Yet, perch'd on yonder branch to-day,
The next, upon another spray,
With roving pinion thou art gone!
Allured by all, but fix'd to none:
If any one who sees thee vain,
Praise thy deserts, in canting strain,
Good heaven! he's instantly enroll'd
Among thy friends, however old.
But love, if thou wilt truly live,
A soul whose kindred feelings give
A zest to life: thus all shall prize
Thy character, and deem thee wise.
And, sure, such friendship's worth possessing,
That, while 'tis bless'd, is ever blessing;
That bade my stubborn bosom feel,
And soften thus a heart of steel!
IDYLLIUM XXX,
The Beath of Adonis,
WHEN, his rosy colour fled,
Venus saw her lover dead,
Stiff his hair, and closed his eyes
Cupids, go (she frantic cries),
Trace the boar through all the wood,
Stain'd with my Adonis' blood!'
Swift as birds, each fluttering Love
Hastens through the mazy grove :
Soon the guilty boar they find,
Fearless run, and seize, and bind.
This, to guide the beast along,
Panting, pulls his cord of thong;
That, to make the felon go,
Beats him with his little bow;
He an easy captive led,
Awed by Venus, hung his head.
Venus thus, in angry strain-
'Fellest of the prowling train!
Didst thou wound Adonis' thigh?
Didst thou cause my love to die?'
He replied-'O Venus, hear;
By thyself, and lover dear;
By the chains with which I'm bound;
By the hunters standing round;
Never did my erring tooth
Mean to pierce so fair a youth!
But when he surprised my sight,
As a polish'd statue bright;
And, my rapture rising high,
I survey'd his naked thigh;
Ah! not able to resist,
Furiously I ran and kiss'd!
To a fatal frenzy wrought-
Too much passion was my fault!
Now, for thy Adonis' sake,
Take my tusks, all bloody, take!
Take my lips beside, if these,
Prove too trivial to appease !'
She, in pity to his pain,
Bid her Cupids loose his chain.
But, though free, the grateful boar,
Ranging in the woods no more,
Follow'd close Cythera's Queen;
And his cruel tusks so keen
(That had glow'd with amorous fire)
Burn'd amid the blazing pyre!
SAY, Swain, hast thou a mind to suit
Some ditty to thy double flute?
For by the woodnymphs, if thou will,
I'll try a tune upon my quill:
The herdsman Daphnis too shall play,
On his wax'd reed, a lively lay;
While at the cave our stand we keep
Near yon hoar oak, and rob of sleep
Arcadia's god-the goatherd Pan-
Rousing the snorer, all we can!
THYRSIS HATH LOST HIS KID.
Ah, Thyrsis! what avails this wasting woe? Thy lost kid wanders through the shades below! The wolf hath torn him on the pasture-plain; He died-And can thy tears bring life again? Thy very dogs exclaim, 'What boots thy moan? When nought of him remains-no-not a bone!'
STATUE OF ESCULAPIUS.
THE Son of Pæon to Miletus came
To meet his Nicias, of illustrious name:
He, in deep reverence of his guest divine,
Deck'd with the daily sacrifice his shrine;
And of the god this cedar statue bought—
A finish'd work, by skill'd Eëton wrought.
The sculptor; with a lavish sum repay'd,
Here all the wonders of his art display'd!
THUS Orthon cries—' My fate, ye topers, mark, And travel not, topheavy, in the dark!
Drunk on the road I died! how hard my doom, For heaps of native earth, a foreign tomb!'
O STRANGER, spare thy span of life,
Nor sail through winter's stormy strife!
Poor Cleonicus found his grave
In evil hour, amidst the wave;
What time his ship from Syria bore
Her freight for Thasos' fertile shore:
The Pleiads sinking down the skies—
"Twas then he sunk, no more to rise!
A MONUMENT ERECTED TO THE MUSES.
HERE, Xenocles, to you, ye hallow'd Nine,
A sweet musician raised this marble shrine!
And who, so skill'd, such offerings could refuse?
Who, famed for music, could forget the Muse?
OFFERINGS TO THE MUSES AND APOLLO.
THESE dewy roses, and this wildling thyme,
I offer to the sacred Nine, who love
The Heliconian hill: but lo, to thee,
Apollo! I devote the laurel's leaves,
Of sabler hue. Such offerings oft adorn
The Delphic rock! and, meantime, to enrich
Thy altar with its purple stream, shall bleed
Yon horn'd he goat, that crops, so snowy white,
The pendent branches of the gummy pine.
AN OFFERING TO PAN.
DAPHNIS the fair, who tunes the reed,
To Pan these presents hath decreed :
Three pipes, his lips that deftly suit;
A scrip, that oft hath borne his fruit;
A skin, which from a fawn he took—
A pointed dart, a shepherd's crook!
TO DAPHNIS SLEEPING.
WHILE, Daphnis, on the leaf-strown ground you steep
Your weary body in the dews of sleep ;
And on the green hill top your snares are laid— With Pan, who hunts where erst your footsteps stray'd,
|