The cooling draught will thirst assuage,
Nor in the breast too fiercely rage.
Oh cease, my friends, for shame, give o'er
These clamorous shouts, this deaf'ning roar:
This Scythian scene all peace destroys;[1]
Turns joy to madness, mirth to noise.
Let cheerful temperance rule the soul,
The best ingredient in the bowl.
ODE LVIII.—LOVE IN THE HEART.[2]
As once, amid the rosy bowers,
I wove a crown of fairest flowers,
Love, little urchin, lurking sly
Beneath the leaves I chanced to spy;
Around his wings the wreath I twine,
And plunge him in a cup of wine:
Then love, in each delicious draught,
I from the foaming goblet quaff'd.
Oh! still he moves his fluttering wings,
Still to my heart strange transport brings.
ODE LIX.—ON HIMSELF.[3]
Methought, in sleep's delightful trance,
I saw Anacreon advance;
- ↑ The Scythians were particularly remarkable for their intemperance in drinking, and for quarrelling in their cups.
- ↑ This ode is by some ascribed to Julian, a king of Egypt, who wrote several other elegant little pieces. Being supposed to possess much beauty, it is given in most translations of Anacreon, and is consequently inserted here.
- ↑ In the Vatican copy this is placed as the first of Anacreon's odes. By many it is thought that he was not the author, because he himself is the subject of it. Barnes endeavours to prove that he was, by a reference to the ninth ode, in which Anacreon makes mention of himself, and to similar instances of poets introducing their names in their works.
