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,
That drank the current of my heart;
Nor naval arms, nor mailed steed,
Have made this vanquish'd bosom bleed;
No-'twas from eyes of liquid blue,
A host of quiver'd Cupids flew;

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

Degen.

No'twas from eyes of liquid blue

Compare

Gail,

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 κρυπτόμενος.

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

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

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

The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes, but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress "un petit camp d'amours."

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;

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

66

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 et ne la fronte ho scritto.

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

Lorsque je vois un amant,

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

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

Tout ce qu'il peut faire ou dire,
Même ce qu'il ne dit pas.

In vain the lover tries to veil

The flame that in his bosom lies;
His cheeks' confusion tells the tale,
We read it in his languid eyes:
And while his words the heart betray,
His silence speaks ev'n more than they.

ODE XXVIII.

As, by his Lemnian forge's flame,
The husband of the Paphian dame
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm;
And Venus, as he plied his art,
Shed honey round each new-made dart,
While Love, at hand, to finish all,

Tipp'd every arrow's point with gall;

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.

While Love, at hand, to finish all,

Tipp'd every arrow's point with gall;] 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.