Echoes from the Sabine Farm | Page 7

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, Mæcenas!
Perfect your bliss
If some fair miss
Love you yourself and not your
minæ;
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 alike to
all;
One path we all must tread,
Through sore disease or stormy
seas
Or fields with corpses red.
Whate'er our deeds, that pathway
leads
To regions of the dead.
SHADE

The fickle twin Illyrian gales
Overwhelmed me on the wave;
But
you that live, I pray you give
My bleaching bones a grave!
Oh, then
when cruel tempests rage
You all unharmed shall be;
Jove's mighty
hand shall guard by land
And Neptune's on the sea.
Perchance you
fear to do what may
Bring evil to your race?
Oh, rather fear that
like me here
You'll lack a burial place.
So, though you be in proper
haste,
Bide long enough, I pray,
To give me, friend, what boon
shall send
My soul upon its way!
LET US HAVE PEACE
In maudlin spite let Thracians fight
Above their bowls of liquor;

But such as we, when on a spree,
Should never brawl and bicker!
These angry words and clashing swords
Are quite de trop, I'm
thinking;
Brace up, my boys, and hush your noise,
And drown your
wrath in drinking.
Aha, 't is fine,--this mellow wine
With which our host would dope us!

Now let us hear what pretty dear
Entangles him of Opus.
I see you blush,--nay, comrades, hush!
Come, friend, though they
despise you,
Tell me the name of that fair dame,--
Perchance I may
advise you.
O wretched youth! and is it truth
You love that fickle lady?
I,
doting dunce, courted her once;
Since when, she's reckoned shady!
TO QUINTUS DELLIUS
Be tranquil, Dellius, I pray;
For though you pine your life away

With dull complaining breath,
Or speed with song and wine each day,

Still, still your doom is death.
Where the white poplar and the pine
In glorious arching shade

combine,
And the brook singing goes,
Bid them bring store of nard
and wine
And garlands of the rose.
Let's live while chance and youth obtain;
Soon shall you quit this fair
domain
Kissed by the Tiber's gold,
And all your earthly pride and
gain
Some heedless heir shall hold.
One ghostly boat shall some time bear
From scenes of mirthfulness or
care
Each fated human soul,--
Shall waft and leave its burden where

The waves of Lethe roll.
_So come, I prithee, Dellius mine;
Let's sing our songs and drink our
wine
In that sequestered nook
Where the white poplar and the pine

Stand listening to the brook_.
POKING FUN AT XANTHIAS
Of your love for your handmaid you need feel no shame.
Don't
apologize, Xanthias, pray;
Remember, Achilles the proud felt a flame

For Brissy, his slave, as they say.
Old Telamon's son, fiery Ajax,
was moved
By the captive Tecmessa's ripe charms;
And Atrides,
suspending the feast, it behooved
To gather a girl to his arms.
Now, how do you know that this yellow-haired maid
(This Phyllis
you fain would enjoy)
Hasn't parents whose wealth would cast you in
the shade,--
Who would ornament you, Xan, my boy?
Very likely
the poor chick sheds copious tears,
And is bitterly thinking the while

Of the