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When he whose verging years decline
As deep into the vale as mine,
When he inhales the vintage-spring,
His heart is fire, his foot's a wing;
And as he flies, his hoary hair
Plays truant with the wanton air!
While the warm youth, whose wishing soul
Has kindled o'er the inspiring bowl,
Impassioned seeks the shadowy grove,
Where, in the tempting guise of love,
Reclining sleeps some witching maid,
Whose sunny charms, but half displayed,
Blush through the bower, that, closely twined,
Excludes the kisses of the wind!

The virgin wakes, the glowing boy
Allures her to the embrace of joy;

Swears that the herbage Heaven had spread
Was sacred as the nuptial bed;

That laws should never bind desire,
And love was nature's holiest fire!
The virgin weeps, the virgin sighs;
He kissed her lips, he kissed her eyes;
The sigh was balm, the tear was dew,
They only raised his flame anew.
And oh he stole the sweetest flower
That ever bloomed in any bower!
Such is the madness wine imparts,
Whene'er it steals on youthful hearts.

ODE LX.

AWAKE to life, my dulcet shell,
To Phoebus all thy sighs shall swell;
And though no glorious prize be thine,
No Pythian wreath around thee twine,
Yet every hour is glory's hour

To him who gathers wisdom's flower!
Then wake thee from thy magic slumbers,
Breathe to the soft and Phrygian numbers,
Which, as my trembling lips repeat,
Thy chords shall echo back as sweet.
The cygnet thus, with fading notes,
As down Cayster's tide he floats,
Plays with his snowy plumage fair
Upon the wanton, murmuring air,
Which amorously lingers round,
And sighs responsive sound for sound!
Muse of the Lyre! illume my dream,
Thy Phoebus is my fancy's theme;
And hallowed is the harp I bear,
And hallowed is the wreath I wear,

Hallowed by him, the god of lays, Who modulates the choral maze! I sing the love which Daphne twined Around the godhead's yielding mind; I sing the blushing Daphne's flight From this æthereal youth of light; 'And how the tender, timid maid Flew panting to the kindly shade, Resigned a form, too tempting fair, And grew a verdant laurel there; Whose leaves, with sympathetic thrill, In terror seemed to tremble still! The god pursued, with winged desire; And when his hopes were all on fire, And when he thought to hear the sigh With which enamoured virgins die, He only heard the pensive air Whispering amid her leafy hair! But, O my soul! no more-no more! Enthusiast, whither do I soar? This sweetly-maddening dream of soul Has hurried me beyond the goal. Why should I sing the mighty darts Which fly to wound celestial hearts, When sure the lay with sweeter tone Can tell the darts that wound my own? Still be Anacreon, still inspire The descant of the Teian lyre: Still let the nectared numbers float, Distilling love in every note!

And when the youth, whose burning soul

Has felt the Paphian star's control,
When he the liquid lays shall hear,
His heart will flutter to his ear,
And drinking there of song divine,
Banquet on intellectual wine!

ODE LXI.

GOLDEN hues of youth are fled;
Hoary locks deform my head.
Bloomy graces, dalliance gay,
All the flowers of life decay.
Withering age begins to trace
Sad memorials o'er my face;
Time has shed its sweetest bloom,
All the future must be gloom!
This awakes my hourly sighing;
Dreary is the thought of dying!

Pluto's is a dark abode,

Sad the journey, sad the road:
And, the gloomy travel o'er,
Ah! we can return no more!

ODE LXII.

FILL me, boy, as deep a draught
As e'er was filled, as e'er was quaffed;
But let the water amply flow,

To cool the grape's intemperate glow;
Let not the fiery god be single,

But with the nymphs in union mingle.
For though the bowl's the grave of sadness,
O be it ne'er the birth of madness!
No, banish from our board to-night
The revelries of rude delight!

To Scythians leave these wild excesses,
Ours be the joy that soothes and blesses!
And while the temperate bowl we wreathe,
Our choral hymns shall sweetly breathe,
Beguiling every hour along

With harmony of soul and song!

ODE LXIII.

To Love, the soft and blooming child,
I touch the harp in descant wild;
To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers,
The boy who breathes and blushes flowers!
To Love, for heaven and earth adore him,
And gods and mortals bow before him!

ODE LXIV.

HASTE thee, nymph, whose winged spear Wounds the fleeting mountain-deer!

Dian, Jove's immortal child,

Huntress of the savage wild!

Goddess with the sun-bright hair!

Listen to a people's prayer.

Turn, to Lethe's river turn,

There thy vanquished people mourn!
Come to Lethe's wavy shore,
There thy people's peace restore.

Thine their hearts, their altars thine;

Dian! must they must they pine?

ODE LXV."

LIKE Some wanton filly sporting,
Maid of Thrace! thou fly'st my courting.
Wanton filly! tell me why

Thou tripp'st away, with scornful eye,
And seem'st to think my doting heart
Is novice in the bridling art?
Believe me, girl, it is not so;

Thou'lt find this skilful hand can throw
The reins upon that tender form,
However wild, however warm!
Thou'lt own that I can tame thy force,
And turn and wind thee in the course.
Though wasting now thy careless hours,
Thou sport amid the herbs and flowers,
Thou soon shalt feel the rein's control,
And tremble at the wished-for goal!

ODE LXVI.

To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine, Fairest of all that fairest shine; To thee, thou blushing young Desire, Who rul'st the world with darts of fire! And O thou nuptial Power! to thee Who bear'st of life the guardian key; Breathing my soul in fragrant praise, And weaving wild my votive lays, For thee, O Queen! I wake the lyre. For thee, thou blushing young Desire! And oh! for thee, thou nuptial Power, Come, and illume this genial hour. Look on thy bride, luxuriant boy! And while thy lambent glance of joy Plays over all her blushing charms, Delay not, snatch her to thine arms, Before the lovely, trembling prey, Like a young birdling, wing away! O Stratocles, impassioned youth! Dear to the Queen of amorous truth, And dear to her whose yielding zone Will soon resign her all thine own; Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye, Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh! To those bewitching beauties turn; For thee they mantle, flush, and burn! Not more the rose, the queen of flowers, Outblushes all the glow of bowers, Than she unrivalled bloom discloses, The sweetest rose, where all are roses!

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Oh may the sun, benignant, shed
His blandest influence o'er thy bed;
And foster there an infant tree,

To blush like her, and bloom like thee!

ODE LXVII.

GENTLE youth! whose looks assume
Such a soft and girlish bloom,
Why, repulsive, why refuse

The friendship which my heart pursues?
Thou little know'st the fond control
With which thy virtue reins my soul !
Then smile not on my locks of gray;
Believe me, oft with converse gay
I've chained the ears of tender age,
And boys have loved the prattling sage!
For mine is many a soothing pleasure,
And mine is many a soothing measure;
And much I hate the beamless mind,
Whose earthly vision, unrefined,
Nature has never formed to see
The beauties of simplicity !
Simplicity, the flower of heaven,
To souls elect, by nature given!

ODE LXVIII.

RICH in bliss, I proudly scorn
The stream of Amalthea's horn!
Nor should I ask to call the throne
Of the Tartessian prince my own;
To totter through his train of years,
The victim of declining fears.
One little hour of joy to me
Is worth a dull eternity!

ODE LXIX.

Now Neptune's sullen month appears:
The angry night-cloud swells with tears;
And savage storms, infuriate driven,
Fly howling in the face of heaven!
Now, now, my friends, the gathering gloom.
With roseate rays of wine illume:
And while our wreaths of parsley spread
Their fadeless foliage round our head,
We'll hymn the almighty power of wine,
And shed libations on his shrine !

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