# The Poplar Field Persephone: The Harvard Undergraduate Classics Research Journal 204 Boylston Hall Harvard Yard Cambridge MA 02138 ![harvard_department_of_the_classics.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum2341/files/persephone/files/harvard_department_of_the_classics.png) **English Verse**The Poplars are fell’d, farewell to the shade And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade,The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a viewOf my favourite field and the bank where they grew,And now in the grass behold they are laid, And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.The black-bird has fled to another retreat Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,And the scene where his melody charm’d me before,Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.My fugitive years are all hasting away, And I must e’er long lie as lowly as they, With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head E’er another such grove shall arise in its stead.‘Tis a sight to engage me if any thing can To muse on the perishing pleasures of Man; Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,Have a Being less durable even than he. (WILLIAM COWPER) Translated from William Cowper's English into Latin** by Daniel Schwennicke, Merton College, University of OxfordTHE CHANCELLOR'S LATIN PRIZE 2014: POETRY*Quid mea carmina possunt?Populeum nemus excisum est; frondosa valetoumbra columnarum! nec iam stridentibus alisludunt in foliis Zephyri gelidoque susurrocantant nec specie fluvialis lympha renidet.gramine non oculos bis sex labentibus annisiuvit ager nostros. iam iam qua consita ripaen arbusta iacent passim deiecta per herbam atque sedile coma est cuius sub tegmine sedi. et merula e mediis coryleti ut quareret umbramaestibus effugit, nidum procul inde locavit, et nemus omne silet quondam dulcedine plenumnec iam blanda meum pertemptant carmina pectus.sed velut arboribus fugit inreparabile tempus et nobis, humili requiescam in funere semper: ante caput lapis infelix, in pectore siccus caespes erit dum silva loco nova surget eodem.talia conspiciens hominis mecum ipse volutogaudia quae pereunt: sua vita simillima sommo est;at tanto brevius quo gaudeat esse videtur. **More from this issue:** --- Attachments- [ picture\_as\_pdf Schwennicke Winter 2016.pdf ](/sites/g/files/omnuum2341/files/persephone/files/schwennicke_winter_2016.pdf) ---