His bark along thy golden smiles,
Trusting to see thee for his play
For ever keep smooth holiday,”
admirably elude, if they do not meet, the difficulties of the Latin. But in none of these, nor in any other rendering we have seen, is there any trace of that nuance of sarcasm or polite banter we seem to taste in the original. The only American version we remember to have met with is not in this respect more successful:
“In thy grotto’s cool recesses,
Dripping perfumes, lapped in roses,
Say what lissome youth reposes,
Pyrrha, wooing thy embrace?
Braid’st for whom those tawny tresses,
Simple in thy grace?