ANACREONTIC.

THE laughing women call me old,
And bid me in the glass behold
The ruins of my former state;
But let the locks my temples bear
Be gray or black, I little care,

And leave it to the will of Fate.
Yet this I know-though Nature's call
Subjects me to the lot of all,

Still, as my ebbing days decline,

I'll make the most of my short hours, Be bathed in odours, crown'd with flowers, And drown old care in floods of wine. PALLADAS.

M.

CONJUGAL AFFECTION.

SEE yonder blushing vine tree grow,
And clasp a dry and wither'd plane,
And round its youthful tendril throw
A shelter from the wind and rain.

That sapless trunk in former time

Gave covert from the noontide blaze,
And taught the infant shoot to climb,
That now the pious debt repays.
And thus, kind Powers, a partner give
To share in my prosperity;

Hang on my strength while yet I live,
And do me honour when I die.

ANTIPATER.

BLAND.

ON THE DEATH OF HELIODORA.

THESE tears be thine, O lost in early bloom!
(All, all that now affection can bestow)
Tears wept in anguish: o'er thy honour'd tomb
Love, in fond memory, pours the streams of woe.

Yes, my dead Heliodora, ever dear!

Long, long for thee shall Meleager grieve; Still shall thy shade, while yet he lingers here, These empty gifts to Acheron receive.

Ah! where is now my lovely blossom? torn,
By death untimely torn, in dust to fade,
But this fair flower, which all admired and mourn,
O Earth, fold softly, in thy bosom laid!

MELEAGER.

F. LAURENCE.

MUSIC AND BEAUTY.

By the God of Arcadia, so sweet are the notes That tremulous fall from my Rhodope's lyre, Such melody swells in her voice, as it floats

On the soft midnight air, that my soul is on fire.

Oh where can I fly? the young Cupids around me Gaily spread their light wings, all my footsteps

pursuing;

[me, Her eyes dart a thousand fierce lustres to wound And Music and Beauty conspire my undoing.

MELEAGER.

M.

YE gods! how easily the good man bears
His cumbrous honours of increasing years.
Age, oh my father, is not, as they say,
A load of evils heap'd on mortal clay,
Unless impatient folly aids the curse,

And weak lamenting makes our sorrows worse.
He, whose soft soul, whose temper ever even,
Whose habits, placid as a cloudless heaven,
Approve the partial blessings of the sky,
Smooths the rough road, and walks untroubled by;
Untimely wrinkles furrow not his brow,
And graceful wave his locks of reverend snow.

ANAXANDRIDES.

M.

LOVE UNEXTINGUISHED BY AGE. Oн, how I loved, when, like the glorious sun Firing the orient with a blaze of light, Thy beauty every lesser star outshone!Now o'er that beauty steals the approach of night— Yet, yet I love! though in the western sea

Half sunk, the day-star still is fair to me!

STRATO.

VOL. VI.

M.

FUNERAL HONOURS.

OH, think not that, with garlands crown'd,
Inhuman near thy grave we tread,

Or blushing roses scatter round

To mock the paleness of the dead!

What though we drain the fragrant bowl,
In flowers adorn'd, and silken vest,
Oh, think not, brave departed soul,
We revel to disturb thy rest!

Feign'd is the pleasure that appears,
And false the triumph of our eyes;
Our draughts of joy are dash'd with tears,
Our songs imperfect end in sighs.

We inly mourn; o'er flowery plains
To roam in joyous trance is thine:
And pleasures unallied to pains,
Unfading sweets, immortal wine.

UNCERTAIN.

BLAND.

THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY.

THOU art not dead, my Rosa, though no more
Inhabitant of this tempestuous shore,

Fled to the peaceful islands of the bless'd,
Where Youth and Love, for ever blooming, rest,
Or joyful wandering o'er Elysian ground,
Among soft flowers where not a thorn is found.
No winter freezes there, no summer fires,
No sickness weakens, and no labour tires;

No longer poverty nor thirst oppress,
Nor envy of man's boasted happiness;
But spring for ever glows serenely bright,
And bliss immortal hails the heavenly light.

UNCERTAIN.

M.

EPIGRAM.

HIS shafts, the terror of the skies,
No more the God of Love discover;
Now from fair Anna's azure eyes

With surer aim they wound the lover.

For Venus he mistook the maid,

And laughing ran his arms to give her:
The bow she bent; her skill essay'd;
And emptied at my heart the quiver.

UNCERTAIN.

F. LAURENCE.

LOVE AND WINE.

WHILE for my fair a wreath I twined,
Of all the flowers which spring discloses,
It was my evil fate to find

Cupid lurking in the roses.

I seized the little struggling boy,

I plunged him in the mantling cup,
Then pledged it with a rapturous joy,
And, mad with triumph, drank him up.
But ever since, within my breast,

All uncontroll'd the urchin rages,
Disturbs my labour, breaks my rest,
And an eternal warfare wages.
JULIAN THE PREFECT.

M.