Short Poems

You died, Maira, near your many-rooted home at Locri, swiftest of noise-loving hounds;
A spotted-throated viper darted his cruel venom into your light-moving limbs.

Damis placed this stone to his horse after blood-red Ares struck his breast.
And the dark blood seethed through his tough hide and soaked the heavy turf.

You will never rise up again with a flutter of thick wings and rouse me from my bed in the morning;
For a thief came silently upon you in your sleep and killed you, pressing his finger into your throat.

An ox-great cauldron; Cleubotos, son of Epiaspis, dedicates it; wide Tegea was his home; the gift is to Athena;
Aristoteles Cleitorios made it, who had this name from his father.

I HAVE no fear of thee,
That thou wilt swerve from me;
My feeling is so closely wound
About thy being, through, around,
I cannot fancy how
We two could part: canst thou?

The dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair,
And the courts gape wide from their moony mirrors cold
While I hold my breath for an echo upon the stair,
Awaiting the clanged armour, the ring and the gold,
Awaiting the preluding of an ancient air.
Will they tell as they long ago told me that yet I am fair?
For I dreamed in a slanderous dream of the woes of the old,
And the dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair.

In thy chambers are many lovers, O Mediterranean Sea;
Here, in a niche of thy caverns, would sleep were strewn o'er me;
Slumber as deep as ever the sleep of the spirit may be!

One last kiss and the morning star were one;
And in the chorus of the birds the sun
Neared in his glory. I into the dark
Ocean of slumber felt my spirit's bark
Slip from the music and the shining vales;
The song, the glory filled the fading sails.

Entre aultres dons de grâces immortelles
Ma Dame escript si hault, & doulcement,
Que je m'estonne, en voyant choses telles,
Qu'on n'en reçoit plus d'esbahyssement.
Puis quand je l'oy parler si sagement,
Et que je voy sa plume travailler,
Je tourne bride, & m'esbahy, comment
On est si sot de s'en esmerveiller.

O H , cruel, half-propitious Muse!
That powers of taste can still infuse;
Enough — the Minstrel to admire ,
But none to imitate the Lyre .