Look on thy bride, too happy boy,
And while thy lambent glance of joy
Plays over all her blushing charms,
Delay not, snatch her to thine arms,
Before the lovely, trembling prey,
Like a young birdling, wing away!
Turn, Stratocles, too happy youth,
Dear to the Queen of amorous truth,
And dear to her, whose yielding zone
Will soon resign her all thine own.
Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye,
Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh.
To those bewitching beauties turn;
For thee they blush, for thee they burn.
Not more the rose, the queen of flowers,
Outblushes all the bloom of bowers
Than she unrivalled grace discloses,
The sweetest rose, where all are roses.
Oh! may the sun, benignant, shed
His blandest influence o'er thy bed;
And foster there an infant tree,
To bloom like her, and tower like thee!
[1] This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is
that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scolium at the nuptial
banquet.
ODE LXVII.
Rich in bliss, I proudly scorn
The wealth of Amalthea's horn;
Nor should I ask to call the throne
Of the Tartessian prince my own;[1]
To totter through his train of years,
The victim of declining fears.
One little hour of joy to me
Is worth a dull eternity!
[1] He here alludes to Arganthonius, who lived, according to Lucian, an
hundred and fifty years; and reigned, according to Herodotus, eighty.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115