Why do we shed the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb?
Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
Affect the slumbering chill of death?
I ask no balm to steep

No, no;

With fragrant tears my bed of sleep:
But now, while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing;
Now let the rose, with blush of fire,
Upon my brow its scent expire;

And bring the nymph with floating eye,
Oh! she will teach me how to die!
Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire,

To join the blest elysian choir,
With wine, and love, and blisses dear,
I'll make my own elysium here!

ODE XXXIII.

"T WAS noon of night, when round the pole The sullen Bear is seen to roll;

And mortals, wearied with the day,
Are slumbering all their cares away :
An infant, at that dreary hour,

Came weeping to my silent bower,

Monsieur Bernard, the author of l'Art d'aimer, has written a ballet called "Les Surprises de l'Amour," in which the subject of the third entrée is Anacreon, and the story of this ode suggests one of the scenes. Œuvres de Ber

nard. Anac. scene 4th.

The German annotator refers us here to an imitation by Uz, lib. iii. "Amor und sein Bruder," and a poem of Kleist die Heilung. La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode.

And wak'd me with a piteous prayer,
To save him from the midnight air!
"And who art thou," I waking cry,
"That bid'st my blissful visions fly?"
"O gentle sire!" the infant said,
"In pity take me to thy shed;
Nor fear deceit a lonely child
I wander o'er the gloomy wild.
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray
Illumes the drear and misty way!"
I hear the baby's tale of woe;
I hear the bitter night-winds blow;
And sighing for his piteous fate,

I trimm'd my lamp and op'd the gate.

"And who art thou," I waking cry,

"That bid'st my blissful visions fly?"] Anacreon appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which he expresses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the odes x. and xxxvii.

"T was Love! the little wandering sprite,
His pinion sparkled through the night!
I knew him by his bow and dart;
I knew him by my fluttering heart!
I take him in, and fondly raise

The dying embers' cheering blaze;
Press from his dank and clinging hair

The crystals of the freezing air,

And in

my hand and bosom hold

His little fingers thrilling cold.

And now the embers' genial ray

Had warm'd his anxious fears away; "I pray thee," said the wanton child,

(My bosom trembled as he smil'd,) thee let me try my bow,

"I

pray

For through the rain I've wander❜d so,

'T was Love! the little wandering sprite, &c.] See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl.

That much I fear, the ceaseless shower Has injur'd its elastic power."

The fatal bow the urchin drew;

Swift from the string the arrow flew;
Oh! swift it flew as glancing flame,
And to my very soul it came!
"Fare thee well," I heard him say,

As laughing wild he wing'd away;
"Fare thee well, for now I know
The rain has not relax'd my bow;
It still can send a madd'ning dart,
As thou shalt own with all thy heart!"