Yes, I would be a happy gem,

Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Oh, any thing that touches thee;
Nay, sandals for those airy feet-
Ev'n to be trod by them were sweet!

Nay, sandals for those airy feet —

Ev'n to be trod by them were sweet!] The sophist Philostratus, in one of his love-letters, has borrowed this thought; ω αδετοι πόδες, ω καλλος ελευθερος, ω τρισευδαιμων εγω και μακάριος εαν πατήσετε με "Oh lovely feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me!" In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove:

Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might kiss that cheek!

And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with an idea somewhat like that of the thirteenth line:

He, spying her, bounc'd in, where as he stood,

"O Jove!" quoth she, "why was not I a flood?"

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whimsical farrago of "all such reading as was never read," we find a translation of this ode made before 1632." Englished by Mr. B. Holiday, in his Technog. act i. scene 7."

ODE XXIII.

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,
This warbler of my soul's desire,
Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame, in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,

Along the chords my numbers die,

According to the order in which the odes are usually placed, this (Θελω λεγειν Ατρείδας) forms the first of the series; and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an introduction to the rest. It however characterises the genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it:

cum multo Venerem confundere mero Precepit Lyrici Teia Musa senis.

OVID.

The twenty-sixth Ode, Ev μev λeyeis ta Onsns, might, with just as much propriety, be placed at the head of his songs.

We find the sentiments of the ode before us expressed by Bion with much simplicity in his fourth idyl. The above translation is, perhaps, too paraphrastical; but the ode has been so frequently translated, that I could not otherwise avoid triteness and repetition.

And whisper, with dissolving tone,
"Our sighs are given to love alone!"
Indignant at the feeble lay,

I tore the panting chords away,
Attun'd them to a nobler swell,

And struck again the breathing shell;
In all the glow of epic fire,

To Hercules I wake the lyre.
But still its fainting sighs repeat,

"The tale of love alone is sweet!"
Then fare thee well, seductive dream,

That mad'st me follow Glory's theme;

66

In all the glow of epic fire,

To Hercules I wake the lyre!] Madame Dacier generally translates Aupn into a lute, which I believe is inaccurate. D'expliquer la lyre des anciens (says M. Sorel) par un luth, c'est ignorer la différence qu'il y a entre ces deux instrumens de musique." Bibliothèque Françoise.

But still its fainting sighs repeat,

The word αντεφωνει in

"The tale of love alone is sweet!"] the original, may imply that kind of musical dialogue practised by the ancients, in which the lyre was made to respond to the questions proposed by the singer. This was a method which Sappho used, as we are told by Hermogenes; σε όταν

την λυραν ερωτα Σαπφω, και όταν αυτη αποκρίνηται.”— Περι Ιδεων, τομ. δευτ.

For thou my lyre, and thou my heart,
Shall never more in spirit part;
And all that one has felt so well
The other shall as sweetly tell!

ODE XXIV.

To all that breathe the air of heaven,
Some boon of strength has Nature given.
In forming the majestic bull,

She fenced with wreathed horns his skull;

Henry Stephen has imitated the idea of this ode in the following lines of one of his poems:

Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma,

Et sua fœmineum possidet arma genus,

Ungulâque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum,

Armata est formâ fœmina pulchra suâ.

And the same thought occurs in those lines, spoken by Corisca in Pastor Fido:

Cosi noi la bellezza

Ch' è vertù nostra cosi propria, come

La forza del leone,

E l'ingegno de l'huomo.

The lion boasts his savage powers,

And lordly man his strength of mind;
But beauty's charm is solely ours,

Peculiar boon, by Heav'n assign'd.

"An elegant explication of the beauties of this ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm an den Anmerk. über einige Oden des Anakr."