ODE XXXII.

STREW me a fragrant bed of leaves,
Where lotus with the myrtle weaves;
And while in luxury's dream I sink,
Let me the balm of Bacchus drink!
In this sweet hour of revelry

Young Love shall my attendant be—

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. Ελθε, Κυπρι, χρυσειαισιν εν κυλικεσσιν ἁβροις συμμεμιγμένον θαλιαισι νεκταρ οινοχουσα τουτοισι τοις έταιροις εμοις γε και

σοις.

Which may 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.

1

Drest for the task, with tunic round

His snowy neck and shoulders bound,
Himself shall hover by my side,
And minister the racy tide!

Oh, swift as wheels that kindling roll,
Our life is hurrying to the goal:
A scanty dust, to feed the wind,

Is all the trace 'twill leave behind.
Then wherefore waste the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb?

Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
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;

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.""

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.

'Twas 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 wak'd 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?"

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

4th.

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.

"And who art thou," I waking cry,

"That bid'st my blissful visions fly?"] Anacreon appears

"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 trimm'd my lamp and op'd the gate.
"Twas Love! the little wandering sprite,
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,

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, &c.] See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl.