The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 2

ODE V.

Sculptor, wouldst thou glad my soul, Grave for me an ample bowl, Worthy to shine in hall or bower, When spring-time brings the reveller's hour.

Grave it with themes of chaste design, Fit for a simple board like mine.

Display not there the barbarous rites In which religious zeal delights; Nor any tale of tragic fate Which History shudders to relate.

No--cull thy fancies from above, Themes of heaven and themes of love.

Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy, Distil the grape in drops of joy, And while he smiles at every tear, Let warm-eyed Venus, dancing near, With spirits of the genial bed, The dewy herbage deftly tread.

Let Love be there, without his arms, In timid nakedness of charms; And all the Graces, linked with Love, Stray, laughing, through the shadowy grove; While rosy boys disporting round, In circlets trip the velvet ground.

But ah! if there Apollo toys,[1]

I tremble for the rosy boys.

[1] An allusion to the fable that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth, while playing with him at quoits. "This" (says M. La Fosse) "is a.s.suredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other."

ODE VI.[1]

As late I sought the spangled bowers, To cull a wreath of matin flowers, Where many an early rose was weeping, I found the urchin Cupid sleeping, I caught the boy, a goblet's tide Was richly mantling by my side, I caught him by his downy wing, And whelmed him in the racy spring.

Then drank I down the poisoned bowl, And love now nestles in my soul.

Oh, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest, I feel him fluttering in my breast.

[1] This beautiful fiction, which the commentators have attributed to Julian, a royal poet, the Vatican MS. p.r.o.nounces to be the genuine offspring of Anacreon.

ODE VII.

The women tell me every day That all my bloom has pas past away.

"Behold," the pretty wantons cry, "Behold this mirror with a sigh; The locks upon thy brow are few, And like the rest, they're withering too!"

Whether decline has thinned my hair, I'm sure I neither know nor care; But this I know, and this I feel As onward to the tomb I steal, That still as death approaches nearer, The joys of life are sweeter, dearer; And had I but an hour to live, That little hour to bliss I'd give.

ODE VIII.[1]

I care not for the idle state Of Persia's king, the rich, the great.

I envy not the monarch's throne, Nor wish the treasured gold my own But oh! be mine the rosy wreath, Its freshness o'er my brow to breathe; Be mine the rich perfumes that flow, To cool and scent my locks of snow.

To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine As if to-morrow ne'er would shine; But if to-morrow comes, why then-- I'll haste to quaff my wine again.

And thus while all our days are bright, Nor time has dimmed their bloomy light, Let us the festal hours beguile With mantling pup and cordial smile; And shed from each new bowl of wine, The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine For death may come, with brow unpleasant, May come, when least we wish him present, And beckon to the Sable sh.o.r.e, And grimly bid us--drink no more!

[1] Baxter conjectures that this was written upon the occasion of our poet's returning the money to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobaeus.

ODE IX.

I pray thee, by the G.o.ds above, Give me the mighty bowl I love, And let me sing, in wild delight, "I will--I will be mad to-night!"

Alcmaeon once, as legends tell, Was frenzied by the fiends of h.e.l.l; Orestes, too, with naked tread, Frantic paced the mountain-head; And why? a murdered mother's shade Haunted them still where'er they strayed.

But ne'er could I a murderer be, The grape alone shall bleed for me; Yet can I shout, with wild delight, "I will--I will be mad to-night."

Alcides' self, in days of yore, Imbrued his hands in youthful gore, And brandished, with a maniac joy, The quiver of the expiring boy: And Ajax, with tremendous shield, Infuriate scoured the guiltless field.

But I, whose hands no weapon ask, No armor but this joyous flask; The trophy of whose frantic hours Is but a scattered wreath of flowers, Ev'n I can sing, with wild delight, "I will--I will be mad to-night!"

ODE X.[1]

How am I to punish thee, For the wrong thou'st done to me Silly swallow, prating thing-- Shall I clip that wheeling wing?

Or, as Tereus did, of old,[2]

(So the fabled tale is told,) Shall I tear that tongue away, Tongue that uttered such a lay?

Ah, how thoughtless hast thou been!

Long before the dawn was seen, When a dream came o'er my mind, Picturing her I worship, kind, Just when I was nearly blest, Loud thy matins broke my rest!

[1] This ode is addressed to a swallow.

[2] Modern poetry has conferred the name of Philomel upon the nightingale; but many respectable authorities among the ancients a.s.signed this metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel the swallow, as Anacreon does here.

ODE XI.[1]