I care not for the glittering wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But let the vine luxuriant roll
Its blushing tendrils round the bowl,
While many a rose-lipped bacchant maid
Is culling clusters in their shade.
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes,
Wildly press the gushing grapes,
And flights of Loves, in wanton play,
Wing through the air their winding way;
While Venus, from her arbor green,
Looks laughing at the joyous scene,
And young Lyaeus by her side
Sits, worthy of so bright a bride.
[1] This ode, Aulus Gellius tells us, was performed at an entertainment where he was present.
ODE V.
Sculptor, wouldst thou glad my soul,
Grave for me an ample bowl,
Worthy to shine in hall or bower,
When spring-time brings the reveller's hour.
Grave it with themes of chaste design,
Fit for a simple board like mine.
Display not there the barbarous rites
In which religious zeal delights;
Nor any tale of tragic fate
Which History shudders to relate.
No—cull thy fancies from above,
Themes of heaven and themes of love.
Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy,
Distil the grape in drops of joy,
And while he smiles at every tear,
Let warm-eyed Venus, dancing near,
With spirits of the genial bed,
The dewy herbage deftly tread.
Let Love be there, without his arms,
In timid nakedness of charms;
And all the Graces, linked with Love,
Stray, laughing, through the shadowy grove;
While rosy boys disporting round,
In circlets trip the velvet ground.
But ah! if there Apollo toys,[1]
I tremble for the rosy boys.
[1] An allusion to the fable that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth, while playing with him at quoits. "This" (says M. La Fosse) "is assuredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other."
ODE VI.[1]
As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping,
I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,
I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelmed him in the racy spring.
Then drank I down the poisoned bowl,
And love now nestles in my soul.
Oh, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.
[1] This beautiful fiction, which the commentators have attributed to Julian, a royal poet, the Vatican MS. pronounces to be the genuine offspring of Anacreon.
ODE VII.
The women tell me every day
That all my bloom has pas past away.
"Behold," the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinned my hair,
I'm sure I neither know nor care;
But this I know, and this I feel
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give.