The Mower to the Glow-Worms

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night,
Her matchless songs does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor prince’s funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grass’s fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wand’ring mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displac’d
That I shall never find my home.

I’d like to try to explain … Continue Reading

Ovid’s vast mythological anthology is one of the outstanding achievements of literary history. It’s both a perennial inspiration to later artists and a delight to multitudes who only come across a handful of its stories. As Soucy puts it in his introduction, ‘Ovid’s irreverent Roman epic has done more even than the works of Hesiod and Homer to codify what has become known as “Greek” mythology.’ Reworkings of individual tales still keep coming out, showing how deeply they’re embedded in popular culture, how widely they’re known, how immediately they’re recognisable as reference points, both resonant with many-layered associations and shaped … Continue Reading