When Gold, as fleet as zephyr's' pinion,Escapes like any faithless minion,[1]And flies me (as he flies me ever),[2]Do I pursue him? never, never!No, let the false deserter go,For who would court his direst foe?But when I feel my lightened mindNo more by grovelling gold confined,Then loose I all such clinging cares,And cast them to the vagrant airs.Then feel I, too, the Muse's spell,And wake to life the dulcet shell,Which, roused once more, to beauty sings,While love dissolves along the strings!
But, scarcely has my heart been taughtHow little Gold deserves a thought,When, lo! the slave returns once more,And with him wafts delicious storeOf racy wine, whose genial artIn slumber seals the anxious heart.Again he tries my soul to severFrom love and song, perhaps forever!
Away, deceiver! why pursuingCeaseless thus my heart's undoing?Sweet is the song of amorous fire.Sweet the sighs that thrill the lyre;Oh! sweeter far than all the goldThy wings can waft, thy mines can hold.Well do I know thy arts, thy wiles—They withered Love's young wreathèd smiles;And o'er his lyre such darkness shed,I thought its soul of song was fled!They dashed the wine-cup, that, by him,Was filled with kisses to the brim.[3]Go—fly to haunts of sordid men,But come not near the bard again.Thy glitter in the Muse's shade,Scares from her bower the tuneful maid;And not for worlds would I foregoThat moment of poetic glow,When my full soul, in Fancy's stream,Pours o'er the lyre, its swelling theme.Away, away! to worldlings hence,Who feel not this diviner sense;Give gold to those who love that pest,—But leave the poet poor and blest.
[1] There is a kind of pun in these words, as Madame Dacier has already remarked; for Chrysos, which signifies gold, was also a frequent name for a slave. In one of Lucian's dialogues, there is, I think, a similar play upon the word, where the followers of Chrysippus are called golden fishes. The puns of the ancients are, in general, even more vapid than our own; some of the best are those recorded of Diogenes.
[2] This grace of iteration has already been taken notice of. Though sometimes merely a playful beauty, it is peculiarly expressive of impassioned sentiment, and we may easily believe that it was one of the many sources of that energetic sensibility which breathed through the style of Sappho.
[3] Horace hasDesiderique temperare poculum, not figuratively, however, like Anacreon, but importng the love-philtres of the witches. By "cups of kisses" our poet may allude to a favorite gallantry among the ancients, of drinking when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim;—
"Or leave a kiss within the cup And I'll not ask for wine."
As In Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea, "that you may at once both drink and kiss."
Ripened by the solar beam,Now the ruddy clusters teem,In osier baskets borne alongBy all the festal vintage throngOf rosy youths and virgins fair,Ripe as the melting fruits they bear.Now, now they press the pregnant grapes,And now the captive stream escapes,In fervid tide of nectar gushing.And for its bondage proudly blushingWhile, round the vat's impurpled brim,The choral song, the vintage hymnOf rosy youths and virgins fair,Steals on the charmed and echoing air.Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes,The orient tide that sparkling flies,The infant Bacchus, born in mirth,While Love stands by, to hail the birth.
When he, whose verging years declineAs deep into the vale as mine,When he inhales the vintage-cup,His feet, new-winged, from earth spring up,And as he dances, the fresh airPlays whispering through his silvery hair.Meanwhile young groups whom love invites,To joys even rivalling wine's delights,Seek, arm in arm, the shadowy grove,And there, in words and looks of love,Such as fond lovers look and say,Pass the sweet moonlight hours away.
Awake to life, my sleeping shell,To Phoebus let thy numbers swell;And though no glorious prize be thine,No Pythian wreath around thee twine,Yet every hour is glory's hourTo him who gathers wisdom's flower.Then wake thee from thy voiceless slumbers,And to the soft and Phrygian numbers,Which, tremblingly, my lips repeat,Send echoes, from thy chord as sweet.'Tis thus the swan, with fading notes,Down the Cayster's current floats,While amorous breezes linger round,And sigh responsive sound for sound.
Muse of the Lyre! illume my dream,Thy Phoebus is my fancy's theme;And hallowed is the harp I bear,And hallowed is the wreath I wear,Hallowed by him, the god of lays,Who modulates the choral maze.I sing the love which Daphne twinedAround the godhead's yielding mind;I sing the blushing Daphne's flightFrom this ethereal son of Light;And how the tender, timid maidFlew trembling to the kindly shade.Resigned a form, alas, too fair,Arid grew a verdant laurel there;Whose leaves, with sympathetic thrill,In terror seemed to tremble still!The god pursued, with winged desire;And when his hopes were all on fire,And when to clasp the nymph he thought,A lifeless tree was all he caught;And 'stead of sighs that pleasure heaves,Heard but the west-wind in the leaves!
But, pause, my soul, no more, no more—Enthusiast, whither do I soar?This sweetly-maddening dream of soulHath hurried me beyond the goal.Why should I sing the mighty dartsWhich fly to wound celestial hearts,When ah, the song, with sweeter tone,Can tell the darts that wound my own?Still be Anacreon, still inspireThe descant of the Teian lyre:Still let the nectared numbers floatDistilling love in every note!And when some youth, whose glowing soulHas felt the Paphian star's control,When he the liquid lays shall hear,His heart will flutter to his ear,And drinking there of song divine,Banquet on intellectual wine![2]
[1] This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been written by Anacreon; and it is undoubtedly rather a sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But in a poet of whose works so small a proportion has reached us, diversity of style is by no means a safe criterion. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. We can perceive in what an altered and imperfect state his works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace citing an ode from the third book of Anacreon.
[2] Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS., whose authority helps to confirm the genuine antiquity of them all, though a few have stolen among the number, which we may hesitate in attributing to Anacreon.
Youth's endearing charms are fled;Hoary locks deform my head;Bloomy graces, dalliance gay,All the flowers of life decay.[2]Withering age begins to traceSad memorials o'er my face;Time has shed its sweetest bloomAll the future must be gloom.This it is that sets me sighing;Dreary is the thought of dying![3]Lone and dismal is the road,Down to Pluto's dark abode;And, when once the journey's o'er,Ah! we can return no more!
[1] The intrusion of this melancholy ode, among the careless levities of our poet, reminds us of the skeletons which the Egyptians used to hang up in the banquet-rooms, to inculcate a thought of mortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it were not for the beauty of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown this ode.
[2] Horace often, with feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human enjoyments.
[3] Regnier, a libertine French poet, has written some sonnets on the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling repentance. Chaulieu, however, supports more consistently the spirit of the Epicurean philosopher. See his poem, addressed to the Marquis de Lafare.
Fill me, boy, as deep a draught,As e'er was filled, as e'er was quaffed;But let the water amply flow,To cool the grape's intemperate glow;[2]Let not the fiery god be single,But with the nymphs in union mingle.For though the bowl's the grave of sadness,Ne'er let it be the birth of madness.No, banish from our board tonightThe revelries of rude delight;To Scythians leave these wild excesses,Ours be the joy that soothes and blesses!And while the temperate bowl we wreathe,In concert let our voices breathe,Beguiling every hour alongWith harmony of soul and song.
[1] This ode consists of two fragments, which are to be found in Athenaeus, book x., and which Barnes, from the similarity of their tendency, has combined into one. I think this a very justifiable liberty, and have adopted it in some other fragments of our poet.
[2] It was Amphictyon who first taught the Greeks to mix water with their wine; in commemoration of which circumstance they erected altars to Bacchus and the nymphs.
To Love, the soft and blooming child,I touch the harp in descant wild;To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers,The boy, who breathes and blushes flowers;To Love, for heaven and earth adore him,And gods and mortals bow before him!
[1] "This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alexandrinus, Storm, lib. vi. and In Arsenius, Collect. Graec."—BARNES.
It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in praise of Love.
Haste thee, nymph, whose well-aimed spearWounds the fleeting mountain-deer!Dian, Jove's immortal child,Huntress of the savage wild!Goddess with the sun-bright hair!Listen to a people's prayer.Turn, to Lethe's river turn,There thy vanquished people mourn![2]Come to Lethe's wavy shore,Tell them they shall mourn no more.Thine their hearts, their altars thine;Must they, Dian—must they pine?
[1] This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephaestion. There is an anecdote of our poet, which has led some to doubt whether he ever wrote any odes of this kind. It is related by the Scholiast upon Pindar (Isthmionic. od. ii. v. 1. as cited by Barnes) that Anaecreon being asked why he addressed all his hymns to women, and none to the deities? answered, "Because women are my deities."
I have assumed, it will be seen, in reporting this anecdote, the same liberty which I have thought it right to take in translating some of the odes; and it were to be wished that these little infidelities were always allowable in interpreting the writings of the ancients.
[2] Lethe, a river of Iona, according to Strabo, falling into the Meander. In its neighborhood was the city called Magnesia, in favor of whose inhabitants our poet is supposed to have addressed this supplication to Diana. It was written (as Madame Dacier conjectures) on the occasion of some battle, in which the Magnesians had been defeated.
Like some wanton filly sporting,Maid Of Thrace, thou flyest my courting.Wanton filly! tell me whyThou trip'st away, with scornful eye,And seem'st to think my doating heartIs novice in the bridling art?Believe me, girl, it is not so;Thou'lt find this skilful hand can throwThe reins around that tender form,However wild, however warm.Yes—trust me I can tame thy force,And turn and wind thee in the course.Though, wasting now thy careless hours,Thou sport amid the herbs and flowers,Soon shalt thou feel the rein's control,And tremble at the wished-for goal!
[1] This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian girl, exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, which runs so obviously through the poem, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging to Polycrates.
Pierius, in the fourth book of his "Hieroglyphics," cites this ode, and informs us that the horse was the hieroglyphical emblem of pride.
To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine,Fairest of all that fairest shine;To thee, who rulest with darts of fireThis world of mortals, young Desire!And oh! thou nuptial Power, to theeWho bearest of life the guardian key,Breathing my soul in fervent praise,And weaving wild my votive lays,For thee, O Queen! I wake the lyre,For thee, thou blushing young Desire,And oh! for thee, thou nuptial Power,Come, and illume this genial hour.
Look on thy bride, too happy boy,And while thy lambent glance of joyPlays over all her blushing charms,Delay not, snatch her to thine arms,Before the lovely, trembling prey,Like a young birdling, wing away!Turn, Stratocles, too happy youth,Dear to the Queen of amorous truth,And dear to her, whose yielding zoneWill soon resign her all thine own.Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye,Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh.To those bewitching beauties turn;For thee they blush, for thee they burn.
Not more the rose, the queen of flowers,Outblushes all the bloom of bowersThan she unrivalled grace discloses,The sweetest rose, where all are roses.Oh! may the sun, benignant, shedHis blandest influence o'er thy bed;And foster there an infant tree,To bloom like her, and tower like thee!
[1] This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scolium at the nuptial banquet.
Rich in bliss, I proudly scornThe wealth of Amalthea's horn;Nor should I ask to call the throneOf the Tartessian prince my own;[1]To totter through his train of years,The victim of declining fears.One little hour of joy to meIs worth a dull eternity!
[1] He here alludes to Arganthonius, who lived, according to Lucian, an hundred and fifty years; and reigned, according to Herodotus, eighty.
Now Neptune's month our sky deforms,The angry night-cloud teems with storms;And savage winds, infuriate driven,Fly howling in the face of heaven!Now, now, my friends, the gathering gloomWith roseate rays of wine illume:And while our wreaths of parsley spreadTheir fadeless foliage round our head,Let's hymn the almighty power of wine,And shed libations on his shrine!
They wove the lotus band to deckAnd fan with pensile wreath each neck;And every guest, to shade his head,Three little fragrant chaplets spread;[1]And one was of the Egyptian leaf,The rest were roses, fair and brief:While from a golden vase profound,To all on flowery beds around,A Hebe, of celestial shape,Poured the rich droppings of the grape!
[1] Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a courtezan, who, in order to gratify three lovers, without leaving cause for Jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was satisfied with his favor, and flattered himself with the preference.
A broken cake, with honey sweet,Is all my spare and simple treat:And while a generous bowl I crownTo float my little banquet down,I take the soft, the amorous lyre,And sing of love's delicious fire:In mirthful measures warm and free,I sing, dear maid, and sing for thee!
With twenty chords my lyre is hung,And while I wake them all for thee,Thou, O maiden, wild and young,Disportest in airy levity.
The nursling fawn, that in some shadeIts antlered mother leaves behind,Is not more wantonly afraid,More timid of the rustling wind!
Fare thee well, perfidious maid,My soul, too long on earth delayed,Delayed, perfidious girl, by thee,Is on the wing for liberty.I fly to seek a kindlier sphere,Since thou hast ceased to love me here!
Awhile I bloomed, a happy flower,Till love approached one fatal hour,And made my tender branches feelThe wounds of his avenging steel.Then lost I fell, like some poor willowThat falls across the wintry billow!
Monarch Love, resistless boy,With whom the rosy Queen of Joy,And nymphs, whose eyes have Heaven's hue,Disporting tread the mountain-dew;Propitious, oh! receive my sighs,Which, glowing with entreaty, riseThat thou wilt whisper to the breastOf her I love thy soft behest:And counsel her to learn from thee.That lesson thou hast taught to me.Ah! if my heart no flattery tell,Thou'lt own I've learned that lesson well!
Spirit of Love, whose locks unrolled,Stream on the breeze like floating gold;Come, within a fragrant cloudBlushing with light, thy votary shroud;And, on those wings that sparkling play,Waft, oh, waft me hence away!Love! my soul is full of thee,Alive to all thy luxury.But she, the nymph for whom I glowThe lovely Lesbian mocks my woe;Smiles at the chill and hoary huesThat time upon my forehead strews.Alas! I fear she keeps her charms,In store for younger, happier arms!
Hither, gentle Muse of mine,Come and teach thy votary oldMany a golden hymn divine,For the nymph with vest of gold.
Pretty nymph, of tender age,Fair thy silky looks unfold;Listen to a hoary sage,Sweetest maid with vest of gold!
Would that I were a tuneful lyre,Of burnished ivory fair,Which, in the Dionysian choir,Some blooming boy should bear!
Would that I were a golden vase.That some bright nymph might holdMy spotless frame, with blushing grace,Herself as pure as gold!
When Cupid sees how thickly now,The snows of Time fall o'er my brow,Upon his wing of golden light.He passes with an eaglet's flight,And flitting onward seems to say,"Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!"
Cupid, whose lamp has lent the ray,That lights our life's meandering way,That God, within this bosom stealing,Hath wakened a strange, mingled feeling.Which pleases, though so sadly teasing,And teases, though so sweetly pleasing!
* * * * *
Let me resign this wretched breathSince now remains to meNo other balm than kindly death,To soothe my misery!
* * * * *
I know thou lovest a brimming measure,And art a kindly, cordial host;But let me fill and drink at pleasure—Thus I enjoy the goblet most.
I fear that love disturbs my rest,Yet feel not love's impassioned care;I think there's madness in my breastYet cannot find that madness there!
* * * * *
From dread Leucadia's frowning steep,I'll plunge into the whitening deep:And there lie cold, to death resigned,Since Love intoxicates my mind!
* * * * *
Mix me, child, a cup divine,Crystal water, ruby wine;Weave the frontlet, richly flushingO'er my wintry temples blushing.Mix the brimmer—Love and IShall no more the contest try.Here—upon this holy bowl,I surrender all my soul!
Here, at thy tomb, these tears I shed,Tears, which though vainly now they roll,Are all love hath to give the dead,And wept o'er thee with all love's soul;—
Wept in remembrance of that light.Which naught on earth, without thee, gives,Hope of my heart! now quenched in night,But dearer, dead, than aught that lives.
Where is she? where the blooming boughThat once my life's sole lustre made?Torn off by death, 'tis withering now,And all its flowers in dust are laid.
Oh earth! that to thy matron breastHast taken all those angel charms,Gently, I pray thee, let her rest,—Gently, as in a mother's arms.
Who'll buy a little boy? Look, yonder is he,Fast asleep, sly rogue on his mother's knee;So bold a young imp 'tisn't safe to keep,So I'll part with him now, while he's sound asleep.See his arch little nose, how sharp 'tis curled,His wings, too, even in sleep unfurled;And those fingers, which still ever ready are foundFor mirth or for mischief, to tickle, or wound.
He'll try with his tears your heart to beguile,But never you mind—he's laughing all the while;For little he cares, so he has his own whim,And weeping or laughing are all one to him.His eye is as keen as the lightning's flash,His tongue like the red bolt quick and rash;And so savage is he, that his own dear motherIs scarce more safe in his hands than another.
In short, to sum up this darling's praise,He's a downright pest in all sorts of ways;And if any one wants such an imp to employ,He shall have a dead bargain of this little boy.But see, the boy wakes—his bright tears flow—His eyes seem to ask could I sell him? oh no,Sweet child no, no—though so naughty you be,You shall live evermore with my Lesbia and me.
To weave a garland for the rose.And think thus crown'd 'twould lovelier be,Were far less vain than to supposeThat silks and gems add grace to thee.Where is the pearl whose orient lustreWould not, beside thee, look less bright?What gold could match the glossy clusterOf those young ringlets full of light?
Bring from the land, where fresh it gleams,The bright blue gem of India's mine,And see how soon, though bright its beams,'Twill pale before one glance of thine:Those lips, too, when their sounds have blest usWith some divine, mellifluous air,Who would not say that Beauty's cestusHad let loose all its witcheries there?
Here, to this conquering host of charmsI now give up my spell-bound heart.Nor blush to yield even Reason's arms,When thou her bright-eyed conqueror art.Thus to the wind all fears are given;Henceforth those eyes alone I see.Where Hope, as in her own blue heaven,Sits beckoning me to bliss and thee!
Why does she so long delay?Night is waning fast away;Thrice have I my lamp renewed,Watching here in solitude,Where can she so long delay?Where, so long delay?
Vainly now have two lamps shone;See the third is nearly gone:Oh that Love would, like the rayOf that weary lamp, decay!But no, alas, it burns still on,Still, still, burns on.
Gods, how oft the traitress dearSwore, by Venus, she'd be here!But to one so false as sheWhat is man or deity?Neither doth this proud one fear,—No, neither doth she fear.
Twin'st thou with lofty wreath thy brow?Such glory then thy beauty sheds,I almost think, while awed I bow'Tis Rhea's self before me treads.Be what thou wilt,—this heartAdores whate'er thou art!
Dost thou thy loosened ringlets leave,Like sunny waves to wander free?Then, such a chain of charms they weave,As draws my inmost soul from me.Do what thou wilt,—I mustBe charm'd by all thou dost!
Even when, enwrapt in silvery veils,Those sunny locks elude the sight,—Oh, not even then their glory failsTo haunt me with its unseen light.Change as thy beauty may,It charms in every way.
For, thee the Graces still attend,Presiding o'er each new attire,And lending every dart they sendSome new, peculiar touch of fire,Be what thou wilt,—this heartAdores what'er thou art!
When the sad word, "Adieu," from my lip is nigh falling,And with it, Hope passes away,Ere the tongue hath half breathed it, my fond heart recallingThat fatal farewell, bids me stay,For oh! 'tis a penance so wearyOne hour from thy presence to be,That death to this soul were less dreary,Less dark than long absence from thee.
Thy beauty, like Day, o'er the dull world breaking.Brings life to the heart it shines o'er,And, in mine, a new feeling of happiness waking,Made light what was darkness before.But mute is the Day's sunny glory,While thine hath a voice, on whose breath,More sweet than the Syren's sweet story,My hopes hang, through life and through death!
My Mopsa is little, my Mopsa is brown,But her cheek is as smooth as the peach's soft down,And, for blushing, no rose can come near her;In short, she has woven such nets round my heart,That I ne'er from my dear little Mopsa can part,—Unless I can find one that's dearer.
Her voice hath a music that dwells on the ear,And her eye from its orb gives a daylight so clear,That I'm dazzled whenever I meet her;Her ringlets, so curly, are Cupid's own net,And her lips, oh their sweetness I ne'er shall forget—Till I light upon lips that are sweeter.
But 'tis not her beauty that charms me alone,'Tis her mind, 'tis that language whose eloquent toneFrom the depths of the grave could revive one:In short, here I swear, that if death were her doom,I would instantly join my dead love in the tomb—Unless I could meet with a live
Still, like dew in silence falling,Drops for thee the nightly tearStill that voice the past recalling,Dwells, like echo, on my ear,Still, still!
Day and night the spell hangs o'er me,Here forever fixt thou art:As thy form first shone before me,So 'tis graven on this heart,Deep, deep!
Love, oh Love, whose bitter sweetness,Dooms me to this lasting pain.Thou who earnest with so much fleetness,Why so slow to go again?Why? why?
Up, sailor boy, 'tis day!The west wind blowing,The spring tide flowing,Summon thee hence away.Didst thou not hear yon soaring swallow sing?Chirp, chirp,—in every note he seemed to say'Tis Spring, 'tis Spring.Up boy, away,—Who'd stay on land to-day?The very flowersWould from their bowersDelight to wing away!
Leave languid youths to pineOn silken pillows;But be the billowsOf the great deep thine.Hark, to the sail the breeze sings, "Let us fly;"While soft the sail, replying to the breeze,Says, with a yielding sigh,"Yes, where you; please."Up, boy, the wind, the ray,The blue sky o'er thee,The deep before thee,All cry aloud, "Away!"
In myrtle wreaths my votive sword I'll cover,Like them of old whose one immortal blowStruck off the galling fetters that hung overTheir own bright land, and laid her tyrant low.Yes, loved Harmodius, thou'rt undying;Still midst the brave and free,In isles, o'er ocean lying,Thy home shall ever be.
In myrtle leaves my sword shall hide its lightning,Like his, the youth, whose ever-glorious bladeLeapt forth like flame, the midnight banquet brightening;'And in the dust a despot victim laid.Blest youths; how bright in Freedom's storyYour wedded names shall be;A tyrant's death your glory,Your meed, a nation free!
1801.
I feel a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend LITTLE'S Poems. I am not unconscious that there are many in the collection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted; and, to say the truth, I more than once revised them for that purpose; but, I know not why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the consequence is you have them in their original form:
non possunt nostros multae, Faustine, liturae emendare jocos; una litura potest.
I am convinced, however, that, though not quite acasuiste relâché, you have charity enough to forgive such inoffensive follies: you know that the pious Beza was not the less revered for those sportive Juvenilia which he published under a fictitious name; nor did the levity of Bembo's poems prevent him from making a very good cardinal.
Believe me, my dear friend.
With the truest esteem,
Yours,
April 19, 1802
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.—JUV.
Mark those proud boasters of a splendid line,Like gilded ruins, mouldering while they shine,How heavy sits that weight, of alien show,Like martial helm upon an infant's brow;Those borrowed splendors whose contrasting lightThrows back the native shades in deeper night.
Ask the proud train who glory's train pursue,Where are the arts by which that glory grew?The genuine virtues with that eagle-gazeSought young Renown in all her orient blaze!Where is the heart by chymic truth refined,The exploring soul whose eye had read mankind?Where are the links that twined, with heavenly art,His country's interest round the patriot's heart?
* * * * *
Justum bellum quibus necessarium, et pia arma quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur spes.—LIVY.
* * * * *
Is there no call, no consecrating causeApproved by Heav'n, ordained by nature's laws,Where justice flies the herald of our way,And truth's pure beams upon the banners play?
Yes, there's a call sweet as an angel's breathTo slumbering babes or innocence in death;And urgent as the tongue of Heaven within,When the mind's balance trembles upon sin.
Oh! 'tis our country's voice, whose claim should meetAn echo in the soul's most deep retreat;Along the heart's responding chords should run,Nor let a tone there vibrate—but the one!
Ask what prevailing, pleasing powerAllures the sportive, wandering beeTo roam untired, from flower to flower,He'll tell you, 'tis variety.
Look Nature round; her features trace,Her seasons, all her changes see;And own, upon Creation's face,The greatest charm's variety.
For me, ye gracious powers above!Still let me roam, unfixt and free;In all things,—but the nymph I loveI'll change, and taste variety.
But, Patty, not a world of charmsCould e'er estrange my heart from thee;—No, let me ever seek those arms.There still I'll find variety.
Is it not sweet, beloved youth,To rove through Erudition's bowers,And cull the golden fruits of truth,And gather Fancy's brilliant flowers?
And is it not more sweet than this,To feel thy parents' hearts approving,And pay them back in sums of blissThe dear, the endless debt of loving?
It must be so to thee, my youth;With this idea toil is lighter;This sweetens all the fruits of truth,And makes the flowers of fancy brighter.
The little gift we send thee, boy,May sometimes teach thy soul to ponder,If indolence or siren joyShould ever tempt that soul to wander.
'Twill tell thee that the wingèd dayCan, ne'er be chain'd by man's endeavor;That life and time shall fade away,While heaven and virtue bloom forever!
If I swear by that eye, you'll allow,Its look is so shifting and new,That the oath I might take on it nowThe very next glance would undo.
Those babies that nestle so slySuch thousands of arrows have got,That an oath, on the glance of an eyeSuch as yours, may be off in a shot.
Should I swear by the dew on your lip,Though each moment the treasure renews,If my constancy wishes to trip,I may kiss off the oath when I choose.
Or a sigh may disperse from that flower;Both the dew and the oath that are there;And I'd make a new vow every hour,To lose them so sweetly in air.
But clear up the heaven of your brow,Nor fancy my faith is a feather;On my heart I will pledge you my vow,And they both must be broken together!
Remember him thou leavest behind,Whose heart is warmly bound to thee,Close as the tenderest links can bindA heart as warm as heart can be.
Oh! I had long in freedom roved,Though many seemed my soul to snare;'Twas passion when I thought I loved,'Twas fancy when I thought them fair.
Even she, my muse's early theme,Beguiled me only while she warmed;Twas young desire that fed the dream,And reason broke what passion formed.
But thou-ah! better had it beenIf I had still in freedom roved,If I had ne'er thy beauties seen,For then I never should have loved.
Then all the pain which lovers feelHad never to this heart been known;But then, the joys that lovers steal,Shouldtheyhave ever been my own?
Oh! trust me, when I swear thee this,Dearest! the pain of loving thee,The very pain is sweeter blissThan passion's wildest ecstasy.
That little cage I would not part,In which my soul is prisoned now,For the most light and winged heartThat wantons on the passing vow.
Still, my beloved! still keep in mind,However far removed from me,That there is one thou leavest behind,Whose heart respires for only thee!
And though ungenial ties have boundThy fate unto another's care,That arm, which clasps thy bosom round,Cannot confine the heart that's there.
No, no! that heart is only mineBy ties all other ties above,For I have wed it at a shrineWhere we have had no priest but Love.
When Time who steals our years awayShall steal our pleasures too,The memory of the past will stayAnd half our joys renew,Then, Julia, when thy beauty's flowerShall feel the wintry air,Remembrance will recall the hourWhen thou alone wert fair.Then talk no more of future gloom;Our joys shall always last;For Hope shall brighten days to come,And Memory gild the past.
Come, Chloe, fill the genial bowl,I drink to Love and thee:Thou never canst decay in soul,Thou'lt still be young for me.And as thy; lips the tear-drop chase,Which on my cheek they find,So hope shall steal away the traceThat sorrow leaves behind.Then fill the bowl—away with gloom!Our joys shall always last;For Hope shall brighten days to come,And Memory gild the past.
But mark, at thought of future yearsWhen love shall lose its soul,My Chloe drops her timid tears,They mingle with my bowl.How like this bowl of wine, my fair,Our loving life shall fleet;Though tears may sometimes mingle there,The draught will still be sweet.Then fill the cup—away with gloom!Our joys shall always last;For Hope will brighten days to come,And Memory gild the past.