Fly, and cool, my goblet's glow
At yonder fountain's gelid flow;
I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink
This soul to slumber as I drink.
Soon, too soon, my jocund slave,
You'll deck your master's grassy grave;
And there's an end--for ah, you know
They drink but little wine below!
[1] "This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for
at the period when he lived rhetoricians were not known."--DEGEN.
Though this ode is found in the Vatican manuscript, I am much inclined to
agree in this argument against its authenticity: for though the dawnings
of the art of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it
any celebrity was. Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century
after Anacreon.
ODE LIII.
When I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I'm young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance,
And wings me lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!
Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose
Burn upon my forehead's snows;
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along,
Fling my heap of years away,
And be as wild, as young as they.
Hither haste, some cordial, soul!
Help to my lips the brimming bowl;
And you shall see this hoary sage
Forget at once his locks and age.
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