But oh, it is the worst of pain,
To love and not be loved again!
Affection now has fled from earth,
Nor fire of genius, noble birth,
Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile
From beauty's cheek one favoring smile.
Gold is the woman's only theme,
Gold is the woman's only dream.
Oh! never be that wretch forgiven -
Forgive him not, indignant heaven!
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore,
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore.
Since that devoted thirst began,
Man has forgot to feel for man;
The pulse of social life is dead,
And all its fonder feelings fled!
War too has sullied Nature's charms,
For gold provokes the world to arms:
And oh! the worst of all its arts,
It rends asunder loving hearts.

ODE XXX.1

'T was in a mocking dream of night-
I fancied I had wings as light
As a young bird's, and flew as fleet;
While Love, around whose beauteous feet,
I knew not why, hung chains of lead,
Pursued me, as I trembling fled;
And, strange to say, as swift as thought,
Spite of my pinions, I was caught!
What does the wanton Fancy mean
By such a strange, illusive scene?
I fear she whispers to my breast,
That you, sweet maid, have stolen its rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Hath hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolved each passing vow,
And ne'er was caught by love till now!

ODE XXXI.2

ARMED with hyacinthine rod,
(Arms enough for such a god,)

This shall be my only curse,
(Could I, could I wish them worse?)
May they ne'er the rapture prove,
Of the smile from lips we love!

1 Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. But I see nothing in the ode which alludes to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry.

2 The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than

can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram which bears some similitude to this ode: Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis

carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam; cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet.

tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas,

solus lo, solus, dure jacere potes?

exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta,

omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio. nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire pænitet; et pudor est stare via media.

ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum,

et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum. solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque, et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, tuum. Upon my couch I lay, at night profound, My languid eyes in magic slumber bound, When Cupid came and snatched me from my bed, And forced me many a weary way to tread. "What! (said the god) shall you, whose vows are

known,

Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?"
I rise and follow; all the night I stray,
Unsheltered, trembling, doubtful of my way;
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interred,
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard,
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

3 Till my brow dropt with chilly dew.

I have followed those who read τείρεν ιδρώς for πεῖρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads πειρεν ιδρώς.

4 And now my soul, exhausted, dying,
To my lip was faintly flying; etc.

In the original, he says, his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius:

τὴν ψυχὴν, ̓Αγαθῶνα φιλῶν, ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἔσχον. ἦλθε γὰρ ἡ τλήμων ὡς διαβησομένη,

Whene'er thy nectared kiss I sip,

And drink thy breath, in trance divine,
My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find a number of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language.

1 And fanning light his breezy pinion, Rescued my soul from death's dominion. "The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion." -LA FOSSE.

2 We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup-bearer. Some interpreters have ruined the picture by making Epws the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho, in one of her fragments, has assigned this office to Venus. Ελθὲ, Κύπρι, χρυσείαισιν ἐν κυλίκεσσιν ἁβροῖς συμμεμιγμέ τον θαλίαισι νέκταρ οἰνοχοῦσα τούτοισι τοῖς ἑταῖροις ἐμοῖς γε καὶ σοῖς.

may

Which be thus paraphrased: -
Hither, Venus, queen of kisses,
This shall be the night of blisses;
This the night, to friendship dear,
Thou shalt be our Hebe here.
Fill the golden brimmer high,
Let it sparkle like thine eye;
Bid the rosy current gush,
Let it mantle like thy blush.
Goddess, hast thou e'er above
Seen a feast so rich in love?
Not a soul that is not mine!

Not a soul that is not thine!

"Compare with this ode [says the German commentator] the beautiful poem in Ramler's 'Lyr. Blumenlese,' lib. iv. p. 296., Amor als Diener.' 999

Affect the still, cold sense of death?
Oh no; I ask no balm to steep
With fragrant tears my bed of sleep:
But now,
while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing;
Now let the rose, with blush of fire,
Upon my brow in sweets expire;
And bring the nymph whose eye hath
power

To brighten even death's cold hour.
Yes, Cupid! ere my shade retire,
To join the blest elysian choir,
With wine, and love, and social cheer,
I'll make my own elysium here!

ODE XXXIII.3

'T WAS noon of night, when round the pole

The sullen Bear is seen to roll;
And mortals, wearied with the day,
Are slumbering all their cares away:
An infant, at that dreary hour,
Came weeping to my silent bower,
And waked me with a piteous prayer,
To shield him from the midnight air.
"And who art thou," I waking cry,
"That bid'st my blissful visions fly?
"Ah, gentle sire!" the infant said,
"In pity take me to thy shed;
Nor fear deceit: a lonely child
I wander o'er the gloomy wild.
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray
Illumes the drear and misty way!"

I heard the baby's tale of woe;
I heard the bitter night-winds blow;
And sighing for his piteous fate,

I trimmed my lamp and oped the gate.

4

3 M. Bernard, the author of "L'Art d'aimer," has written a ballet called "Les Surprises de l'Amour," in which the subject of the third entrée is Anacreon, and the story of this ode suggests one of the scenes. Euvres de Bernard, Anac. scene 4.

The German annotator refers us here to an imitation by Uz, lib. iii., "Amor und sein Bruder; " and a poem of Kleist, "Die Heilung." La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode.

4"And who art thou," I waking cry,

'That bid'st my blissful visions fly?" Anacreon appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which he expresses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the Odes x. and xxxvii.

'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite,1
His pinion sparkled through the night.
I knew him by his bow and dart;
I knew him by my fluttering heart.
Fondly I take him in, and raise
The dying embers' cheering blaze;
Press from his dank and clinging hair
The crystals of the freezing air,
And in my hand and bosom hold
His little fingers thrilling cold.

And now the embers' genial ray Had warmed his anxious fears away; "I pray thee,' ," said the wanton child, (My bosom trembled as he smiled,) "I pray thee let me try my bow, For through the rain I've wandered so, That much I fear the midnight shower Has injured its elastic power." The fatal bow the urchin drew; Swift from the string the arrow flew; As swiftly flew as glancing flame, And to my inmost spirit came! "Fare thee well," I heard him say, As laughing wild he winged away; "Fare thee well, for now I know The rain has not relaxt my bow; It still can send a thrilling dart, As thou shalt own with all thy heart!"

ODE XXXIV.2

OH thou, of all creation blest,
Sweet insect, that delight'st to rest
Upon the wild wood's leafy tops,
To drink the dew that morning drops,

1 'T was Love! the little wandering sprite, etc. See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl.

2 In a Latin ode addressed to the grasshopper, Rapin has preserved some of the thoughts of our author:

O quæ virenti graminis in toro,
cicada, blande sidis, et herbidos
saltus oberras, otiosos
ingeniosa ciere cantus.

seu forte adultis floribus incubas,
cæli caducis ebria fletibus, etc.
Oh thou, that on the grassy bed
Which Nature's vernal hand has spread,
Reclinest soft, and tunest thy song,
The dewy herbs and leaves among!
Whether thou lyest on springing flowers,
Drunk with the balmy morning-showers,
Or, etc.

See what Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93. and 185.

And chirp thy song with such a glee,3
That happiest kings may envy thee.
Whatever decks the velvet field,
Whate'er the circling seasons yield,
Whatever buds, whatever blows,
For thee it buds, for thee it grows.
Nor yet art thou the peasant's fear,
To him thy friendly notes are dear;
For thou art mild as matin dew;
And still, when summer's flowery hue
Begins to paint the bloomy plain,
We hear thy sweet prophetic strain;
Thy sweet prophetic strain we hear,
And bless the notes and thee revere!
The Muses love thy shrilly tone;*
Apollo calls thee all his own;

'T was he who gave that voice to thee, 'T is he who tunes thy minstrelsy.

1

Unworn by age's dim decline, The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. Melodious insect, child of earth,5 In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth; Exempt from every weak decay, That withers vulgar frames away;

3 And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc.

"Some authors have affirmed [says Madame Dacier], that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, who says, eir' eioiv oi τέττιγες οὐκ εὐδαίμονες, ὧν ταῖς γυναιξὶν οὐδ ̓ ὅτι οὖν φωνῆς ἐνί; Gare not the grasshoppers happy in having dumb wives?"" This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I choose rather to make a lady my authority for it.

4 The Muses love thy shrilly tone; etc.

Phile, de Animal. Proprietat. calls this insect Movoais pilos, the darling of the Muses; and Movσwv opviv, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius:

τῶν πάντων δ ̓ ἡγεῖτο πλατύστατος, ἀλλ ̓ ἀγορήτης ἡδυέπης τέττιξιν ἰσόγραφος, οἱ θ ̓ ̔Εκαδήμου δένδρει ἐφεζόμενοι όπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι.

This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, y, where there occurs the very same simile. 5 Melodious insect, child of earth. Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the "Anthologia," where he prefers the grasshop. per to the swan:

ἀρκεῖ τέττιγας μεθύσαι δροσος, ἀλλὰ πίοντες ἀείδειν κύκνων εἰσὶ γεγωνότεροι.

In dew, that drops from morning's wings,
The gay Cicada sipping floats;

And, drunk with dew, his matin sings
Sweeter than any cygnet's notes.

With not a drop of blood to stain
The current of thy purer vein;
So blest an age is past by thee,
Thou seem'st - a little deity!

ODE XXXV.1

CUPID once upon a bed

Of roses laid his weary head;
Luckless urchin, not to see

1 Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyl; but is very inferior, I think, to his original, in delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser, in one of his smaller compositions, has sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which I allude, begins thus:

Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering
All in his mother's lap;

A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring,
About him flew by hap, etc.

In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius, correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose.

The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflections which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I may be pardoned, perhaps, for introducing here another of Menage's Anacreontics, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of the same natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved:

Ερως ποτ' ἐν χορείαις
τῶν παρθενῶν ἄωτον,
τήν μοι φιλὴν Κορίνναν,
ὡς εἶδεν, ὡς πρὸς αὐτὴν
προσέδραμε τραχήλω
διδύμας τε χεῖρας ἄπτων
φιλεῖ με, μήτερ, εἶπε.
καλουμένη Κορίννα,
μήτηρ, ἐρυθριάζει,
ὡς παρθένος μὲν οὖσα.
κ ̓ αὐτὸς δὲ δυσχεραίνων,
ὡς ὄμμασι πλανηθείς,
Ερως ερυθριάζει.
ἐγὼ, δὲ οἱ παραστάς,
μὴ δυσχέραινε, φημι.
Κύπριν τε καὶ Κορίνναν
διαγνῶσαι οὐκ ἔχουσι
καὶ οἱ βλέποντες ὀξύ.

As dancing o'er the enamelled plain,
The floweret of the virgin train,
My soul's Corinna lightly played,
Young Cupid saw the graceful maid;
He saw, and in a moment flew,
And round her neck his arms he threw;
Saying, with smiles of infant joy,
"Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!"
Unconscious of a mother's name,
The modest virgin blushed with shame!
And angry Cupid, scarce believing
That vision could be so deceiving -
Thus to mistake his Cyprian dame!
It made even Cupid blush with shame

-

Within the leaves a slumbering bee;
The bee awaked with anger wild
The bee awaked, and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies;
"Oh mother!-I am wounded through -
I die with pain in sooth I do!
Stung by some little angry thing,
Some serpent on a tiny wing
A bee it was for once, I know,
I heard a rustic call it so. ""
Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile;
Then said, "My infant, if so much
Thou feel the little wild-bee's touch,
How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,
The hapless heart that 's stung by thee ! "
ODE XXXVI.2

IF hoarded gold possest the power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every hour should swell my store;
That when Death came, with shadowy
pinion,

To waft me to his bleak dominion,
I might, by bribes, my doom delay,
And bid him call some distant day.
But, since, not all earth's golden store
Can buy for us one bright hour more,

"Be not ashamed, my boy," I cried, For I was lingering by his side; "Corinna and thy lovely mother, Believe me, are so like each other, That clearest eyes are oft betrayed, And take thy Venus for the maid." Zitto, in his "Cappriciosi Pensieri," has given a translation of this ode of Anacreon.

2 Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where, on weighing the merits of both these personages, he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet.

"The German imitators of this ode are, Lessing, in his poem, 'Gestern Brüder,' etc.; Gleim, in the ode, An den Tod; ' and Schmidt, in ' Der Poet.' Blumenl., Gotting. 1783, p. 7. "DEGEN. 3 That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, To waft me to his bleak dominion, etc.

The commentators, who are so fond of disputing de lanâ caprinâ, have been very busy on the authority of the phrase iν ἂν θανεῖν ἐπέλθη. The reading of ἵν ̓ ἂν Θάνατος ἐπέλθῃ, which De Medenbach proposes in his "Amoenitates Literariæ," was already hinted by Le Fèvre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice.

Why should we vainly mourn our fate,
Or sigh at life's uncertain date?
Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume
The silent midnight of the tomb.
No-give to others hoarded treasures
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures;
The goblet rich, the board of friends,
Whose social souls the goblet blends;1
And mine, while yet I 've life to live,
Those joys that love alone can give.

ODE XXXVII.2

'T WAS night, and many a circling bowl
Had deeply warmed my thirsty soul;
As lulled in slumber I was laid,
Bright visions o'er my fancy played.
With maidens, blooming as the dawn,
I seemed to skim the opening lawn;
Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew,
We flew, and sported as we flew !

-

Some ruddy striplings, who lookt on With cheeks, that like the wine-god's shone,

1 The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose social souls the goblet blends.

This communion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life are enumerated with proverbial simplicity: — υγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνητῷ. δεύτερον δὲ, καλὸν φυὴν γένεσθαι. τὸ τριτὸν δὲ, πλουτεῖν ἀδολώς. καὶ τὸ τέταρτον συνέβαν μετὰ τῶν φίλων.

Of mortal blessing here the first is health,

And next those charms by which the eye we

move;

The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth, And then, sweet intercourse with those we love!

2 "Compare with this ode the beautiful poem 'Der Traum' of Uz."-Degen.

Le Fèvre, in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably the cause of the severe reprehension which he appears to have suffered for his Anacreon. "Fuit olim fateor [says he in a note upon Longinus], cum Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima fæmina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone, (Anacreontem dico, si nescis, Lector, noli sperare," etc. He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of:

ουδεὶς φιλοπότης ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος κακός. "No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man

Saw me chasing, free and wild,
These blooming maids, and slyly smiled;
Smiled indeed with wanton glee,

Though none could doubt they envied me.
And still I flew - and now had caught
The panting nymphs, and fondly thought
To gather from each rosy lip

A kiss that Jove himself might sip-
When sudden all my dream of joys,
Blushing nymphs and laughing boys,
All were gone! 8 -"Alas!" I said,
Sighing for the illusion fled,

Again, sweet sleep, that scene restore, Oh! let me dream it o'er and o'er!" 4

4 "Again, sweet sleep, that scene restore, Oh! let me dream it o'er and o'er!" Doctor Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, animadverting upon the commentators of that poet, who pretended, in every little coincidence of thought, to detect an imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the following words to the line of Anacreon before us: "I have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, 'I cried to sleep again,' the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like any other man, the same wish on the same occasion."

5 "Compare with this beautiful ode to Bacchus the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v., 'Das Gesellschaftliche;' and of Bürger, p. 51, etc. — DEGEN.

6 Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms So oft has fondled in her arms.

Robertellus, upon the epithalamium of Catullus, mentions an ingenious derivation of Cythe