Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/390

Propitious this kind truth reveal'd,
That woman close besieged will yield.

  Old Hesiod too his native shade
Made vocal to th' Ascrean maid;
The bard his heav'n-directed lore
Forsook, and hymn'd the gods no more:
Soft love-sick ditties now he sung,
Love touch'd his harp, love tuned his tongue,
Silent his Heliconian lyre,
And love's put out religion's fire.

  Homer, of all past bards the prime,
And wonder of all future time,
Whom Jove with wit sublimely blest,
And touch'd with purest fire his breast,
From gods and heroes turn'd away
To warble the domestic lay,
And wand'ring to the desert isle,
On whose parch'd sands no seasons smile,
In distant Ithaca was seen
Chanting the suit-repelling Queen.

  Mimnermus tuned his amorous lay,
When time had turn'd his temples grey;
Love revell'd in his aged veins,
Soft was his lyre, and sweet his strains;
Frequenter of the wanton feast,
Nanno his theme, and youth his guest.

  Antimachus with tender art
Pour'd forth the sorrows of his heart;
In her Dardanian grave he laid
Chryseis his beloved maid;
And thence returning, sad beside
Pactolus' melancholy tide,
To Colophon the minstrel came,
Still sighing forth the mournful name,
Till lenient time his grief appeased,
And tears by long indulgence ceased.

  Alcæus strung his sounding lyre,
And smote it with a hand of fire,
To Sappho, fondest of the fair,
Chanting the loud and lofty air.