Echoes from the Sabine Farm | Page 6

more becoming, Madame, in a creature old and poor,?To sit and spin than to engage in an affaire d'amour.?The lutes, the roses, and the wine drained deep are not for you; Remember what the poet says: Ce monde est plein de fous!
TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA
O fountain of Bandusia!?Whence crystal waters flow,?With garlands gay and wine I'll pay?The sacrifice I owe;?A sportive kid with budding horns?I have, whose crimson blood?Anon shall dye and sanctify?Thy cool and babbling flood.
O fountain of Bandusia!?The Dog-star's hateful spell?No evil brings into the springs?That from thy bosom well;?Here oxen, wearied by the plow,?The roving cattle here?Hasten in quest of certain rest,?And quaff thy gracious cheer.
O fountain of Bandusia!?Ennobled shalt thou be,?For I shall sing the joys that spring?Beneath yon ilex-tree.?Yes, fountain of Bandusia,?Posterity shall know?The cooling brooks that from thy nooks?Singing and dancing go.
TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA
O fountain of Bandusia! more glittering than glass,?And worthy of the pleasant wine and toasts that freely pass; More worthy of the flowers with which thou modestly art hid, To-morrow willing hands shall sacrifice to thee a kid.
In vain the glory of the brow where proudly swell above?The growing horns, significant of battle and of love;?For in thy honor he shall die,--the offspring of the herd,-- And with his crimson life-blood thy cold waters shall be stirred.
The Dog-star's cruel season, with its fierce and blazing heat, Has never sent its scorching rays into thy glad retreat;?The oxen, wearied with the plow, the herd which wanders near, Have found a grateful respite and delicious coolness here.
When of the graceful ilex on the hollow rocks I sing,?Thou shalt become illustrious, O sweet Bandusian spring!?Among the noble fountains which have been enshrined in fame, Thy dancing, babbling waters shall in song our homage claim.
THE PREFERENCE DECLARED
Boy, I detest the Persian pomp;?I hate those linden-bark devices;?And as for roses, holy Moses!?They can't be got at living prices!?Myrtle is good enough for us,--?For you, as bearer of my flagon;?For me, supine beneath this vine,?Doing my best to get a jag on!
A TARDY APOLOGY
I
M?cenas, you will be my death,--though friendly you profess yourself,-- If to me in a strain like this so often you address yourself: "Come, Holly, why this laziness? Why indolently shock you us? Why with Lethean cups fall into desuetude innocuous?"
A god, M?cenas! yea, a god hath proved the very curse of me! If my iambics are not done, pray, do not think the worse of me; Anacreon for young Bathyllus burned without apology,?And wept his simple measures on a sample of conchology.
Now, you yourself, M?cenas, are enjoying this beatitude;?If by no brighter beauty Ilium fell, you've cause for gratitude. A certain Phryne keeps me on the rack with lovers numerous; This is the artful hussy's neat conception of the humorous!
A TARDY APOLOGY
II
You ask me, friend,?Why I don't send?The long since due-and-paid-for numbers;
Why, songless, I?As drunken lie?Abandoned to Lethean slumbers.
Long time ago?(As well you know)?I started in upon that carmen;
My work was vain,--?But why complain??When gods forbid, how helpless are men!
Some ages back,?The sage Anack?Courted a frisky Samian body,
Singing her praise?In metered phrase?As flowing as his bowls of toddy.
Till I was hoarse?Might I discourse?Upon the cruelties of Venus;
'T were waste of time?As well of rhyme,?For you've been there yourself, M?cenas!
Perfect your bliss?If some fair miss?Love you yourself and not your min?;
I, fortune's sport,?All vainly court?The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne!
TO THE SHIP OF STATE
O ship of state?Shall new winds bear you back upon the sea??What are you doing? Seek the harbor's lee
Ere 't is too late!
Do you bemoan?Your side was stripped of oarage in the blast??Swift Africus has weakened, too, your mast;
The sailyards groan.
Of cables bare,?Your keel can scarce endure the lordly wave.?Your sails are rent; you have no gods to save,
Or answer pray'r.
Though Pontic pine,?The noble daughter of a far-famed wood,?You boast your lineage and title good,--
A useless line!
The sailor there?In painted sterns no reassurance finds;?Unless you owe derision to the winds,
Beware--beware!
My grief erewhile,?But now my care--my longing! shun the seas?That flow between the gleaming Cyclades,
Each shining isle.
QUITTING AGAIN
The hero of?Affairs of love?By far too numerous to be mentioned,?And scarred as I'm,?It seemeth time?That I were mustered out and pensioned.
So on this wall?My lute and all?I hang, and dedicate to Venus;?And I implore?But one thing more?Ere all is at an end between us.
O goddess fair?Who reignest where?The weather's seldom bleak and snowy,?This boon I urge:?In anger scourge?My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!
SAILOR AND SHADE
SAILOR
You, who have compassed land and sea,?Now all unburied lie;?All vain your store of human lore,?For you were doomed to die.?The sire of Pelops likewise fell,--?Jove's honored mortal guest;?So king and sage of every age?At last lie down to rest.?Plutonian shades enfold the ghost?Of that majestic one?Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,?Had once been Pentheus' son;?Believe who may, he's passed away,?And what he did is done.?A last night comes