Introduction
A Child's Garden: 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-41
The Child Alone, Garden Days, Envoys
Introduction
A Child's Garden: 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-41
The Child Alone, Garden Days, Envoys
A Child's Garden: 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-41
The Child Alone, Garden Days, Envoys
Cui Dono Lepidum Novum Libellum?
I. To Willie and Henrietta
If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You two, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
All all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.
"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;
But time which none can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.
If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You two, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
All all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.
"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;
But time which none can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.
Vacui Sub Umbra Lusimus Tecum
Haec ego de ludis scripsi quos lusimus olim;
Haec proprie vobis lecta duobus erunt;
Vos, consobrini, vos haec meminisse juvabit;
Non alius tanto jure notata leget.
Lusimus; et tu rex, et tu regina fuisti;
Navita nunc, alio tempore miles eram;
Venati sumus; et pueri quae millia ludunt,
Nobis prata inter florea ludus erat.
Jam senio fessis pedibus spectare decebit,
Sustinet ut pubes jure novella vices;
"Tempus erat," sic Fata jubent; tempusque volatu
Multa rapit, sed non omnia; restat Amor.
Haec ego de ludis scripsi quos lusimus olim;
Haec proprie vobis lecta duobus erunt;
Vos, consobrini, vos haec meminisse juvabit;
Non alius tanto jure notata leget.
Lusimus; et tu rex, et tu regina fuisti;
Navita nunc, alio tempore miles eram;
Venati sumus; et pueri quae millia ludunt,
Nobis prata inter florea ludus erat.
Jam senio fessis pedibus spectare decebit,
Sustinet ut pubes jure novella vices;
"Tempus erat," sic Fata jubent; tempusque volatu
Multa rapit, sed non omnia; restat Amor.
II. To My Mother
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
Antiquam Exquirite Matrem
Tu quoque, tu mater (memorem te temporis acti
Cogit amor) nostris versibus ipsa vacas.
Tu parvos audire pedes fortasse videris,
"Sic," dices, "memini, sic sonuere solo."
Tu quoque, tu mater (memorem te temporis acti
Cogit amor) nostris versibus ipsa vacas.
Tu parvos audire pedes fortasse videris,
"Sic," dices, "memini, sic sonuere solo."
III. To Auntie
Chief of our aunts--not only I,
But all your dozen of nurslings cry--
What did the other children do?
And what were childhood, wanting you?
Chief of our aunts--not only I,
But all your dozen of nurslings cry--
What did the other children do?
And what were childhood, wanting you?
Ad Materteram
O longe ante alias princeps Matertera nobis!
Inter bis senos quis nisi fatur idem?
"Quid fecere alii sine te?" clamamus alumni,
"Quid puero in vita te sine dulce foret?"
O longe ante alias princeps Matertera nobis!
Inter bis senos quis nisi fatur idem?
"Quid fecere alii sine te?" clamamus alumni,
"Quid puero in vita te sine dulce foret?"
IV. To Minnie
The red room with the giant bed
Where none but elders laid their head;
The little room where you and I
Did for awhile together lie
And, simple suitor, I your hand
in decent marriage did demand;
The great day nursery, best of all,
With pictures pasted on the wall.
And leaves upon the blind--
A pleasant room wherein to wake
And hear the leafy garden shake
And rustle in the wind--
And pleasant there to lie in bed
And see the pictures overhead--
The wars about Sebastopol,
The grinning guns along the wall,
The daring escalade,
The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,
The happy children ankle-deep
And laughing as they wade;
All these are vanished clean away,
And the old manse is changed to-day;
It wears an altered face
And shields a stranger race.
The river, on from mill to mill,
Flows past our childhood's garden still;
But ah! we children never more
Shall watch it from the water-door!
Below the yew--it still is there--
Our phantom voices haunt the air
As we were still at play,
And I can hear them call and say:
"How far is it to Babylon?"
Ah, far enough, my dear,
Far, far enough from here--
Yet you have farther gone!
"Can I get there by candlelight?"
So goes the old refrain.
I do not know--perchance you might--
But only, children, hear it right,
Ah, never to return again!
The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,
Shall break on hill and plain,
And put all stars and candles out,
Ere we be young again.
To you in distant India, these
I send across the seas,
Nor count it far across,
For which of us forgets
The Indian cabinets,
The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross,
The pied and painted birds and beans,
The junks and bangles, beads and screens,
The gods and sacred bells,
And the loud-humming, twisted shells?
The level of the parlour floor
Was honest, homely, Scottish shore;
But when we climbed upon a chair,
Behold the gorgeous East was there!
Be this a fable; and behold
Me in the parlour as of old,
And Minnie just above me set
In the quaint Indian cabinet!
Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf
Too high for me to reach myself.
Reach down a hand, my dear, and take
These rhymes for old acquaintance' sake.
The red room with the giant bed
Where none but elders laid their head;
The little room where you and I
Did for awhile together lie
And, simple suitor, I your hand
in decent marriage did demand;
The great day nursery, best of all,
With pictures pasted on the wall.
And leaves upon the blind--
A pleasant room wherein to wake
And hear the leafy garden shake
And rustle in the wind--
And pleasant there to lie in bed
And see the pictures overhead--
The wars about Sebastopol,
The grinning guns along the wall,
The daring escalade,
The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,
The happy children ankle-deep
And laughing as they wade;
All these are vanished clean away,
And the old manse is changed to-day;
It wears an altered face
And shields a stranger race.
The river, on from mill to mill,
Flows past our childhood's garden still;
But ah! we children never more
Shall watch it from the water-door!
Below the yew--it still is there--
Our phantom voices haunt the air
As we were still at play,
And I can hear them call and say:
"How far is it to Babylon?"
Ah, far enough, my dear,
Far, far enough from here--
Yet you have farther gone!
"Can I get there by candlelight?"
So goes the old refrain.
I do not know--perchance you might--
But only, children, hear it right,
Ah, never to return again!
The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,
Shall break on hill and plain,
And put all stars and candles out,
Ere we be young again.
To you in distant India, these
I send across the seas,
Nor count it far across,
For which of us forgets
The Indian cabinets,
The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross,
The pied and painted birds and beans,
The junks and bangles, beads and screens,
The gods and sacred bells,
And the loud-humming, twisted shells?
The level of the parlour floor
Was honest, homely, Scottish shore;
But when we climbed upon a chair,
Behold the gorgeous East was there!
Be this a fable; and behold
Me in the parlour as of old,
And Minnie just above me set
In the quaint Indian cabinet!
Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf
Too high for me to reach myself.
Reach down a hand, my dear, and take
These rhymes for old acquaintance' sake.
Forsan et Haec Olim
In rubro thalamo cubile quondam
Quod stabat senioribus dicatum,
Vastum aptumque gigantibus putabam;
Infantes duo dum simul jacemus,
Connubio stabili puer modestus
Te junctam propriamque te petivi.
Ast illam memini optimam diaetam
Picta et moenia, frondibusque pulcra
Vela; illic ubi somnus avolarat,
Jucundum fuit arbores per altas
Audire ut trepidaret aura lenis.
Jucundum fuit et toro jacere
Et depicta super videre castra
In tecto, obsidione qua lacessunt
Urbem, nomine Caesaris superbam,
Ballistis modo navibusque longis
Et scalis modo milites Britanni.
Jucundum fuit et greges in herbis
Balantum et pueros videre parvos
Dum risu loca per vadosa ludunt
Et nudo pede cursitant in amnem.
Ast haec omnia quae prius fuere
Aufert hora domumque mutat ipsam;
Nostramque advena vindicavit aulam.
Hortos praeterit ut prius molasque
Rivus, nec datur ut prius videre
Nobis e foribus domoque nostra.
Illic taxus erat--nec eruerunt;
Audire et videor sub arbore astans
Voces, de Babylone dum rogamus,
Quot jam millia sint perambulanda.
A! distat nimis et nimis remota est!
Sed noris loca tu remotiora.
"Candelae breve lumen; hoc nitente
Illuc ante diem venire possum?"
Sic olim rogitare cantilenis
Suetae, quis neget hoc tibi licere
Ipsam illam Babylona pervenire?
At vos, o pueri, quod hora praebet
Ne fallat, neque enim potest redire.
Aeterna illa dies fugabit astra,
Sparso lumine largiore, et illas
Candelas tenebris dabit, priusquam
Nobis reddita sit juventa nostra.
Sed nunc trans mare--nec procul videtur--
Haec mitto tibi quae legas, ad Indos.
Illa armaria nostra tu memento
Antiqua Indica; vidimus reposta
Cervorum ossa aquilaeque, margaritas,
Cum pictis avibus fabisque miris,
Tintinnabula, vela belluata,
Armillas, simulacra, cum phaselis,
Et conchas resonas. Ut haec videres,
Non mutare solum fuit necesse,
Non his litoribus carere amicis,
Sed tantum fui admovere sellam
Et tota India mox tibi patebat.
De te est fabula; te tenere credas
Illa armaria, te supra repostam,
Me non posse humilem e solo videre.
Subridens mihi porrigas, amabo,
Dextram, et, quem tibi miserim, benigne
Sumas praeteriti memor libellum.
In rubro thalamo cubile quondam
Quod stabat senioribus dicatum,
Vastum aptumque gigantibus putabam;
Infantes duo dum simul jacemus,
Connubio stabili puer modestus
Te junctam propriamque te petivi.
Ast illam memini optimam diaetam
Picta et moenia, frondibusque pulcra
Vela; illic ubi somnus avolarat,
Jucundum fuit arbores per altas
Audire ut trepidaret aura lenis.
Jucundum fuit et toro jacere
Et depicta super videre castra
In tecto, obsidione qua lacessunt
Urbem, nomine Caesaris superbam,
Ballistis modo navibusque longis
Et scalis modo milites Britanni.
Jucundum fuit et greges in herbis
Balantum et pueros videre parvos
Dum risu loca per vadosa ludunt
Et nudo pede cursitant in amnem.
Ast haec omnia quae prius fuere
Aufert hora domumque mutat ipsam;
Nostramque advena vindicavit aulam.
Hortos praeterit ut prius molasque
Rivus, nec datur ut prius videre
Nobis e foribus domoque nostra.
Illic taxus erat--nec eruerunt;
Audire et videor sub arbore astans
Voces, de Babylone dum rogamus,
Quot jam millia sint perambulanda.
A! distat nimis et nimis remota est!
Sed noris loca tu remotiora.
"Candelae breve lumen; hoc nitente
Illuc ante diem venire possum?"
Sic olim rogitare cantilenis
Suetae, quis neget hoc tibi licere
Ipsam illam Babylona pervenire?
At vos, o pueri, quod hora praebet
Ne fallat, neque enim potest redire.
Aeterna illa dies fugabit astra,
Sparso lumine largiore, et illas
Candelas tenebris dabit, priusquam
Nobis reddita sit juventa nostra.
Sed nunc trans mare--nec procul videtur--
Haec mitto tibi quae legas, ad Indos.
Illa armaria nostra tu memento
Antiqua Indica; vidimus reposta
Cervorum ossa aquilaeque, margaritas,
Cum pictis avibus fabisque miris,
Tintinnabula, vela belluata,
Armillas, simulacra, cum phaselis,
Et conchas resonas. Ut haec videres,
Non mutare solum fuit necesse,
Non his litoribus carere amicis,
Sed tantum fui admovere sellam
Et tota India mox tibi patebat.
De te est fabula; te tenere credas
Illa armaria, te supra repostam,
Me non posse humilem e solo videre.
Subridens mihi porrigas, amabo,
Dextram, et, quem tibi miserim, benigne
Sumas praeteriti memor libellum.
V. To My Name-Child
1.
Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,
Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.
Then shall you discover, that your name was printed down
By the English printers, long before, in London town.
In the great and busy city where the East and West are met,
All the little letters did the English printers set;
While you thought of nothing, and were still too young to play,
Foreign people thought of you in places far away.
Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands
Other little children took the volume in their hands;
Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:
Who was little Louis, won't you tell us, mother, please?
1.
Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,
Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.
Then shall you discover, that your name was printed down
By the English printers, long before, in London town.
In the great and busy city where the East and West are met,
All the little letters did the English printers set;
While you thought of nothing, and were still too young to play,
Foreign people thought of you in places far away.
Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands
Other little children took the volume in their hands;
Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:
Who was little Louis, won't you tell us, mother, please?
Est Aliquid Nomen Praeclari Ferre Poetae
1.
Haec tibi Sanchesio mox carmina nostra dabuntur,
Si, Ludovice, litteras
Doctus eris; lectoque libro tua nomina disces
Commissa prelo Londini.
Londinium, occiduus quos Sol quos spectat Eous,
Negotiosi confluunt.
Illic componunt, infans dum ludere nescis,
Has litterarum Angli notas,
Provida hens; puerique procul mea carmina dextris
Tenent Britanni trans freta;
Tuque nihil sentis; sed matrem quisque fatigat
"Quis Ludovicus?" clamitans.
1.
Haec tibi Sanchesio mox carmina nostra dabuntur,
Si, Ludovice, litteras
Doctus eris; lectoque libro tua nomina disces
Commissa prelo Londini.
Londinium, occiduus quos Sol quos spectat Eous,
Negotiosi confluunt.
Illic componunt, infans dum ludere nescis,
Has litterarum Angli notas,
Provida hens; puerique procul mea carmina dextris
Tenent Britanni trans freta;
Tuque nihil sentis; sed matrem quisque fatigat
"Quis Ludovicus?" clamitans.
2.
Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,
Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,
Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.
And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,
Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away
Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!
Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,
Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,
Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.
And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,
Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away
Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!
2.
Tu dictata ubi mente tenes, pete laetus arenas,
Conchas et algas quaerito,
Qua mare Pacificum fluctus ad litora torquet
Et ossa balaenarum humant
Magnarum venti, qua currit mergus in undas.
Sed me memento, volvitur
Dum nebula e ponto, ludos me carmine et hortos
Dixisse trans pontum procul,
Prudentem ignaro, Lusurum in litore quondam
Montis sciebam Regii.
Tu dictata ubi mente tenes, pete laetus arenas,
Conchas et algas quaerito,
Qua mare Pacificum fluctus ad litora torquet
Et ossa balaenarum humant
Magnarum venti, qua currit mergus in undas.
Sed me memento, volvitur
Dum nebula e ponto, ludos me carmine et hortos
Dixisse trans pontum procul,
Prudentem ignaro, Lusurum in litore quondam
Montis sciebam Regii.
VI. To Any Reader
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.
Qualis Eram
Te videt umbroso mater dum ludis in horto;
Gaudia et in nostro nostra tuere libro.
Hic velut ex alta puerum spectare fenestra
Ludentem poteris, laetaque rura procul.
Tu puerum intentum ludo fortasse vocabis,
Frustra sed quatitur saepe fenestra manu.
Nil audit ludo intentus, nec respicit ille;
Nunquam illum flectes eliciesve libro.
Non illum elicies; nec enim jam ludit in horto;
Ille vir est; abiit; vera tacere pudet.
Jam pridem ille abiit; puerum quem credis, imago est,
Nube cava tenuis viribus umbra caret.
Te videt umbroso mater dum ludis in horto;
Gaudia et in nostro nostra tuere libro.
Hic velut ex alta puerum spectare fenestra
Ludentem poteris, laetaque rura procul.
Tu puerum intentum ludo fortasse vocabis,
Frustra sed quatitur saepe fenestra manu.
Nil audit ludo intentus, nec respicit ille;
Nunquam illum flectes eliciesve libro.
Non illum elicies; nec enim jam ludit in horto;
Ille vir est; abiit; vera tacere pudet.
Jam pridem ille abiit; puerum quem credis, imago est,
Nube cava tenuis viribus umbra caret.
Introduction
A Child's Garden: 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-41
The Child Alone, Garden Days, Envoys