s estates, of kingdoms and territories!
They call thee illustrious, they call thee chief,
Although deserving of infamous vituperaries:
They call thee fame, and glory sovereign;
Names with which the foolish people are taken in.

Hast thou determined to what new disasters
Thou wilt lead these kingdoms, and these people sailing?
What dangers, — to what deaths must they hasten faster,
Under some eminent name o’er them prevailing?
What promises of kingdoms, mines of their master
Gold, whereof thy promises are never-failing?
What tames, wilt thou not promise them? what histories:
What triumphs? what palms? what laurels, and what victories?

John James Aubertin (1878)

O glory of command: O vain desire
Of this mere vanity which we call fame!
O fancy fraudulent that gathers fire
From popular breath, usurping honour’s name!
What justice and what castigation dire
In the vain breast that blindly loves your aim
Ye work! what deaths and dangers, what distress
And with what cruelties do ye oppress!

Of life and soul cruel inquietude,
Fount of neglect and hence adulteries,
Destructive insect, whose known stings intrude
On lands and kingdoms and on dynasties;
Illustrious called, and as renowned pursued,
Thou art condignly charged with infamies;
They call thee sovereign glory, call thee fame,
And the ignorant are blinded by the name!

To what disasters new dost thou design
To lead away these kingdoms and this race?
What dangers and what deaths dost thou combine
Under some name of eminence and grace?
What kingdoms, or, perchance, what golden mine
Dost promise them with thy so ready face?
What fame hold out to them? what history’s page?
What triumphs, palms, what victories engage?

Robert Ffrench Duff (1880)

O great ambition! vile and base desire
Of idle vanity or earthly fame!
Delusive hopes, which sets our souls on fire! —
We call thee honour, when the mobs acclaim
With feeble praise, and gain an empty name —
What heavy chastisements dost thou impose
On all those men, whose breasts such thoughts inflame,
What troubles, slights, what dangers, deaths and woes!
At every step they feel severe and eruel blows.

O restless perturbation of the soul,
And human life! thou causest desolation,
Adulteries, ruin, where thou hast control,
Thou art the gulf, which swallows fortune, nation,
Empire, and kingdoms by thy fascination!
As grand, sublime and lofty, thou art greeted,
When thou deservest only detestation:
Thy wicked acts, like fame and glory treated,
Illusions spread by which unwary men are cheated.

What new misfortunes dire dost thou intend
Against these realms or men? Are thy designs
To cause them perils or untimely end?
What promise of strange lands or golden mines
Their minds to thy deceitful snares inclines?
Is it some feat, renowned in future days,
Achieved with ease, which with such glitter shines?
What splendid triumph or great victory?
What fame’s immortal palms, and bright undying glory?

Richard Francis Burton (1880)

Oh craving of Command! Oh vain Desire!
of vainest vanity man miscalleth Fame!
Oh fraud’ulent gust, so easy fanned to fire
by breath of vulgar, aping Honour’s name!
What just and dreadful judgment deals thine ire,
to seely souls who overlove thy claim!
What deaths, what direful risks, what agonies
wherewith thou guerd’onest them, thy fitting prize!

Thou dour disturber of man’s sprite and life,
fount of backsliding and adultery,
sagacious waster, and consummate thief
of subjects, kingdoms, treasure, empery:
They hail thee noble, and they hail thee chief,
though digne of all indignities thou be;
they call thee Fame and Glory sovereign,
words, words, the heart of silly herd to gain!

‘What new disaster dost thou here design?
What horror for our realm and race invent?
What unheard dangers or what deaths condign,
veiled by some name that soundeth excellent?
What bribe of gorgeous reign, and golden mine,
whose ready offer is so rarely meant?
What Fame hast promised them? what pride of story?
What palms? what triumphs? what victorious glory?

Leonard Bacon (1950)

Glory of empire! Most unfruitful lust
After the vanity that men call fame!
It kindles still, the hypocritic gust,
By rumor, which as honor men acclaim.
What thy vast vengeance and thy sentence just
On the vain heart that greatly loves thy name!
What death, what peril, tempest, cruel woe,
Dost thou decree that he must undergo!

Dreadful disquiet of his life and soul!
Spring of adultery and abandonment,
Empires and realms and wealth consuming whole,
And, as we know, only too provident!
Thy powers for high and noble men extol,
More worthy of their curse malevolent,
And call thee fame and glory’s plenitude,
Names whereby witless men their souls delude.

What new disasters dost thou now prepare
Against these kingdoms and against their seed?
What peril and what death for them to bear,
Under some mighty name, hast thou decreed?
What mines of gold now dost thou promise fair?
What kingdoms? — promise lightly made indeed!
What fame dost thou propose? What legend glorious?
What palm? What triumph? And what war victorious?

Landeg White (1997)

O pride of power! O futile lust
For that vanity known as fame!
That hollow conceit which puffs itself up
And which popular cant calls honour!
What punishment, what poetic justice,
You exact on souls that pursue you!
To what deaths, what miseries you condemn
Your heroes! What pains you inflict on them!

You wreck all peace of soul and body,
You promote separation and adultery;
Subtly, manifestly, you consume
The wealth of kingdoms and empires!
They call distinction, they call honour
What deserves ridicule and contempt;
They talk of glory and eternal fame,
And men are driven frantic by a name!

To what new catastrophes do you plan
To drag this kingdom and these people?
What perils, what deaths have you in store
Under what magniloquent title?
What visions of kingdoms and gold-mines
Will you guide them to infallibly?
What fame do you promise them? What stories?
What conquests and processions? What glories?

Luis Vaz de Camões (1572)

No mar tanta tormenta, e tanto dano,
Tantas vezes a morte apercebida!
Na terra tanta guerra, tanto engano,
Tanta necessidade avorrecida!
Onde pode acolher-se um fraco humano,
Onde terá segura a curta vida,
Que não se arme, e se indigne o Céu sereno
Contra um bicho da terra tão pequeno?

Richard Fanshawe (1655)

By Sea; how many Storms, how many Harms,
Death in how many sev’ral fashions drest!
By Land; how many Frauds, how many Allarms,
Under how many wants sunk, and opprest!
Where may a fraile man hide him? in what Arms
May a short life injoy a little Rest?
Where Sea, and Land, where Guile, the Sword, and Dearth,
Will not all arm ‘gainst the least worm o’th Earth?

William Julius Mickle (1776)

O piteous lot of man’s uncertain state!
What woes on Life’s unhappy journey wait!
When joyful Hope would grasp its fond desire,
The long-sought transports in the grasp expire.
By sea what treach’rous calms, what rushing storms,
And death attendant in a thousand forms!
By land what strife, what plots of secret guile,
How many a wound from many a treach’rous smile!
Oh where shall man escape his num’rous foes,
And rest his weary head in safe repose!

Thomas Moore Musgrave (1826)

What perils, numberless and imminent,
Ceaseless assail Life’s mutable career!
Ev’n where we center all our fondest hopes,
They vanish like an unsubstantial dream.
At sea, what storms, — what losses, — man endures!
What cruel deaths the waves for him prepare!
On land, what sanguinary wars, — what guile, —
What wretchedness, — what misery, — prevail!
To what asylum shall frail man retreat? —
Where pass secure the narrow span of life,
That placid Heaven, unruffled, may not launch
Its thunderbolt against so poor a worm?

Edward Quillinan (1853)

What shocks at sea! What storms around him roar!
The spectre Death, how oft before his eye!
What rage, what strife, what deadlier guile, on shore,
And oh, how much abhorred necessity!
Where shall frail man, though he the world explore,
Find out some nook, some charter’d sanctuary,
Where Heaven will let him live his little term
In peace, nor launch its thunder at a worm!

Thomas Mitchell (1854)

At sea such hardships, and such perils great,
Death near at hand so various and so rife;
On land such warfare, and so much deceit,
Such horrible necessity for strife!
Where may frail mortals find a safe retreat?
Where can they hold securely this short life?
Where are they not in arms, serene Heaven in storms,
Against such poor diminutive earth-worms?

John James Aubertin (1878)

At sea, so many storms and loss so great,
So often death arrayed and seeming sure,
On land, so many wars, so much deceit,
And so much wretched misery to endure!
Where shall weak man discover a retreat,
Where may he deem his short life’s hour secure?
That calm Heaven’s might and anger may not fall
Upon a worm of earth so weak and small!

Robert Ffrench Duff (1880)

On sea, incessant toils, and dreadfil storms! —
Impending death in every step appears —
On land, what horrid woes in all their forms,
What cunning wiles entrap, what endless fears!
Gaunt misery, and want provoke our tears:
Where can the hapless wretch for refuge stray,
To linger out his span of cheerless years?
When shall the mighty Heavens their thunder stay,
Or cease to crush a worm — this helpless child of clay?

Richard Francis Burton (1880)

By sea such tempests, such sore injury,
with Death so often showing near and sure!
By land such warfare, such foul treachery,
so much of curst necessities t’ endure!
Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary,
where live his little span of life secure?
and ‘scape of Heav’n serene th’ indignant storms
that launch their thunders at us earthen worms?

James Edwin Hewitt (1881)

So much of storm and havoc on the sea,
Before the vision looming death so rife!
So much=of war and guile upon the lea,
So much of harsh inevitable strife!
Oh whither can a fragile mortal flee,
Where shall he hold secure his fleeting life?
That arm and wax not wroth the Heaven serene
Against a creature of the earth so mean?

Leonard Bacon (1950)

At sea by such rough storms and griefs forespent!
So many a moment when Death stands alert!
Ashore such strife and treacherous intent,
Where horrible necessity can hurt!
How can weak man escape the harsh event,
And how misfortune from brief life avert,
Where calm Skies rage not nor take arms alway
Against so mean a creature of the clay?

Landeg White (1997)

On the sea, such storms and perils
That death, many times, seemed imminent;
On the land, such battle and intrigue
Such dire, inevitable hardships!
Where may frail humanity shelter
Briefly, in some secure port,
Where the bright heavens cease to vent their rage
On such insects on so small a stage?

Jacques Barzun on The Lusiads (From Dawn to Decadence), and which translation to read:

While Tasso was garnering praise for his work, another poet in another southern land was composing a true epic. If the name of Camoëns and the tide Lusiads do not at once evoke recognition, the reason is again that of language: Portuguese is not widely read or studied outside its native limits in Europe and America. Camoëns chose a subject more factual than the paladins and had a more useful experience than the Italians for epic work. He was a soldier and sailor. He fought the Moors in north Africa, lost his right eye in battle and was invalided, re-enlisted to find adventure in the Indies, and there became an official in charge of a trading post. Accused of embezzlement and put in prison, he managed to get free and sail home. There, like everybody who could hold a pen, he wrote plays and sonnets and began the epic that made him the great national poet — indeed, a great poet tout court.

His subject was contemporary: the conquest of the ocean sea by the Portuguese. And his ostensible hero was a recent, historical character, Vasco da Gama. The actual hero is the Portuguese people, “the illustrious heart of Lusitania”; the name of the ancient Roman province that recurs in the title Lusiads. The adventures of the hero as man and people are the real and allegorical events of the explorer’s voyage home from the East. What there is of the marvelous in the incidents is due not to magic but to the well-known gods and goddesses of the ancients. Thus in the great episode of the Isle of Love, the domain of Venus, where the sailors take the Nereids, nymphs of the sea, as brides, Gama is the lover of their queen, Thetis, hitherto unattainable. Gama succeeds in his wooing after the repulsive giant Adamastor, typifying the enemies of the Portuguese, has failed. The union of godly beauty with human courage is to produce the future heroes of Portugal. In Greek mythology, when Thetis is subdued by Love, her offspring is the dauntless Achilles.

This sample episode from The Lusiads is enough to show that it is a Humanist epic. Women other than goddesses play important parts in several of the main scenes. Among these is the story, told with lyrical tenderness, of Ines de Castro, the historical mistress of Prince Pedro of Portugal, whose close advisers compelled him to have her put to death. In tone and conception, the poem is equidistant from the popular ballad and the learned pastiche. Camoëns has been blamed for mixing the pagan myths with Christian, but it is standard Humanist practice. It is not sacrilege but spiritual synonymy. In The Lusiads the allegorical and the historical planes are traversed by physical action, told with unabating vigor and vivid detail. It came naturally to one who, though writing on terra firma, had spent many days on the deck of a ship. The fervor with which Camoëns celebrates the conquest, first of the sea by rounding the Cape of Storms at the tip of Africa, and then of the natives and the trade of the southeast Indies, makes his poem the first and last national epic — this at a time when the nations of the West were not so much made as in the making. The work withstands comparison with Virgil’s imperial Aeneid. Using a longer line than the Italians, Camoëns was able to achieve grandeur more easily, especially in the speeches. And he shares with the ancients and the writers of sagas something one might call epic pessimism. He is also considered Portugal’s greatest lyric poet, as well as the man whose writings fixed the Portuguese language.

Os Lusiadas has been translated four times into English, the latest version being in prose. [The one to read is Leonard Bacon’s, in verse.] But there is another means of access that is strongly recommended to anyone who knows Spanish: it is to study in a comparative grammar the forms that differ regularly in Spanish and Portuguese and then to plunge into the poem with a dictionary at hand.

Luís Vaz de Camões (1572)

As armas e os barões assinalados,
Que da ocidental praia Lusitana,
Por mares nunca de antes navegados,
Passaram ainda além da Taprobana,
Em perigos e guerras esforçados,
Mais do que prometia a força humana,
E entre gente remota edificaram
Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram;

E também as memórias gloriosas
Daqueles Reis, que foram dilatando
A Fé, o Império, e as terras viciosas
De África e de Ásia andaram devastando;
E aqueles, que por obras valerosas
Se vão da lei da morte libertando;
Cantando espalharei por toda parte,
Se a tanto me ajudar o engenho e arte.

Richard Fanshawe (1655)

Armes, and the Men above the vulgar File,
Who from the Western Lusitanian shore
Past ev’n beyond the Trapobanian-Isle,
Through Seas which never Ship had sayld before;
Who (brave in action, patient in long Toyle,
Beyond what strength of humane nature bore.)
‘Mongst Nations, under other Stars, acquir’d
A modern Scepter which to Heaven aspir’d:

Likewise those Kings of glorious memory,
Who sow’d and propagated where they past
The Faith with the new Empire (making dry
The Breasts of Asia, and laying waste
Black Africk’s vitious Glebe); And Those who by
Their deeds at home left not their names defac’t,
My Song shall spread where ever there are Men,
If Wit and Art will so much guide my Pen.

William Julius Mickle (1776)

Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon’s shore,
Thro’ seas where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the wat’ry waste,
With prowess more than human forc’d their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
What wars they wag’d, what seas, what dangers pass’d,
What glorious empire crown’d their toils at last,
Vent’rous I sing, on soaring pinions borne,
And all my country’s wars the song adorn;
What kings, what heroes of my native land
Thunder’d on Asia’s and on Afric’s strand:
Illustrious shades, who levell’d in the dust
The idol-temples and the shrines of lust:
And where, erewhile, foul demons were rever’d,
To Holy Faith unnumber’d altars rear’d:
Illustrious names, with deathless laurels crown’d,
While time rolls on in every clime renown’d!

Thomas Moore Musgrave (1826)

Arms, and the heroes of illustrious fame,
Who, from the western Lusitanian shore,
Remote, unnavigated seas explor’d,
Far beyond Taprobana’s distant isle,
And, ‘midst the perils of advent’rous war,
With more than human constancy endur’d,
In eastern climes a mighty empire rais’d
And aggrandiz’d by great and glorious deeds:
The great achievements of their martial kings,
Who spread the Christian Faith where’er their arms
Prevaild, in Asia, and in Africa,
Idolatrous and superstitious rites
Extirpating; and those, too, whose exploits
From death’s oblivion their names redeem’d:
These let me sing, and wide extend their fame,
If to such themes my Muse may dare aspire.

Edward Quillinan (1853)

Arms, and the men heroic of the West,
Who from their native Lusitanian shore,
By seas till then unnavigated prest
Evën beyond Taprobanè, and more
Than seem’d of human force the hardest test,
Through wars and perils resolutely bore,
Raised a new empire in a distant clime,
And crown’d it with a glory all sublime.

These, and the kings of memory dear to fame,
Who, widening out dominion, spread the Faith,
Afflicted Afric as a chastening flame,
And Asia, rank with the idolater’s breath
And many a warrior who redeem’d his name
By deeds of prowess from the law of death
These shall my song proclaim in every part,
If Genius aid me, and melodious Art.

Thomas Mitchell (1854)

Arms, and the Barons signally renowned
Who from the western Lusitanian shore,
Far beyond Taprobane a passage found
By seas none ever sailed across before:
In perils great, fierce wars on unknown ground,
Meeting all adverse human strength with more:
To found midst people of a different sky,
A new realm that raised their names so high;

Likewise those Kings whose memorable deeds
Gloriously spread our holy faith and nation,
And to the wicked lands of sinful creeds
In Africa and Asia, devastation;
And those achieving by their valour’s meeds
From the dread law of death their liberation;
Singing I will proclaim, both far and wide,
If art and genius be not me denied.

John James Aubertin (1878)

Arms and the beroes signalised in fame,
Who from the western Lusitanian shore
Beyond e’en Taprobana sailing came
O’er seas that ne’er had traversed been before,
Dauntless in wars and dangers without name,
Achieving all of human force and more,
And midst a race remote in distant clime
New kingdom raised to future so sublime;

And all the glorious memories that grace
Those Kings who sallied forth to propagate
The Faith, the empire; and the countries base,
Asian and African, did devastate;
And those who hold by valorous deeds such place
That from death’s law their names they liberate,
Through all the world in song will I rehearse,
If art and genius so inspire my verse.

Robert Ffrench Duff (1880)

The arms I sing and that most glorious band
Of heroes far renowned, who did of yore
Embark on Lusitania’s western strand
For seas where fleets had never sailed before,
And boldly passed beyond the balmy shore
Of Taprobana: neither storm nor fight
Can stop their course; above them all they soar
Triumphant, and by superhuman might
They raise their native realm unto its proudest height.

Immortal glories these! nor less the fame
Of Lusitanian kings, whose guiding thought
Inspired their zealous efforts to proclaim
Their holy faith to pagans, and who sought
To bring the wild and savage tribes to naught
In Africa and Asia: men of heart
Undaunted, who undying glory bought
By scorning death. Such deeds, in every part
My Muse shall spread around, if genius aid my art.

Richard Francis Burton (1880)

The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host,
from occidental Lusitanian strand,
who d’er the waters ne’er by seaman crost,
fared beyoud the Taprobáne-land,
forceful in perils and in battle-post,
with more than promised force of mortal hard;
and in the regions of a distant race
rear’d a new throne so haught in Pride of Place:

And, eke, the Kings of memory grand and glorious,
who hied them Holy Faith and Reign to spread,
converting, conquering, and in lands notorious,
Africk and Asia, devastation made;
nor less the Lieges who by deeds memorious
brake from the doom that binds the vulgar dead;
my song would sound o’er Farth’s extremest part
were mine the genius, mine the Poet’s art.

James Edwin Hewitt (1881)

Arms, and the Men of a redoubtcd name,
Far from the western Lusitanian shore,
Through seas where never prior vessel came,
Who further yet than Taprobana bore:
In dangers valiant, and in wars the same,
Exceeding what was pledged of human store,
And, among people of a distant clime
New kingdom built and rendered so sublime:

And more the glorious memories of the Kings,
The Faith, the Empire forth who went to spread,
And, bearing upon Devastation’s wings,
Through baleful Africa and Asia sped:
And those by reason of right valorous things
Enfranchised from the law of death who tread:
I singing will diffuse on every side
If skill and art so far my effort guide.

Leonard Bacon (1950)

Arms, and those matchless chiefs who from the shore
Of Western Lusitania began
To track the oceans none had sailed before,
Yet past Tapróbané’s far limit ran,
And daring every danger, every war,
With courage that excelled the powers of Man,
Amid remotest nations caused to rise
Young empire which they carried to the skies;

So, too, good memory of those kings who went
Afar, religion and our rule to spread;
And who, through either hateful continent,
Afric or Asia, like destruction sped;
And theirs, whose valiant acts magnificent
Saved them from the dominion of the dead,
My song shall sow through the world’s every part,
So help me this my genius and my art.

Landeg White (1997)

Arms are my theme, and those matchless heroes
Who from Portugal’s far western shores
By oceans where none had ventured
Voyaged to Taprobana and beyond,
Enduring hazards and assaults
Such as drew on more than human prowess
Among far distant peoples, to proclaim
A New Age and win undying fame;

Kings likewise of glorious memory
Who magnified Christ and Empire,
Bringing ruin on the degenerate
Lands of Africa and Asia;
And others whose immortal deeds
Have conquered death’s oblivion
These words will go whereever there are men
If art and invention steer my pen.

From Morris Bishop’s Spilt Milk.

Look Us Over, Posterity

Historians dealing with Mary of Scots
 Grieve and deplore, as is customary,
The lack of materials touching her plots;
 We cannot be sure if we’re just to Mary.

The documents’ dearth, it is commonly said,
 Interferes with the proper commemorating
Of Cheops, Columbus, and Eric the Red;
 It’s a troublesome task to give them a rating.

But the present is aiding the future, at last,
 With newsreels and libraries, fortunately;
Now every suburbanite writes of his past
 In the long afternoons on his porch in Nutley.

The Times has its copies imprinted on rag,
 And no corner-stone is impenetrable
To him who would learn how we blab or we brag
 Of society’s shame and our Senate trouble.

We leave to posterity treasures of facts
 To resolve all the legends that grow about us,
And the richest equipment to study our acts —
 But what if it won’t want to know about us?

It Rolls On

This is the time of wonder, it is written;
 Man has attained the ultimate mysteries.
 (We turn from the Chrysler Tower to watch a kitten,
 Turn to a dead fish from Isocrates;
Men on great liners drink but to be smitten
 With coma, on the subjugated seas;
 Einstein is even more dull than Bulwer Lytton;
 There’s no sweet influence of the Pleiades.)
Science no longer knows the verb-form “can’t”;
 Our cars will soon be powered by radio;
 Scholars are harnessing the urgent ant
And making monstrous bastard fruits to grow,
 Building machines for things I do not want,
 Discovering truths I do not care to know.

From Ethel Jacobson’s Mice in the Ink.

Campaigner

The decibel
Weaves a spell
Quicker than
Logic can.

Outline for Everything

Heaven

A place of Babylonian splendor
And cherubim of neuter gender.

Earth

In practically every stratum
Cash is the main desideratum.

Hell

The climate’s frankly far from swell —
But how august our clientele!

Giraffes and Gnus

Giraffes and gnus
In zoos amuse
Curious crowds
Of humans whose
Ludicrous aspects,
It ensues,
Likewise amuse
Giraffes and gnus.

First Word

Imagine it —
 A prodigy!
Today she talked,
 And fluently!
No child of ours
 Could be a dunce;
But — to converse
 At seven months!
Although it’s strange
 She chose to speak
In Toltec, Czech —
 Or was it Greek?

Driving in Traffic is Hardly Seraphic

I start. I stop.
I barely crawl.
I spurt ten feet.
And then I stall.
I’m tooted at, stared at,
Hooted at, blared at,
Sideswiped, glared at,
Gestured at, sweared at!
It’s more than mortal
Flesh should bear,
Merely to get
From Here to There.

Nevermore Shall Dawn This Spring

Nevermore shall bloom this rose,
Nevermore shall dawn this spring.
Cherish it before it goes
Past all vain remembering.

Take the slight and fragile gift,
This brief measure of delight.
Soon the scattered petals drift
Down every heedless wind of night.

Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy

Curved and cool as the lotus,
She gazes undismayed
Across the inconsequential dust
Where dynasties are laid.

How much wider, bloodier
Must grow the mortal rift
Before a torn world pauses
To take her quiet gift?

Atomic Courtesy

To smash the simple atom
All mankind was intent.
 Now any day
 The atom may
Return the compliment.

Theodorides (tr. William James)

A shipwrecked sailor on this coast bids you set sail,
Full many a gallant ship ere we were lost weathered the gale.

Robert Herrick

What though the sea be calm? Trust to the shore,
Ships have been drown’d where late they danc’d before.

From Maragret Fishback’s Time for a Quick One.

Wishful Thinking

Two thousand years Europe has tried
To settle quarrels by suicide.
Will peace-on-earth, good-will-to-men
Ever hallow the world again?

Heigh-Heigh Fever

The peaceful countryside is pretty,
But I am partial to the city.

Brought up on straight monoxide gas,
I don’t react to new-mown grass.

Besides, commuting leaves me cold —
Commuters all look tired and old.

Their backs are bent, their legs are lame —
I live in town, and look the same.

Career Girl

Getting and spending, we lay waste
Our powers, whereupon we’re faced
With jobs, continually better.
This satisfies a real go-getter,
But I’ve a melancholy notion
All is not gold that’s called promotion,
And so I hope, before I’m through,
To eat my cake, and bake it, too.

Reunion at Rising Gorge

Bright college days have come and gone;
I toast them with a craven yawn,
And pusillanimously note
Your extra chin where all was throat.

Those hips are likewise on the make;
And children toddle in your wake
To call me Auntie, which I find
Repulsive to my girlish mind.

So may I wistfully suggest
For both of us, new friends are best?
You’ll doubtless feel the way I do
If you love me as I love you.

Revolt in a Flat

I shall stay in bed all day.
I am tired of making hay
While the sun shines. Let it rain.
Let it shine. My sullen brain
Needs a rest. I want to root
Here beneath my quilt and snoot
Capital. Nor wheel nor cog
Of progress shall dispel my fog.
I am sick of zeal and action.
What I want is stupefaction.

Creepy, Crawly

The so-called drivers who proceed
 At fifteen miles an hour deserve
Tickets as much as those who weave
 And loop-the-loop on hill and curve.

The snail’s misguided life is spent
 Precipitating traffic jams;
Because of him, mudguards are bent
 And skies are blue with hells and damns.

So please, indomitable cop,
Make Dopey either go or stop.

Fun on the Front Page

Raise the flag and fling confetti
For Joe DiMaggio and Crosetti,
For Dickey, Ruffing, Rolfe… The Yanks
Deserve a hearty vote of thanks.

Let all our hats on all our heads
Be doffed in honor of the Reds
As well. Hip, hip, likewise hurray,
No matter which team wins today,

No matter which club comes to grief,
It will afford us some relief
To see Page One display a score
That has no bearing on the war.

Moment Musicale

I want to vegetate and read,
And joyously repair to seed…
This burning itch to Get Ahead
Leaves much too little time for bed.

From Morris Bishop’s Paramount Poems.

One of Our Menaces

Ho hum, ho hum,
 I’ve a happy life,
I’ve a little sonny,
 A nice little wife;
I’ve a little money
 From a nice little store;
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

Life is very pleasant
 And always just the same;
I can call the mayor
 By his first name;
As a golf-player
 I’ve a low score;
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

My wife gives a party,
 It’s really very nice,
We have a little salad,
 Coffee and an ice;
I sing a funny ballad,
 The folks yell for more —
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

I’d like to loot cathedrals
 And hang men to trees,
I’d like to have a try at
 A few atrocities;
I’d like world-wide riot,
 I don’t care what it’s for —
Ho hum, ho hum,
 Let’s have a war!

The Wise Men

“Be Thrifty,” say the sages,
 “And put away your rocks,
For thus one’s green old age is
 Secure from wrecks and shocks;
Do not, of course, be sordid,
 But build against mischance;
Thrift always is rewarded!”
 (Except in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Russia and France.)
“Be Loyal,” say the wise men,
 “To what we say you should;
The time may come that tries men,
 But all is to the good;
Though War is quite a burden,
 Prosperity and peace
Are loyal peoples’ guerdon!”
 (Except in Italy, Belgium, Poland, Jugo-Slavia, Turkey and Greece.)

I may not be so clever,
 But when the Wise Men crow:
“Always, forever, never,
 This thing or that is so;
The Truth is what I utter,
 World-wide, unchanging, whole!”
Well, I’m afraid I mutter:
 “Except in Africa, Asia, America, Europe, Australia, and the North Pole!”

The Exile’s Christmas

Today the sky is gray with snow
Over a town I used to know,
And memories on the snow drift down
Over an unforgotten town.

Ah, heaven, might I see once more
The dear paternal grocery store!
I hear, in wistful make-believe,
The merry din of Christmas Eve;
Again resound the shouts and sallies
Of voices tuned to windy valleys;
A sleigh stops in the village street,
And, stamping on his frozen feet,
Red Sim comes in, shakes snow from collar,
And tells the news from Pony Hollow.
Then silence, as we turn our chaws
In the slow orbit of the jaws.

Alas! I am condemned to dwell
High in an arrogant hotel;
I sit in my palatial suite
And hunger once again to eat
Beans and brown bread, black and hard,
Buckwheat pancakes fried in lard,
And dour plum puddings, citron-crested,
Indigestible, undigested.
Why can I not arise and flee
From all this sickly luxury?

Why can I not go home again?
It’s only seven hours by train.
Can I not bridge that little span?
To be quite frank, of course I can.
Instead, I join the band that sits
In the bright caverns of the Ritz
Gazing upon the Christmas folly
With sick and wayward melancholy;
We go to dine, lugubrious;
The dining-room is full of us;
In the rose-glimmering catacomb
We yearn for the rude walls of home.
“Go home, for heaven’s sake!” say you.
We never did, we never do.
The burdened memories crowd and troop.
A tear drops in the turtle soup.

From Ethel Jacobson’s Who Me?.

Conversational Chimera

You frankly begin
With “Needless to say —,”
Then proceed to tell me
Anyway.

But I dream of someone —
Don’t wake me, don’t —
Who, when it’s needless
To say something, won’t.

Brief History of Feminine Emancipation

From Adam’s rib
To Women’s Lib.

Worried Capitalist

Oh, what shall I put my money in?
Industrials? Bolivian tin?
What’s a good hedge against inflation?
Debentures? Gold? A combination
Of Building and Loans and blue-chip stock?
Or stash it away in a mattress or sock?
These jittery times, it’s hard to know.
Should I plan for a balanced portfolio,
Or would it be smarter to go and blow
The whole fifty bucks at Pimlico?

The Unprejudiced

Fair, always open to suggestion,
 Unbiased, though my views are strong ones,
I see all sides of every question —
 My side and the wrong ones.

No Golden Age

I rather think that Socrates,
Viewing today’s mediocrities,
Would ring for room service and, aghast,
Order “A double hemlock, fast!”

Unsung Genius

His fame is dim,
 His life unknown.
No wreath for him,
 No carven stone.
He lived, he wrote,
 He now is gone —
The tireless pote
 We call Anon.

Regrets

Tears, my glum repentant one,
 Mean you now agree
That sinning wasn’t half the fun
 You hoped that it would be.

Happy Birthday!

You’ll never be old —
As old, I mean,
As Thirty seems
To Seventeen.

Golden Eagle

O golden bird,
Daughter of the sun
And of perilous crags,
O soaring, burnished one,
My sight can barely
Trace you on the sky.

Yet how miraculous
Your huntress eye
That marks the slighest
Bend of a weed
Where a white-footed mouse
Is garnering seed
Too far from home.

A plummet, a swoop, a shrill
Half-cry in the throat,
Then the meadow is empty, still.
Once more pinions are spread
And the bronze bird takes flight,
Staring into the sun
That blinds my human sight.