Still every year, and all the year,

A flight of loves engender here;

And some their infant plumage try,
And on a tender winglet fly;

While in the shell, impregn'd with fires,
Cluster a thousand more desires;
Some from their tiny prisons peeping,
And some in formless embryo sleeping.
My bosom, like the vernal groves,
Resounds with little warbling loves;
One urchin imps the other's feather,
Then twin-desires they wing together,
And still as they have learn'd to soar,
The wanton babies teem with more.
But is there then no kindly art,

To chase these cupids from my heart?
No, no! I fear, alas! I fear

They will for ever nestle here!

ODE XXVI.*

THY harp may sing of Troy's alarms,
Or tell the tale of Theban arms;
With other wars my song shall burn,
For other wounds my harp shall mourn.
'Twas not the crested warrior's dart,
Which drank the current of my heart;
Nor naval arms, nor mailed steed,
Have made this vanquish'd bosom bleed;
No-from an eye of liquid blue

A host of quiver'd cupids flew ;

"The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. Compare also Weisse Scherz. Lieder. lib. iii. der Soldat," Gail, Degen.

No-from an eye of liquid blue,

A host of quiver'd cupids flew.] Longepierre has quoted part of an epigram from the seventh book of the Anthologia, which has a fancy something like this:

Ου με λεληθας

Τοξοτα, Ζηνοφίλας ομμασι κρυπτομένος.

Archer Love! though slily creeping,
Well I know where thou dost lie;

I saw thee through the curtain peeping,
That fringes Zenophelia's eye.

The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes,

And now my heart all bleeding lies
Beneath this army of the eyes!

ODE XXVII.*

WE read the flying courser's name
Upon his side, in marks of flame;
And, by their turban'd brows alone,
The warriors of the East are known.
But in the lover's glowing eyes,

The inlet to his bosom lies;

but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress "un petit camp d'amours."

* This ode forms a part of the preceding in the Vatican MS. but I have conformed to the editions in translating them separately.

Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of Ramler Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 313." But in the lover's glowing eyes,

The inlet to his bosom lies.] "We cannot see into the heart," says Madame Dacier. But the lover answers

Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte ho scritto.

Monsieur La Fosse has given the following lines, as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon:

Through them we see the small faint mark,
Where Love has dropp'd his burning spark!

ODE XXVIII.

As in the Lemnian caves of fire,
The mate of her who nursed desire
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm ;
While Venus every barb imbues
With droppings of her honied dews;

Lorsque je vois un amant,

Il cache en vain son tourment,
A le trahir tout conspire,

Sa langueur, son embarras,
Tout ce qu'il peut faire ou dire,
Même ce qu'il ne dit pas.

In vain the lover tries to veil

The flame which in his bosom lies;
His cheek's confusion tells the tale,
We read it in his languid eyes:
And though his words the heart betray,

His silence speaks e'en more than they.

*This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, who, I believe, was the author of that curious little work, called "Hexameron Rustique." He makes use of this, as well as the thirty-fifth, in his ingenious but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the Nymphs. Journée Quatrième.

And Love (alas! the victim-heart)
Tinges with gall the burning dart ;
Once, to this Lemnian cave of flame,
The crested Lord of battles came ;
'Twas from the ranks of war he rush❜d,
His spear with many a life-drop blush'd!
He saw the mystic darts, and smiled
Derision on the archer-child.

And Love (alas! the victim-heart)

Tinges with gall the burning dart.] Thus Claudian-
Labuntur gemini fontes, hic dulcis, amarus
Alter, et infusis corrumpit mella venenis,
Unde Cupidineas armavit fama sagittas.
In Cyprus' isle two rippling fountains fall,
And one with honey flows, and one with gall;
In these, if we may take the tale from fame,

The son of Venus dips his darts of flame.

See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the close connexion which subsists between sweets and bitterness. Apes ideo pungunt (says Petronius) quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum

invenies.

The allegorical description of Cupid's employment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in fancy, though not in delicacy:

-ferus et Cupido

Semper ardentes acuens sagittas

Cote cruentâ.

And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts

Upon a whetstone stain'd with blood of hearts.

Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat softened the image by the omission of the epithet "cruenta.'

Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas? Eleg. 1.