Headlam limbers up

To set the scene for his own versions of the poems he considers decently Englishable -- 'half of them will hardly bear translation' -- Headlam offers a brief life of Meleager and then an excerpted rendition of the verse proem to that poet's Garland. I think it's rather lovely and I reproduce it here.

Sweet Muse, to whom this fruitage of singing hast thou brought?
who was it that the poets' garland wrought?
'twas Meleager made it, for noble Diocles
contriving a remembrance that might please;
of Moero many lilies enweaving in his posies,
and Anyte  of Sappho few, — but roses;
with daffodils hymn-teeming of Melanippides,
and young vine-tendril of Simonides…

With marjoram from fragrant Rhianus therewithal,
and sweet Erinna's crocus virginal.
The pansy, Damagetus, and of Callimachus
sweet myrtle, full of honey rigorous…


And, from the pasture, blossom from off that crisped thorn,
Archilochus, small drops from ocean borne…

With ever-golden branches of Plato the divine,
that everywhere do of their virtue shine…

And many shoots of others new-writ; and with them set
of his own muse white snowdrops early yet.

Headlam ends by assuring Greekless readers that they may trust his translation to be faithful to the Greek. With a final sign-off ('Florence, May 1890') we are under way...

... by way of yet another flourish of original and metrically various verse. 'Of every flower his garland did Meleager twine, | but he doth of the garland himself the garland shine...', and so on. With half of Meleager's 130-ish epigrams already written off as too hot to handle, even a slender volume may find itself in need of padding:

...

Sweet utterances we bring to thee
of Meleager's voice,
that are of all his poesy
the treasures of our choice.

Come, if thou canst, receive the gift;
but if thy learning fails
to rede the dulcet-sounding drift
of Grecian nightingales,

For thee the twitterings musical,
so hardly to be read,
in our outlandish phrases all
have we interpreted.

That last stanza... not great.