The nymphs display the rose's charms,
It mantles o'er their graceful arms;
Through Cytherea's form it glows,
And mingles with the living snows.
The rose distils a healing balm,
The beating pulse of pain to calm;
Preserves the cold inurned clay,
And mocks the vestige of decay.
And when at length, in pale decline,
Its florid beauties fade and pine,
Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath
Diffuses odour e'en in death!

Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung?
Attend for thus the tale is sung.

When, humid, from the silvery stream,

Effusing beauty's warmest beam,

Venus appear'd, in flushing hues,

Mellow'd by ocean's briny dews;
When, in the starry courts above,
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove
Disclos'd the nymph of azure glance,
The nymph who shakes the martial lance
Then, then, in strange eventful hour,
The earth produc'd an infant flower,

Which sprung, with blushing tinctures drest
And wanton'd o'er its parent breast.

The gods beheld this brilliant birth,
And hail'd the Rose, the boon of earth!
With nectar drops, a ruby tide,
The sweetly orient buds they dyed,
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine
Of him who sheds the teeming vine;
And bade them on the spangled thorn
Expand their bosoms to the morn.

ODE LV

Ο τον εν πονοις απειρη.

(The 50th in Barnes.)

HE, who instructs the youthful crew
To bathe them in the brimmer's dew,
And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses,
All the bliss that wine possesses!

He, who inspires the youth to glance
In winged circlets through the dance;
Bacchus, the god again is here,
And leads along the blushing year;
The blushing year with rapture teems,
Ready to shed those cordial streams,
Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth,
Illuminate the sons of earth!

And when the ripe and vermil wine,
Sweet infant of the pregnant vine,
Which now in mellow clusters swells,
Oh! when it bursts its rosy cells,

The heavenly stream shall mantling flow,
To balsam every mortal woe!

No youth shall then be wan or weak,

For dimpling health shall light the cheek;
No heart shall then desponding sigh,
For wine shall bid despondence fly!
Thus till another autumn's glow
Shall bid another vintage flow!

ODE LVI.

Αρα τις τορευσε ποντον.

(The 51st in Barnes.)

AND whose immortal hand could shed
Upon this disk the ocean's bed?
And, in a frenzied flight of soul
Sublime as heaven's eternal pole,
Imagine thus, in semblance warm,
The Queen of Love's voluptuous form
Floating along the silvery sea
In beauty's glorious majesty!

Light as the leaf, that summer's breeze
Has wafted o'er the glassy seas,
She floats upon the ocean's breast,
Which undulates in sleepy rest,
And stealing on, she gently pillows
Her bosom on the dancing billows.
Her bosom, like the humid rose,
Her neck, like dewy-sparkling snows,
Illume the liquid path she traces,
And burn within the stream's embraces

In languid luxury soft she glides,
Encircled by the azure tides,

Like some fair lily, faint with weeping
Upon a bed of violets sleeping!

Beneath their queen's inspiring glance,
The dolphins o'er the green sea dance,
While, sparkling on the silver waves,
The tenants of the briny caves
Around the pomp in eddies play,
And gleam along the watery way.

(The 65th in Barnes.)

WHEN gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion,
Escapes like any faithless minion,
And flies me (as he flies me ever),
Do I pursue him? never, never!
No, let the false deserter go,
For who would court his direst foe?
But, when I feel my lighten'd mind
No more by ties of gold confin'd,
I loosen all my clinging cares,
And cast them to the vagrant airs.
Then, then I feel the Muse's spell,
And wake to life the dulcet shell;
The dulcet shell to beauty sings,
And love dissolves along the strings!
Thus, when my heart is sweetly taught
How little gold deserves a thought,
The winged slave returns once more,
And with him wafts delicious store
Of racy wine, whose balmy art

In slumber seals the anxious heart!
Again he tries my soul to sever

From love and song, perhaps for ever!
Away, deceiver! why pursuing
Ceaseless thus my heart's undoing?
Sweet is the song of loving fire;

Sweet are the sighs that thrill the lyre;
Oh! sweeter far than all the gold
The waftage of thy wings can hold.
I well remember all thy wiles;
They wither'd Cupid's flowery smiles,

And o'er his harp such garbage shed,
I thought its angel breath was fled!
They tainted all his bowl of blisses,
His bland desires and hallow'd kisses.
Oh! fly to haunts of sordid men,
But rove not near the bard again!
Thy glitter in the Muse's shade,
Scares from her bower the tuneful maid;
And not for worlds would I forego
That moment of poetic glow,

When my full soul, in Fancy's stream,
Pours o'er the lyre its swelling theme.
Away, away! to worldlings hence,
Who feel not this diviner sense,
And with thy gay, fallacious blaze,
Dazzle their unrefined gaze.

ODE LVIII.

Τον μελανόχρωτα βοτρυν.

(The 52d in Barnes.)

SABLED by the solar beam,
Now the fiery clusters toem,
In osier baskets, borne along
By all the festal vintage throng
Of rosy youths and virgins fair,
Ripe as the melting fruits they bear.
Now, now they press the pregnant grapes,
And now the captive stream escapes,
In fervid tide of nectar gushing,
And for its bondage proudly blushing!
While round the vat's impurpled brim,
The choral song, the vintage hymn
Of rosy youths and virgins fair,
Steals on the cloy'd and panting air.
Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes
The orient tide that sparkling flies;

The infant balm of all their fears,
The infant Bacchus, born in tears!
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!

ODE LIX.

Ανα βαρβιτον δονήσω.

(The 64th in Barnes.)

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 dream;
And hallow'd is the harp I bear,
And hallow'd is the wreath I wear,
Hallow'd by him, the god of lays,
Who modulates the choral maze!
I sing the love which Daphne twin'd
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,
Resign'd a form, too tempting fair,
And grew a verdant laurel there;
Whose leaves, with sympathetic thrill,
In terror seem'd to tremble still!
The god pursu'd, with wing'd desire;
And when his hopes were all on fire,
He only heard the pensive air
Whispering amid her leafy hair!
But, oh my soul! no more-no more!
Enthusiast, whither do I soar?
This sweetly-mad'ning dream of soul
Has hurried me beyond the goal.