And made my tender branches feel
The wounds of his avenging steel.
Then, then I fell, like some poor willow
That tosses on the wintry billow!
MONARCH Love! resistless boy,
With whom the rosy Queen of Joy,
And nymphs, that glance ethereal biue,
Disporting tread the mountain-dew;
Propitious oh receive my sighs!
Which, burning with entreaty, rise,
That thou wilt whisper to the breast
Of her I love thy soft behest ;
And counsel her to learn from thee
The 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 tresses shine
Along the breeze, in golden twine;
Come, within a fragrant cloud,
Blushing 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 glow,
The pretty Lesbian, mocks my woe;
Smiles at the hoar and silvered hues
Which 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 old
Many a golden hymn divine,
For the nymph with vest of gold.
Pretty nymph, of tender age,
Fair thy silky locks 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,
And then some nymph should hold
My spotless frame, with blushing grace,
Herself as pure as gold!
WHEN Cupid sees my beard of snow, Which blanching Time has taught to flow, Upon his wing of golden light
He passes with an eaglet's flight,
And flitting on he seems to say,
"Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!"
CUPID, whose lamp has lent the ray
Which lightens our meandering way;
Cupid, within my bosom stealing,
Excites a strange and mingled feeling,
Which pleases, though severely teasing,
And teases, though divinely pleasing!
LET me resign a wretched breath,
Since now remains to me
No other balm than kindly death
To sooth my misery!
I KNOW thou lov'st 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 breast,
Yet cannot find that madness there!
[AMONG the Epigrams of the Anthologia, there are some panegyrics on Anacreon,
which I had translated, and originally intended as a kind of Coronis to the
work, but I found, upon consideration, that they wanted variety-a frequent re-
currence of the same thought within the limits of an epitaph. to which they are
confined, would render a collection of them rather uninteresting. I shall take
the liberty, however, of subjoining a few, that I may not appear to have totally
neglected those elegant tributes to the reputation of Anacreon. The four epi-
grams which I give are imputed to Antipater Sidonius. They are rendered,
perhaps, with too much freedom; but designing a translation of all that are on
the subject, I imagined it was necessary to enliven their uniformity by some-
times indulging in the liberties of paraphrase.]
AROUND the tomb, O Bard divine!
Where soft thy hallowed brow reposes,
Long may the deathless ivy twine,
And summer pour her waste of roses!
And many a fount shall there distil,
And many a rill refresh the flowers;
But wine shall gush in every rill,
And every fount be milky showers.
Thus, shade of him whom Nature taught
To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure,
Who gave to love his warmest thought,
Who gave to love his fondest measure!
Thus, after death, if spirits feel,
Thou mayst, from odours round thee streaming,
A pulse of past enjoyment steal,
And live again in blissful dreaming!
HERE sleeps Anacreon, in this ivied shade;
Here mute in death the Teian swan is laid.
Cold, cold the heart which lived but to respire
All the voluptuous frenzy of desire !
And yet, O Bard! thou art not mute in death:
Still, still we catch thy lyre's delicious breath,
And still thy songs of soft Bathylla bloom,
Green as the ivy round the mouldering tomb!
Nor yet has death obscured thy fire of love,
Still, still it lights thee through the Elysian grove;
And dreams are thine, that bless the elect alone,
And Venus calls thee even in death her own!
O STRANGER! if Anacreon's shell
Has ever taught thy heart to swell
With passion's throb or pleasure's sigh,
In pity turn, as wandering nigh,
And drop thy goblet's richest tear
In exquisite libation here!
So shall my sleeping ashes thrill
With visions of enjoyment still.
I cannot even in death resign
The festal joys that once were mine,
When Harmony pursued my ways,
And Bacchus wantoned to my lays.
Oh! if delight could charm no more,
If all the goblet's bliss were o'er,
When fate had once our doom decreed,
Then dying would be death indeed!
Nor could I think, unblest by wine,
Divinity itself divine!
AT length thy golden hours have winged their flight,
And drowsy death that eyelid steepeth;
Thy harp, that whispered through each lingering night,
Now mutely in oblivion sleepeth!
She too, for whom that harp profusely shed
The purest nectar of its numbers,
She, the young spring of thy desires, has fled,
And with her blest Anacreon slumbers!
Farewell! thou hadst a pulse for every dart,
That Love could scatter from his quiver;
And every woman found in thee a heart,
Which thou, with all thy soul, didst give her!
THERE is very little known with certainty of the life of AnaChameleon Heracleotes, who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of the poet have collected the few trifling anecdotes which are scattered through the extant authors of antiquity, and supplying
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