TO HIS LUTE Let the pine-tree my cottage near TO HIS LUTE IF ever in the sylvan shade A Lesbian first thy glories proved; In those old days when you were young. O shell, that art the ornament TO LEUCONÖE 371 I WHAT end the gods may have ordained for me, Seek not to learn, Leuconöe; we may not know "T is for the best To bear in patience what may come, or weal or woe. If for more winters our poor lot is cast, Or this the last, Which on the crumbling rocks has dashed Etruscan seas, Take hope with zest, And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease! TO LEUCONÖE II SEEK not, Leuconöe, to know how long you 're going to live yet, What boons the gods will yet withhold, or what they 're going to give yet; For Jupiter will have his way, despite how much we worry,- And while we sport I'll reel you off such odes as shall surprise ye; TO LIGURINUS I THOUGH mighty in Love's favor still, When the unwelcome dawn shall chill Your pride and youthful joy, The hair which round your shoulder grows Is rudely cut away, Your color, redder than the rose, Is changed by youth's decay, Then, Ligurinus, in the glass TO LIGURINUS "Why in my youth could I not learn The smooth cheeks of the boy?" 373 TO LIGURINUS II O CRUEL fair, Whose flowing hair The envy and the pride of all is, As onward roll The years, that poll Will get as bald as a billiard ball is; When you behold Yourself grown old, These words shall speak your spirits moody; "Unhappy one! What heaps of fun I've missed by being goody-goody! Oh, that I might have felt the hunger Of loveless age when I was younger!" THE HAPPY ISLES Он, come with me to the Happy Isles Where the song of the sun-kissed breeze beguiles Fragrant the vines that mantle those hills, Proudly the fig rejoices, Merrily dance the virgin rills, Blending their myriad voices. Our herds shall suffer no evil there, Or serpent come to molest them. Neither shall Eurus, wanton bold, Nor feverish drought distress us, There no vandal foot has trod, And the pirate hordes that wander Of those beautiful isles out yonder. Never a spell shall blight our vines, But you and I shall drink our wines So come with me where Fortune smiles CONSISTENCY SHOULD painter attach to a fair human head Believe me, dear Pisos, that just such a freak Is the crude and preposterous poem Which merely abounds in a torrent of sounds, With no depth of reason below 'em. 375 TO POSTUMUS "T is all very well to give license to art, The wisdom of license defend I; But the line should be drawn at the fripperish spawn Of a mere cacoethes scribendi. It is too much the fashion to strain at effects,— Should a patron require you to paint a marine, Now, this is my moral: Compose what you may, TO POSTUMUS O POSTUMUS, my Postumus, the years are gliding past, Old friend, although the tearless Pluto you may strive to please, And seek each year with thrice one hundred bullocks to appease Who keeps the thrice-huge Geryon and Tityus his slaves, Imprisoned fast forevermore with cold and sombre waves, Yet must that flood so terrible be sailed by mortals all; |