After such happy wise, in ancient years, Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: Joyous in liberty they lived at first; Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage Which men call love in our degenerate age. We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:-- STANZAS 99-107. In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, The seed deific from Olympus sown, Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter Seeing the carved work you would cry that real Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. Well might you swear that on those waves were riding The goddess with her right hand on her hair, And with the other the sweet apple hiding; And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. The one, with hands above her head upraised, Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing Among the gods with dance and carolling.