Nay, rather, friends, anoint me now,
While life remains, and fate is kind;
With rosy garlands crown my brow,
And go, my lovely fair one find.
My cares I'll drown in pleasure's tide,
Before my wand'ring spirit go
Where unsubstantial spectres glide,
And dance in dismal shades below.[1]
ODE V.—ON THE ROSE.[2]
With sparkling wine sweet roses join,
'Twill make the nectar'd draught divine;
Let mirth and laughter rule the hour,
While roses, pluck'd from Love's own bower,
Around our moisten'd temples twine,
And add fresh fragrance to the wine.
- ↑ It seems not a little remarkable that the ancients, amid all their wild and extravagant fancies, never "affected the skies;" or, in other words, that they contented themselves with an elysium in the infernal regions, assigning the heavens above them to their gods and demigods alone. In this, as in many other respects, Christianity has enlarged our ideas, and exalted our hopes beyond the most daring conceptions of the heathen world.
- ↑ Among the ancients, especially the Grecians, the rose was particularly esteemed. It was always introduced at entertainments; and it was customary on such occasions to employ flowers and perfumes, not merely for pleasure, but because they imagined their odours prevented the intoxicating effects of wine. With the Romans they were held in equal estimation, as appears from the following passage:—
"Here pour your wines, your odours shed;
Bring forth the rose's shortlived flower,
While fate yet spins thy mortal thread,
While youth and fortune give th' indulgent hour."
Francis's Horace, b. ii., ode 3.
they never approach but with the deepest reverence; and they often sit for hours in their kiosks on the Bosphorus, gazing with mournful pleasure on the shores of Asia, where the ashes of their fathers are laid."—Carne's Letters from the East, p. 65.
