The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore
Chapter 5 : ODE XIX.[1]Here recline you, gentle maid, Sweet is this embowering shade; Sweet the youn

ODE XIX.[1]

Here recline you, gentle maid, Sweet is this embowering shade; Sweet the young, the modest trees, Ruffled by the kissing breeze; Sweet the little founts that weep, Lulling soft the mind to sleep; Hark! they whisper as they roll, Calm persuasion to the soul; Tell me, tell me, is not this All a stilly scene of bliss?

"Who, my girl, would pa.s.s it by?

Surely neither you nor I."

[1] The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we almost feel a degree of coolness and freshness while we peruse it.

ODE XX.[1]

One day the Muses twined the hands Of infant Love with flowery bands; And to celestial Beauty gave The captive infant for her slave.

His mother comes, with many a toy, To ransom her beloved boy;[2]

His mother sues, but all in vain,-- He ne'er will leave his chains again.

Even should they take his chains away, The little captive still would stay.

"If this," he cries, "a bondage be, Oh, who could wish for liberty?"

[1] The poet appears, in this graceful allegory, to describe the softening influence which poetry holds over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty.

[2] In the first idyl of Moschus, Venus there proclaims the reward for her fugitive child:--

On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show, A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow; But he, who can bring back the urchin in chains, Shall receive even something more sweet for his pains.

ODE XXI.[1]

Observe when mother earth is dry, She drinks the droppings of the sky; And then the dewy cordial gives To every thirsty plant that lives.

The vapors, which at evening weep, Are beverage to the swelling deep; And when the rosy sun appears, He drinks the ocean's misty tears.

The moon too quaffs her paly stream Of l.u.s.tre, from the solar beam.

Then, hence with all your sober thinking!

Since Nature's holy law is drinking; I'll make the laws of nature mine, And pledge the universe in wine.

[1] Those critics who have endeavored to throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this beautiful trifle, require too much from Anacreontic philosophy. Among others, Gail very sapiently thinks that the poet uses the epithet [Greek: melainae], because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and accordingly he indulges us with an experimental disquisition on the subject.--See Gail's Notes.

ODE XXII.

The Phrygian rock, that braves the storm, Was once a weeping matron's form;[1]

And Progne, hapless, frantic maid, Is now a swallow in the shade.

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine, That I might catch that smile divine; And like my own fond fancy be, Reflecting thee, and only thee; Or could I be the robe which holds That graceful form within its folds; Or, turned into a fountain, lave Thy beauties in my circling wave.

Would I were perfume for thy hair, To breathe my soul in fragrance there; Or, better still, the zone, that lies Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs![2]

Or even those envious pearls that show So faintly round that neck of snow-- Yes, I would be a happy gem, Like them to hang, to fade like them.

What more would thy Anacreon be?

Oh, any thing that touches thee; Nay, sandals for those airy feet-- Even to be trod by them were sweet!

[1] The compliment of this ode is exquisitely delicate, and so singular for the period in which Anacreon lived, when the scale of love had not yet been graduated Into all its little progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument in the features of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any of those fastidious conjectures upon which some commentators have presumed so far.

[2] The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fas.h.i.+on of compressing the waist into a very narrow compa.s.s, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom. See "Dioscorides," lib. v.

ODE XXIII.

I often wish this languid lyre, This warbler of my soul's desire, Could raise the breath of song sublime, To men of fame, in former time.

But when the soaring theme I try, Along the chords my numbers die, And whisper, with dissolving tone, "Our sighs are given to love alone!"

Indignant at the feeble lay, I tore the panting chords away, Attuned them to a n.o.bler swell, And struck again the breathing sh.e.l.l; In all the glow of epic fire, To Hercules I wake the lyre, But still its fainting sighs repeat, "The tale of love alone is sweet!"

Then fare thee well, seductive dream, That madest me follow Glory's theme; For thou my lyre, and thou my heart, Shall never more in spirit part; And all that one has felt so well The other shall as sweetly tell!

ODE XXIV.

To all that breathe the air of heaven, Some boon of strength has Nature given.

In forming the majestic bull, She fenced with wreathed horns his skull; A hoof of strength she lent the steed, And winged the timorous hare with speed.

She gave the lion fangs of terror, And, o'er the ocean's crystal mirror, Taught the unnumbered scaly throng To trace their liquid path along; While for the umbrage of the grove, She plumed the warbling world of love.

To man she gave, in that proud hour, The boon of intellectual power.

Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee, Was left in Nature's treasury?