Go-fly to haunts of sordid men,

But come not near the bard again.

Thy glitter in the Muse's shade,

Scares from her bower the tuneful maid;
And not for worlds would I forego
That moment of poetic glow,

When my full soul, in Fancy's stream,
Pours o'er the lyre its swelling theme.
Away, away! to worldlings hence,
Who feel not this diviner sense;

Give gold to those who love that pest,-
But leave the poet poor and blest.

As in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea, « Ίνα και πινης ἅμα και pians," "that you may at once both drink and kiss."

ODE LIX

RIPEN'D by the solar beam,
Now the ruddy clusters teem,
In osier baskets borne along
By all the festal vintage throng
Of rosy youths and virgins fair,
Ripe as the melting fruits they bear.
Now, now they press the pregnant grapes,
And now the captive stream escapes,
In fervid tide of nectar gushing,
And for its bondage proudly blushing!
While, round the vat's impurpled brim,
The choral song, the vintage hymn

The title Επιληνιος ύμνος, which Barnes has given to this ode, is by no means appropriate. We have already had one of those hymns (ode 56.), but this is a description of the vintage; and the title is owov, which it bears in the Vatican MS., is more correct than any that have been suggested.

Degen, in the true spirit of literary scepticism, doubts that this ode is genuine, without assigning any reason for such a suspicion;" non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare." But this is far from satisfactory criticism.

Of rosy youths and virgins fair,

Steals on the charm'd and echoing air.

Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes,
The orient tide that sparkling flies,

The infant Bacchus, born in mirth,

While Love stands by, to hail the birth.

When he, whose verging years decline
As deep into the vale as mine,

When he inhales the vintage-cup,

His feet, new-wing'd, from earth spring up,
And as he dances, the fresh air

Plays whispering through his silvery hair.
Meanwhile young groups whom love invites,
To joys ev'n rivalling wine's delights,
Seek, arm in arm, the shadowy grove,
And there, in words and looks of love,
Such as fond lovers look and say,

Pass the sweet moonlight hours away.*

*Those well acquainted with the original need hardly be reminded that, in these few concluding verses, I have thought right to give only the general meaning of my author, leaving the details untouched.

ODE LX.

AWAKE to life, my sleeping shell,
To Phœbus let thy numbers swell;
And though no glorious prize be thine,
No Pythian wreath around thee twine,
Yet every hour is glory's hour

To him who gathers wisdom's flower.
Then wake thee from thy voiceless slumbers,
And to the soft and Phrygian numbers,
Which, tremblingly, my lips repeat,
Send echoes from thy chord as sweet.

This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been written by Anacreon; and it is undoubtedly rather a sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But, in a poet of whose works so small a proportion has reached us, diversity of style is by no means a safe criterion. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. We can perceive in what an altered and imperfect state his works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace citing an ode from the third book of Anacreon.

'Tis thus the swan, with fading notes,
Down the Cayster's current floats,
While amorous breezes linger round,
And sigh responsive sound for sound.

Muse of the Lyre! illume my dream,
Thy Phoebus is my fancy's theme;
And hallow'd is the harp I bear,
And hallow'd is the wreath I wear,
Hallow'd by him, the god of lays,
Who modulates the choral maze.
I sing the love which Daphne twin'd
Around the godhead's yielding mind;
I sing the blushing Daphne's flight
From this ethereal son of Light;
And how the tender, timid maid
Flew trembling to the kindly shade,

And how the tender, timid maid

Flew trembling to the kindly shade, &c.] Original:

Το μεν εκπεφευγε κεντρον,

I find the worα KEVтρоv nere has a double force, as it also signifies that "omnium parentem, quam sanctus Numa, &c. &c." (See Martial.) In order to confirm this import of the word