Ah! with them may your Genius bring Some Celia, some Miss Mannering; For youthful friendship is a thing More precious than succeeding.
Woman dead, lie there; No record of thee Shall there ever be, Since thou dost not share Roses in Pieria grown. In the deathful cave, With the feeble troop Of the folk that droop, Lurk and flit and crave, Woman severed and far-flown.
A slave--oh yes, a slave! But in a freeman's grave. By thee, when work was done, Timanthes, foster-son, By thee whom I obeyed, My master, I was laid. Live long, from trouble free; But if thou com'st to me, Paying to age thy debt, Thine am I, master, yet.
Dura fida rubecula, Cur moraris in arbore Dum cadunt folia et brevi Flavet luce November.
Quid boni tibi destinât Hora crastina? quid petes Antris ex hiemalibus? Quid speras oriturum?
Est ut hospita te vocet Myrtis, et reseret fores, Ut te vere nitentibus Emiretur ocellis.
Quod si contigerit tibi, Ter beata vocaberis, Invidenda volucribus, Invidenda poetæ.
A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; It doubles my toil, your importunate lay; I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; I clasp a good wisp, and in fragrance I lie; But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry."
A time-worn sage without a home, A man of dim and tearful sight, Up from the hallowed haven clomb In lowly longing for the height.
He loiters on a half-way rock To hear the waves that pant and seethe, Which give the beats of Nature's clock To mortals conscious that they breathe.
The buxom waves may nurse a boat, May well nigh seem to soothe and lull The crying of a tethered goat, The trouble of a searching gull.
There might be comfort in the tide, There might be Lethè in the surge, Could they but hint that oceans hide, That pangs absolve, bereavements purge.
The thinker, not despairing yet, Upraises limbs not wholly stiff, Half envying him that draws the net, Half proud to combat with the cliff.
He groans, but soon around his lips Tear-channels bend into a smile, He thinks "They're saying in the ships I'm looking for the hidden isle.
I climb but as my humours lead, My thoughts are mazed, my will is faint, Yon men who see me roam, they need No Lethè-fount, no shriving saint."