CATULLUS AND LESBIA.
19
the process, and which perhaps served the poet for a confession of his flame:—
"Peer for the gods he seems to me,
And mightier far, if that may be,
Who, sitting face to face with thee,
Can there serenely gaze;
Can hear thee sweetly speak the while,
Can see thee, Lesbia, sweetly smile;
Joys that from me my senses wile
And leave me in a maze.
And mightier far, if that may be,
Who, sitting face to face with thee,
Can there serenely gaze;
Can hear thee sweetly speak the while,
Can see thee, Lesbia, sweetly smile;
Joys that from me my senses wile
And leave me in a maze.
For ever, when thy face I view,
My voice is to its task untrue.
My tongue is paralysed, and through
Each limb a subtle flame
Runs swiftly; murmurs dim arise
Within my ears, across my eyes
A sudden darkness spreads, and sighs
And tremors shake my frame."[1]
My voice is to its task untrue.
My tongue is paralysed, and through
Each limb a subtle flame
Runs swiftly; murmurs dim arise
Within my ears, across my eyes
A sudden darkness spreads, and sighs
And tremors shake my frame."[1]
Nothing that we could add by way of comment could enhance the truth to nature of the sensations, which the poet renders more vivid as he endorses them, and which Tennyson and Shelley have, consciously or unconsciously, enumerated in kindred sequence in "Eleonore" and the "Lines to Constantia singing." There is something in their reality and earnest truth from the heart, for which we look in vain for imitation in the Elizabethan lyrists. Probably to the same season of hope and wooing must be referred the two
- ↑ C. li., Rossbach and Lachmann; Th. Martin, p. 3.
