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But surely 't is the worst of pain,
To love and not be loved again!
Affection now has fled from earth,
Nor fire of genius, light of birth,
Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile

From beauty's cheek one favouring smile.
Gold is the woman's only theme,
Gold is the woman's only dream.
Oh! never be that wretch forgiven-
Forgive him not, indignant Heaven!-
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore,
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore.
Since that devoted thirst began,
Man has forgot to feel for man;
The pulse of social life is dead,
And all its fonder feelings fled!
War too has sullied Nature's charms,
For gold provokes the world to arms!
And oh! the worst of all its art,
I feel it breaks the lover's heart!

ODE XXX.'

'T WAS in an airy dream of night,
I fancied, that I wing'd my flight
On pinions fleeter than the wind,

While little Love, whose feet were twined
(I know not why) with chains of lead,
Pursued me as I trembling fled;
Pursued-and could I e'er have thought?-
Swift as the moment I was caught!
What does the wanton Fancy mean
By such a strange, illusive scene?
I fear she whispers to my breast,

That you, my girl, have stolen my rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Has hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolved the passing vow,

And ne'er was caught by Love till now!

ODE XXXI.'

ARM'D with hyacinthine rod (Arms enough for such a god),

When the mind is dull and dark,
Love can light it with his spark!
Come, oh! come then, let us haste
All the bliss of love to taste;
Let us love both night and day,
Let us love our lives away!
And when hearts, from loving free
(If indeed such hearts there be),
Frown upon our gentle flame,
And the sweet delusion blame;
This shall be my only curse,

(Could J, could I wish them worse?)
May they ne'er the rapture prove
Of the smile from lips we love!

Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. I do not perceive any thing in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram (I do not know where he found it), which has some similitude to this ode:

Cupid bade me wing my pace,
And try with him the rapid race.
O'er the wild torrent, rude and deep,
By tangled brake and pendent steep,
With weary foot I panting flew,

My brow was chill with drops of dew.
And now my soul, exhausted, dying,
To my lip was faintly flying;

And now I thought the spark had fled, When Cupid hover'd o'er my head, And, fanning light his breezy plume, Recall'd me from my languid gloom; Then said, in accents half-reproving,

"

Why hast thou been a foe to loving?

ODE XXXII.'

STREW me a breathing bed of leaves
Where lotus with the myrtle weaves;

Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis
Carpebam, et somuo lumina victa dabam;
Cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis
Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet.

Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas,
Solus Io, solus, dure jacere potes?

Exilio et pedibes nudis, tunicaque soluta,

Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire
Pænitet; et pudor est stare via media.

Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum,
Et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum.
Solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque,
Et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, taum.
Upon my couch I lay, at night profound,
My languid eyes in magic slumber bound,
When Cupid came and snatch'd me from my bed,
And forced me many a weary way to tread.

- What! (said the god) shall you, whose vows are known,
Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?
Irise and follow; all the night I stray,
Unshelter'd, trembling, doubtful of my way,
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interr'd,
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard;
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

My brow was chill with drops of dew.] I have followed those who rend τειρεν ίδρους for πειρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads πειρεν ίδρως.

And now my soul, exhausted, dying,

To my lip was faintly flying, etc.] In the original, he says his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, In a distich, quoted by Aulus Gellius:

Την ψυχήν, Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χείλεσιν έσχον, Ήλθε γαρ ή τλημων ὡς διαβησομένη

Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip.

And drink thy breath, in melting twine,

My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

Aulus Gellias subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find many of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language.

And, fanning light his breezy plume,

Recall'd me from my languid gloom.]

The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signities that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion.-La Fosse.

We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup-bearer. Some interpreters have

And, while in luxury's dream I sink,
Let me the balm of Bacchus drink!
In this delicious hour of joy
Young Love shall be my goblet-boy;
Folding his little golden vest,

With cinctures, round his snowy breast,
Himself shall hover by my side,
And minister the racy tide!

Swift as the wheels that kindling roll,
Our life is hurrying to the goal:
A scanty dust to feed the wind,
Is all the trace 't will leave behind.
Why do we shed the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb?
Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
Affect the slumbering chill of death?
No, no; I ask no balm to steep
With fragrant tears my bed of sleep:
But now, while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing;
Now let the rose with blush of fire,
Upon my brow in scent expire;
And bring the nymph with floating eye,

Oh! she will teach me how to die!
Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire,
To join the blest Elysian choir,

With wine, and love, and blisses dear,
I'll make my own Elysium here!

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That bid'st my blissful visions fly?
. O gentle sire! the infant said,
. In pity take me to thy shed;
Nor fear deceit: a lonely child
I wander o'er the gloomy wild.
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray
Illumes the drear and misty way!»
I hear the baby's tale of woe;

I hear the bitter night-winds blow;
And, sighing for his piteous fate,
I trimm'd my lamp, and oped the gate.
'T was Love! the little wandering sprite,
His pinion sparkled through the night!
I knew him by his bow and dart;
I knew him by my fluttering heart!

I take him in, and fondly raise

The dying embers' cheering blaze;
Press from his dank and clinging hair

The crystals of the freezing air,
And in my hand and bosom hold
His little fingers thrilling cold.
And now the embers' genial ray
Had warm'd his anxious fears away;
I pray thee,» said the wanton child
(My bosom trembled as he smiled),

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Upon the wild wood's leafy tops,

To drink the dew that morning drops,
And chirp thy song with such a glee,
That happiest kings may envy thee!
Whatever decks the velvet field,
Whate'er the circling seasons yield,
Whatever buds, whatever blows,
For thee it buds, for thee it grows.
Nor yet art thou the peasant's fear,
To him thy friendly notes are dear;.
For thou art mild as matin dew,
And still, when summer's flowery hue
Begins to paint the bloomy plain,
We hear thy sweet prophetic strain;
Thy sweet prophetic strain we hear,
And bless the notes and thee revere !
The Muses love thy shrilly tone;
Apollo calls thee all his own;

"T was he who gave that voice to thee,
'T is he who tunes thy minstrelsy,
Unworn by age's dim decline,
The fadeless blooms of youth are thine.
Melodious insect! child of earth!
In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth;
Exempt from every weak decay,
That withers vulgar frames away;
With not a drop of blood to stain
The current of thy purer vein;
So blest an age is pass'd by thee,
Thou seem'st a little deity!

ODE XXXV.'

CUPID once upon a bed

Of roses laid his weary head;

And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc.] Some authors have affirmed (says Madame Dacier), that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchas, the comic poet, who says, είτ' εισιν οἱ τεττιγες ουκ ευδαιμονες, εν ταις γυναιξιν ουδ' ότι ουν φωνης ενι; 'are not the grasshoppers happy in baving dumb wives?' This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I chose rather to make Madame Dacier my authority for it.

The Muses love thy shrilly tone, etc.] Phile. de Animal. Proprietat., calls this insect Mousats pthos, the darling of the Muses; and Mousov opvey, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius:

Των παντων δ' ἡγει το πλατυςατος, αλλ' αγορητής Ηδυεπης τεττιξιν ισογράφος, οἱ π' εκαδήμου Δενδρεα εφεζομενοι οπα λειριοεσσαν ιείσι.

This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, A. where there occurs the very same simile.

Melodious insect! child of earth!] Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the Anthologia, where be prefers the grasshopper to the swan :

Αρκει τέττιγας μεθυσαι δρόσος, αλλά πίοντες

Λείδειν κυκνων εισί γεγωνότεροι.

In dew, that drops from morning's wings,

The gay Cicada sipping floats;

And, drunk with dew, his matin sings

Sweeter than auy cygnet's notes.

'Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in bis nineteenth idyl, bat is very inferior, I think, to his original, in delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser, in one of his smaller compositions,

Luckless urchin not to see
Within the leaves a slumbering bee!
The bee awaked-with anger wild
The bee awaked and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies!
«Oh mother!-I am wounded through-

I die with pain-in sooth I do!
Stung by some little angry thing,
Some serpent on a tiny wing-
A bee it was-for once, I know,
I heard a rustic call it so.»

has sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which I allude begins thus:

Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering

All in his mother's lap;

A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring,
About him flew by hap, etc.

In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose.

The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflec tions which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I hope I shall be pardoned for introducing another Greek Anacreontic of Monsieur Menage, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of this natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved":

Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις
Των παρθένων αυτον
Την μοι φίλην Κορίνναν
Ὡς είδεν, ὡς προς αυτήν
Προσέδραμε τραχηλῳ
Διδυμας τε χειρας άπτων
Φίλει με, μητερ, είπε.
Καλούμενη Κορίννα
Μήτηρ, ερυθριάζει,
Ὡς παρθενος μεν ουσα.
Κ' αυτός δε δυσχεραίνων,
Ως όμμασι πλανηθείς,
Έρως ερυθριάζει.
Εγω δὲ οἱ παραςας,
Μη δυσχέραινε, φημι.
Κύπριν τε και Κορίνναν
Διαγνώσαι ουκ έχουσι
Και οἱ βλεποντες οξύ.

As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain,
The flow ret of the virgin train,
My soul's Corinna, lightly play'd,
Young Cupid saw the graceful maid;
He saw, and in a moment flew,
And round her neck his arms he threw;
And said, with smiles of infant joy,

Oh kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!
Unconscious of a mother's name,
The modest virgin blush'd with shame!
And angry Cupid, scarce believing
That vision could be so deceiving,
Thus to mistake his Cyprian dame,
The little infant lush'd with shame.
Be not ashamed, my boy, I cried,
For I was lingering by his side;

Corinna and thy lovely mother,
Believe me, are so like each other,
That clearest eyes are oft betrayed,
And take thy Venus for the maid,»

Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, bas translated this ode of Aua

creon.

Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile;
Then said, My infant, if so much
Thou feel the little wild bee's touch,
How must the heart, ab, Cupid! be,
The hapless heart that's stung by thee!

ODE XXXVI.'

Ip hoarded gold possess'd a power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every day should swell my store;

That when the Fates would send their minion,

To waft me off on shadowy pinion,

I might some hours of life obtain,
And bribe him back to hell again.
But, since we ne'er can charm away
The mandate of that awful day,
Why do we vainly weep at fate,
And sigh for life's uncertain date?
The light of gold can ne'er illume
The dreary midnight of the tomb!

And why should I then pant for treasures?
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures;
The goblet rich, the board of friends,
Whose flowing souls the goblet blends!
Mine be the nymph whose form reposes
Seductive on that bed of roses;
And oh! be mine the soul's excess,
Expiring in her warm caress!

ODE XXXVII.'

'T was night, and many a circling bowl Had deeply warm'd my swimming soul;

'Monsieur Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet.

The German imitators of it are, Lessing, in his poem Gestern Brüder, etc. Gleim, in the ode An den Tod, and Schmidt, in der Poet. Blumenl. Gotting. 1783, p. 7.-Degen.

That when the Fates would send their minion,

To waft me off on shadowy pinion, etc.] The commentators, who ¦ are so fond of disputing de lana caprioa,» have been very busy on the authority of the phrase tyvstveneλ0. The rending of iv'av Ozvaros e, which De Medenbach' proposes in his Amoenitates Litteraria, was already hinted by Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice.

The goblet rich, the board of friends,

Whose flowing souls the goblet blends! This communion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life

are enumerated with proverbial simplicity. Tytuves pets of τον ανδρι θνητῳ. Δεύτερον δε, καλον φυήν γενεσθαι. Το τρίτον δε, πλουτείν αδόλως. Και το τέταρτον, συνήθαν μετα των φίλων.

Of mortal blessings here, the first is health,

And next, those charms by which the eye we move;
The third is wealth, unwounding, guiltless wealth,
And then, an intercourse with those we love!
Compare with this ode the beautiful poem, 'der Traum of Uz.'.

Degen.

Monsieur Le Fevre in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably

As Jull'd in slumber I was laid,
Bright visions o'er my fancy play'd!
With virgins, blooming as the dawn,
I seem'd to trace the opening lawn;
Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew,
We flew, and sported as we flew!
Some ruddy striplings, young and sleek,
With blush of Bacchus on their cheek,
Saw me trip the flowery wild
With dimpled girls, and slyly smiled—
Smiled indeed with wanton glee;
But ah! 't was plain they envied me.
And still I flew-and now I caught
The panting nymphs, and fondly thought
To kiss-when all my dream of joys,
Dimpled girls and ruddy boys,

All were gone! Alas! I said,
Sighing for the illusions fled,

Sleep! again my joys restore,

Oh! let me dream them o'er and o'er's

ODE XXXVIII. '

LET us drain the nectar'd bowl,
Let us raise the song of soul
To him, the god who loves so well
The nectar'd bowl, the choral swell'
Him, who instructs the sons of earth,
To thrid the tangled dance of mirth;
Him, who was nursed with infant Love,
And cradled in the Paphian grove;
Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms
llas fondled in her twining arms.

the cause of the severe reprehension which I believe be suffered for his Anacreon. Fuit olim fateor (says he, in a note upon Longinus). cam Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima formina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone (Anacreontem dico, si nescis Lector), noli sperare, etc. etc. He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of: Ουδείς φιλοπότης εςιν άνθρωπος κακού.

No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man. -when all my dream of joys,

Dimpled girls and ruddy boys,

All were gone! Nounas says of Bacchus, almost in the same words thai Anacreon uses,

Εγρομένος δε

Παρθένον ουκ' εκίχησε, και ήθελεν αυθις κανειν.

Waking, he lost the phantom's charms,

He found no beauty in his arms,

Again to slumber be essayed,

Again to clasp the shadowy maid!

■ Sleep! again my joys restore,

LONGEPIFREE.

Oh! let me dream them o'er and o'er!] Dr Johnson, in his preface who pretende), in every little coincidence of thought to detect an to Shakspeare, animadverting upon the commentators of that poet, imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the following words to the line of Anacreon before us: el have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, I tried to sleep again, the author imitates Apaereon, who had, like any other man, the same wish on the same occasion.

Compare with this beautiful ode the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v, das Gesellschaftliche; and of Barger, p. 51, etc. etc. Degea. Him, that the snowy Queen of Charme

Has fondled in her twining arms.] Robertellas, upon the epithaJamium of Catullus, mentions an ingenious derivation of Cytherwa, The name of Venus, παρά το κεύθειν τους ερωτας, which seems to hint that Love's fairy favours are lost, when not concealed, »

From him that dream of transport flows,
Which sweet intoxication knows;
With him the brow forgets to darkle,
And brilliant graces learn to sparkle.
Behold! my boys a goblet bear, j
Whose sunny foam bedews the air.
Where are now the tear, the sigh?
To the winds they fly, they fly!
Grasp the bowl; in nectar sinking,
Man of sorrow, drown thy thinking!
Oh! can the tears we lend to thought
In life's account avail us aught?
Can we discern, with all our lore,
The path we 're yet to journey o'er?
No, no, the walk of life is dark,
"T is wine alone can strike a spark!
Then let me quaff the foamy tide,

And through the dance meandering glide;
Let me imbibe the spicy breath
Of odours chafed to fragrant death;
Or from the kiss of love inhale
A more voluptuous, richer gale!
To souls that court the phantom Care,
Let him retire and shroud him there;
While we exhaust the nectar'd bowl,
And swell the choral song of soul
To him, the God who loves so well
The nectar'd bowl, the choral swell!

ODE XXX+X.

How I love the festive boy,
Tripping with the dance of joy!
How I love the mellow sage,
Smiling through the veil of age!
And whene'er this man of
years
In the dance of joy appears,
Age is on his temples hung,
But his heart-his heart is young!

No, no, the walk of life is dark,

'Tis wine alone can strike a spark! The brevity of life allows argaments for the voluptuary as well as the moralist. Among many parallel passages which Longepierre has adduced, I shall content myself with this epigram from the Anthologia:

Λουσάμενοι, Προδίκη, πυκασώμεθα, και τον ακρατου
Έλκωμεν, κυλίκας μείζονας αραμένοι.
Ραιος ὁ χαιροντων εςι βιος. είτα τα λοιπα
Γηρας κωλύσει, και το τέλος θανατος.

Of which the following is a loose paraphrase:
Fly, my beloved, to yonder stream,
We'll plunge us from the nooutide beam!
Then call the rose's humid bud,

And dip it in our goblet's flood.
Our age of bliss, my nymph, shall fly
As sweet, though passing, as that sigh
Which seems to whisper o'er your lip,

Come, while you may, of rapture sip."
For age will steal the rosy form,

And chill the pulse, which trembles warm!
And death-alas! that hearts, which thrill
Like yours and mine, should e'er be still!

Age it on his temples hang,

But his heart-his heart is yong Saint Pavin makes the same distinction in a sonnet to a young girl.

Je sais bien que les destinées

Ont mal compassé nos années;

ODE XL.

I KNOW that Heaven ordains me here
To run this mortal life's career;
The scenes which I have journey'd o'er
Return no more-alas! no more;
And all the path I've yet to go

I neither know nor ask to know.
Then surely, Care, thou canst not twine
Thy fetters round a soul like mine;
No, no, the heart that feels with me
Can never be a slave to thee!
And oh before the vital thrill,
Which trembles at my heart, is still,
I'll gather joy's luxurious flowers,
And gild with bliss my fading hours;
Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom,
And Venus dance me to the tomb!

ODE XLI.

WHEN Spring begems the dewy scene, How sweet to walk the velvet green, And hear the Zephyr's languid sighs, As o'er the scented mead he flies! How sweet to mark the pouting vine, Ready to fall in tears of wine;

Ne regardez que mon amour.
Peut-être en serez vous émue:
Il est jeune, et n'est que du jour,
Belle Iris, que je vous ai vue.

Fair and young, thou bloomest now,

And I full many a year have told; But read the heart and not the brow, Thou shalt not find my love is old. My love's a child; and thou canst say How much his little age may be, For be was born the very day

That first I set my eyes on thee!

No, no, the heart that feels with me,

Can never be a slave to thee!] Longepierre quotes an epigram here from the Anthologia, on account of the similarity of a particular phrase; it is by no means Anacreontic, but has an interesting simplicity which induced me to paraphrase it, and may atone for its intrusion.

Ελπις, και συ, τυχη, μεγα χαιρετεί τον λιμεν' εύρον.
Ουδεν έμοι χ' ύμιν· παίζετε τους μετ' εμε.

At length to Fortune, and to you,
Delusive Hope! a last adieu.
The charm that once beguiled is o'er,
And I bave reach'd my destined shore!

Away, away, your flattering arts

May now betray some simpler hearts,
And you will smile at their believing,

And they shall weep at your deceiving!

Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom,

And Venus dance me to the tomb!] The same commentator has quoted an epitaph, written upon our poet by Julian, where he makes him give the precepts of good-fellowship even from the tomb. Πολλάκι μεν του αείσα, και εκ τυμβου δε βοήσω Πίνετε, πριν ταυτην αμφιβάλησθε κόνιν.

This lesson oft in life I sung,

And from my grave I still shall cry, .Drink, mortal: drink, while time is young, Ere death has made thee cold as I..

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