Poems Sigourney 1827/On the Translation of Milton into the Language of Iceland

by Lydia Sigourney

ON THE TRANSLATION OF MILTON

INTO THE LANGUAGE OF ICELAND, BY THOLASKEN, A NATIVE POET.

Clime by the tyrant North embraced,
    And scourged by Ocean's wildest ire!
Who, mid thine intellectual waste,
    Would seek to find poetic fire?

That inborn lustre of the mind,
    Electric genius, bright and free,
That diamond of a world refined,
    Say,—who would dream to find in thee?

True,—mocking nature bids to gush
    Thy boiling founts from frozen veins,
And red volcanic splendors rush
    Terrific o'er thine ice-clad plains,—
But who, amid thy dwindled race
    Such sport sublime would hope to see?—
Who mid thy moral desert trace
    Such contradicting majesty?

Yet Thule!—like that summit dread
    Where Hecla lights his torch of fire,
Thine own Thorlasken lifts his head,
    And nobly rules a master's lyre.
The melody of Milton's strains
    He with adventurous skill essays,
And boldly o'er thine awe-struck plains
    The pomp of angel war arrays.

Great bard!—whose outward eye was sealed
    That holier light within might beam,
Who to the prompting muse did'st yield
    The fervor of thy nightly dream,
Say,—could thy prophet glance descry
    What realms remote should seek thy shrine?
What barbarous tongues to thee reply?
    What tuneful harps be waked by thine?

Souls in the world's wild vortex tost,
    Souls to the car of Mammon chain'd,
Could scornful look on Eden lost,
    Or coldly mark its joys regain'd;—
Thy niggard age denied the claim,—
    Yet knew'st thou of thy slighted lay,
The guerdon was immortal fame
    Which proud posterity would pay.

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