ODE XXXIX.

How I love the festive boy,

Tripping wild the dance of joy!
How I love the mellow sage,
Smiling through the veil of age!
And whene'er this man of

years

In the dance of joy appears,
Age is on his temples hung,

But his heart-his heart is young!

Age is on his temples hung,

But his heart-his heart is young!] Saint Pavin makes the same distinction in a sonnet to a young girl.

Je sais bien que les destinées

Ont mal compassé nos années;
Ne regardez que mon amour.
Peut-être en serez vous émue,
Il est jeune et n'est que du jour,
Belle Iris, que je vous ai vue.
Fair and young, thou bloomest now,
And I full many a year have told;
But read the heart and not the brow,

Thou shalt not find my love is old.
My love's a child; and thou canst say
How much his little age may be,
For he was born the very day

That first I set my eyes on thee!

ODE XL.

I KNOW that Heaven ordains me here
To run this mortal life's career;

The scenes which I have journied o'er
Return no more-alas! no more;
And all the path I've yet to go,

I neither know nor ask to know.
Then surely, Care, thou canst not twine
Thy fetters round a soul like mine;
No, no, the heart that feels with me,
Can never be a slave to thee !

No, no, the heart that feels with me,.

Can never be a slave to thee!] Longepierre quotes an epigram here from the Anthologia, on account of the similarity of a particular phrase; it is by no means anacreontic, but has an interesting simplicity which induced me to paraphrase it, and may atone for its intrusion.

Ελπις και συ τυχη μεγα χαιρετε. τον λιμεν ̓ ἑυρον.
Ουδέν εμοι χ' ύμιν. παίζετε τες μετ' εμε.

At length to Fortune, and to you,
Delusive Hope! a last adieu.

The charm that once beguiled is o'er,
And I have reach'd my destined shore!
Away, away, your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts,
And you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving!

And oh before the vital thrill,

Which trembles at my heart, is still,
I'll gather Joy's luxuriant flowers,
And gild with bliss my fading hours ;
Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom,
And Venus dance me to the tomb!

ODE XLI.

WHEN Spring begems the dewy scene,
How sweet to walk the velvet green,
And hear the Zephyr's languid sighs,
As o'er the scented mead he flies!
How sweet to mark the pouting vine;
Ready to fall in tears of wine;

Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom,

And Venus dance me to the tomb !] The same commentator has quoted an epitaph, written upon our poet by Julian, where he makes him give the precepts of good-fellowship even from the tomb.

τυμβω δε βοήσω

Πολλακι μεν του αείσα, και εκ
Πινετε, πριν ταυτην αμφιβαλησθε κονιν.

This lesson oft in life I sung,

And from my grave I still shall cry,
"Drink, mortal! drink, while time is young,
Ere death has made thee cold as I."

And with the maid, whose every sigh

Is love and bliss, entranced to lie
Where the embowering branches meet-
Oh! is not this divinely sweet?

ODE XLII.*

YES, be the glorious revel mine,
Where humour sparkles from the wine!

And with the maid, whose every sigh
Is love and bliss, etc.] Thus Horace :

Quid habes illius, illius

Quæ spirabat amores,

Quæ me surpuerat mihi.

Book iv. ode 13.

And does there then remain but this,
And hast thou lost each rosy ray
Of her, who breathed the soul of bliss,
And stole me from myself away?

*The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly depicted. His love of social, harmonized pleasures, is expressed with a warmth, amiable and endearing. Among the epigrams imputed to Anacreon is the following; it is the only one worth translation, and it breathes the same sentiments with this ode:

Ου φίλος, ός κρητήρι παρα πολεων οινοποτάζων,
Νείκεα και πολεμον δακρυόεντα λεγεί.

Αλλ' όςις Μέσεων τε, και αγλαα δως Αφροδίτης
Ευμμισγών, ερατης μνήσκεται ευφροσύνης.

Around me let the youthful choir
Respond to my beguiling lyre;
And while the red cup circles round,
Mingle in soul as well as sound!

Let the bright nymph, with trembling eye,
Beside me all in blushes lie;

And, while she waves a frontlet fair
Of hyacinth to deck my hair,

Oh! let me snatch her sidelong kisses,
And that shall be my bliss of blisses!

My soul, to festive feeling true,

One

pang of

envy never knew ;

And little has it learn'd to dread

The gall that Envy's tongue can shed.
Away-I hate the slanderous dart,

Which steals to wound th' unwary heart;
And oh! I hate, with all my soul,
Discordant clamours o'er the bowl,

When to the lip the brimming cup is press'd,
And hearts are all afloat upon the stream,
Then banish from my board th' unpolish'd guest
Who makes the feats of war his barbarous theme.
But bring the man, who o'er his goblet wreathes
The Muse's laurel with the Cyprian flower;
Oh! give me him whose heart expansive breathes
All the refinements of the social hour.