Classic Poem

Bard of the flower-sweet lyre, what life was thine
In famous climes in times so long since fled,
Drowning thy care in bowls of Samian wine,
Armed with the thyrsus, myrtle-garlanded,
Fair worshipper at Cytherea's shrine!

How often in some cool inviting glade
Hast thou reclined with young Bathyllus nigh;
Or in the fond arms of a Thracian maid
Dissolved in bliss didst thou delight to lie,
And let the worthless striving world pass by!

Not in thee burned the Atridae's warlike fire,
Instead the flame of wine-inspired delight;
Of love's delicious raptures breathed thy lyre,
Of beauty's spell and amours recondite
Which smote to sweeter song the whispering wire.

Star of the court of King Polycrates,
The banquet saw thy mirth and gaiety;
And in the goblet emptied to the lees
Forgotten were the ills of life with thee
Mid light and laughter, warmth and luxury.

Poor heart so pierced with Parthian shafts of love,
Sweet lips that mocked Age to his wrinkled face,
Still through the mist of centuries dost move
Most musically, with inimitable grace;
Thy muse no jovial souls wax weary of.

To thee nought was the praise of men or gold,
Or Apollo's gift, the laurel wreath of fame
That ripens tardily but to enfold
A hoary head or grace a grave when shame
And honour to the sleeper are the same.

Strike with thy plectrum, let us hear again
Voluptuous joy-notes of thy harp divine,
Breathing the Bacchic dances' fervent strain,
The bousing bout, pain's subtle anodyne,
The teeming vat, the wine-press' rose-red rain.

Strike with thy plectrum, Teian master, shape
In light foam-crests of song the revel's glare;
And sing the glowing glories of the grape —
Not the shrill-shouting Maenad with wind-tossed hair,
But the bowl's charms, and conquests of the fair.

Ere, as old records tell, the height-watched wave
That washes yet white-hilled Leucadian land
Granted lorn Sappho an unhappy grave,
For Phaon sighing on the sounding strand,
Didst thou her ardent kisses win and crave?

When Arctos and Bootes gleam on high,
And summer winds blow soft in drowsy wise,
I'll fancy that in dreamful calm I lie
At ease beneath the blue Ionian skies,
Where the cicada sings, the nymph replies:

And where the shepherd's reed among the hills,
Vine-braided, laden with the ripening fruit,
Sounds silver-sweet with all love's passionate thrills,
Borne on spiced breezes when loud winds are mute,
Mixed with wild murmur of far mountain rills.

And in the satyr-haunted woods I'll tread
The grassy paths thine own dear feet have pressed,
With green umbrageous boughs above my head,
And fancy in the glamour of my rest
Thou art not with death's cheerless gloom oppressed.

Dead art thou? Nay! for thou art with us yet
Light-hearted as in old Hellenic hours;
Thy lively lyre no frosts of time can fret:
Time chilling hearts and overturning powers
Falls on thee like a storm on sheltered flowers.

Pale-visaged Age with tarnished locks of white
Plucked at thy beard, and said, " Aha! thou art mine! "
But back into Cimmerian depths of night
Thou jeeredst him with tried comrades, song and wine.
Thy weird was fitting end of wild delight.