ODE XXX.

'Twas in an airy dream of night,
I fancied that I wing'd my flight

On pinions fleeter than the wind,
While little Love, whose feet were twin'd

(I know not why) with chains of lead,
Pursued me as I trembling fled;

Pursued and could I e'er have thought?→

Swift as the moment I was caught!

What does the wanton Fancy mean

By such a strange, illusive scene?

Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. I do not perceive any thing in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry.

I fear she whispers to my breast,

That you, my girl, have stol'n my rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Has hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolv'd the passing vow,

And ne'er was caught by love till now!

ODE

ODE XXXI.

ARM'D with hyacinthine rod,

(Arms enough for such a god,)

Cupid bade me wing my pace,

And try with him the rapid race.

O'er

The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram (I do not know where he found it), which has some similitude to this ode:

Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis
Carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam;
Cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis
Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet.

Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas,
Solus Io, solus, dure jacere potes?
Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta,
Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio.

Nunc

O'er the wild torrent, rude and deep,

By tangled brake and pendent steep,

Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire
Pœnitet; et pudor est stare via media.
Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum,
Et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum.
Solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque,
Et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, tuum.

Upon my couch I lay, at night profound,

My languid eyes in magic slumber bound,
When Cupid came and snatch'd me from my bed,

And forc'd me many a weary way to tread.

"What! (said the god), shall you, whose vows are known, "Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?"

I rise and follow; all the night I stray,

Unshelter'd, trembling, doubtful of my way.
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.

Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interr'd,
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard;
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

With weary foot I panting flew,

My brow was chill with drops of dew.
And now my soul, exhausted, dying,
To my lip was faintly flying;

My brow was chill with drops of dew.] I have followed those who read τειρεν ίδρως for πειρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads πειρεν ίδρως.

And now my soul, exhausted, dying,

To my lip was faintly flying; &c.] In the original, he says, his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich, quoted by Aulus Gellius:

Την ψυχην Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χειλεσιν έσχον.

Ήλθε

yap

ท τλημων ὡς διαβησομενη.

Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip,

And drink thy breath, in melting twine,

My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find many of those mignardises of expression,

which mark the effemination of the Latin language.

And