IDYLLIUM
THE TWENTY-NINΤΗ.
THE CAPRICIOUS FRIEND.
SINCE Truth's in Wine,' my dearest youth,
We mellow souls should speak the truth:
Take then, for once, without disguise,
What in my inmost bosom lies.
Thy friendship is not sound and whole;
Thou dost not love me from the soul.
The half of life I call my own
Lives but through thee the rest is gone!
'Tis thine to make alive or kill;
To bless with good, or curse with ill:
For instant, at thy powerful nod,
I sink a shade! or rise a God!
How can thy heart approve it, tell,
To torture one who loves so well?
But if, thy senior pleas'd to hear,
Thou lend advice a listening ear,
Thy ready plaudits will commend,
When blessings come, a faithful friend.
To gain security and rest,
Build on one tree a single nest;
And such a bough be sure to take
As mocks the' approaches of the snake.
Yet, perch'd on yonder branch, to-day,
The next, upon another spray,
With roving pinion thou art gone!
Allur'd by all, but fix'd to none :
If any one who sees thee vain,
Praise thy deserts, in canting strain,
Good heaven! he's instantly enroll'd
Among thy friends, however old.
But love, if thou wilt truly live,
A soul whose kindred feelings give
A zest to life: thus all shall prize
Thy character, and deem thee wise.
And, sure, such friendship's worth possessing,
That, while 'tis bless'd, is ever blessing;
That bade my stubborn bosom feel,
And soften'd thus a heart of steel!
WHEN, his rosy colour fled,
Venus saw her lover dead,
Stiff his hair, and clos'd his eyes-
Cupids, go (she frantic cries),
Trace the boar through all the wood,
Stain'd with my Adonis' blood!'
Swift as birds, each fluttering Love
Hastens through the mazy grove :
Soon the guilty boar they find,
Fearless run, and seize, and bind.
This, to guide the beast along,
Panting, pulls his cord of thong;
That, to make the felon go,
Beats him with his little bow,
He an easy captive led,
Aw'd by Venus, hung his head.
Venus thus, in angry strain :
"Fellest of the prowling train!
Didst thou wound Adonis' thigh?
Didst thou cause my love to die?"
He replied: 'O Venus, hear!
By thyself, and lover dear;
By the chains with which I'm bound;
By the hunters standing round;
Never did my erring tooth
Mean to pierce so fair a youth!
But when he surpris'd my sight,
As a polish'd statue bright;
And, my rapture rising high,
I survey'd his naked thigh;
Ah! not able to resist,
Furiously I ran and kiss'd !
To a fatal frenzy wrought-
Too much passion was my fault!
Now, for thy Adonis' sake,
Take my tusks, all bloody, take!
Take my lips beside, if these
Prove too trivial to appease!"
She, in pity to his pain,
Bid her Cupids loose his chain.
But, though free, the grateful boar,
Ranging in the woods no more,
Follow'd close Cythera's Queen ;
And his cruel tusks so keen
(That had glow'd with amorous fire)
Burnt amid the blazing pyre!
TO THE MUSES AND APOLLO.
THESE dewy roses, and this wildling thyme,
I offer to the sacred Nine, who love
The Heliconian hill : but lo, to thee,
Apollo! I devote the laurel's leaves,
Of sabler hue. Such offerings oft adorn
The Delphic rock! and, meantime, to enrich
Thy altar with its purple stream, shall bleed
Yon horn'd he-goat, that crops, so snowy-white,
The pendant branches of the gummy pine.
AN OFFERING TO PAN.
DAPHNIS the fair, who tunes the reed,
To Pan these presents hath decreed :
Three pipes his lips that deftly suit;
A scrip, that oft hath borne his fruit;
A skin, which from a fawn he took-
A pointed dart, a shepherd's crook!
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