Tomb of a shipwrecked seafarer am I,
But thou, sail on!
For homeward safe did other vessels fly,
Though we were gone.
FROM MELEAGER
I love not the wine-cup, but if thou art fain
I should drink, do thou taste it, and bring it to me;
If it touch but thy lips it were hard to refrain,
It were hard from the sweet maid who bears it to flee;
For the cup ferries over the kisses, and plain
Does it speak of the grace that was given it by thee.
ON THE GARLAND SENT TO RHODOCLEIA
RUFINUS
GOLDEN EYES
‘Ah, Golden Eyes, to win you yet,
I bring mine April coronet,
The lovely blossoms of the spring,
For you I weave, to you I bring
These roses with the lilies set,
The dewy dark-eyed violet,
Narcissus, and the wind-flower wet:
Wilt thou disdain mine offering?
Ah, Golden Eyes!
Crowned with thy lover’s flowers, forget
The pride wherein thy heart is set,
For thou, like these or anything,
Has but a moment of thy spring,
Thy spring, and then—the long regret!
Ah, Golden Eyes!’
A GALLOWAY GARLAND
We know not, on these hills of ours,
The fabled asphodel of Greece,
That filleth with immortal flowers
Fields where the heroes are at peace!
Not ours are myrtle buds like these
That breathe o’er isles where memories dwell
Of Sappho, in enchanted seas!