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For, O Neaera, though I am forgot, I ask all G.o.ds to bless thee, every one.
Back to my cups I go. This wine has brought After long storms, the sun.
Alas! How hard to masque dull grief in joy!
A sad heart's jest--what bitter mockery!
With vain deceit my laughing lips employ Loud mirth that is a lie.
But why complain and moan? O wretched me!
When will my lagging sorrows haste and go?
Delightful Bacchus at his mystery Forbids these words of woe.
Once, by the wave, lone Ariadne pale, Abandoned of false Theseus, weeping stood:-- Our wise Catullus tells the doleful tale Of love's ingrat.i.tude.
Take warning friends! How fortunate is he, Who learns of others' loss his own to shun!
Trust not caressing arms and sighs, nor be By flatteries undone!
Though by her own sweet eyes her oath she swear, By solemn Juno, or by Venus gay, At oaths of love Jove laughs, and bids the air Waft the light things away.
It is but folly, then, to fume and fret, If one light la.s.s that old deception wrought; O that I too might evermore forget To speak my heart's true thought!
O that my long, long nights brought peace and thee!
That nought but thee my waking eyes did fill!
Thou wert most false and cruel, woe is me!
False! But I love thee still.
_L'Envoi_
How well fresh water mixes with old wine!
Bacchus loves water-nymphs. Bring water, boy!
What care I where she sleeps? This night of mine Shall I in sighs employ?
Make the cup strong, I tell you! Stronger there!
Wine only! While the Syrian balm o'er-flows!
Long would I revel with anointed hair, And wear this wreath of rose.
BOOK IV
ELEGY THE THIRTEENTH
A LOVER'S OATH
No! ne'er shall rival lure me from thine arms!
(In such sweet bond did our first sighs agree!) Save for thine own I see no woman's charms; No maid in all the world is fair but thee.
Would that no eyes but mine could find thee fair!
Displease those others! Save me this annoy!
I ask not envy nor the people's stare:-- Wisest is he who loves with silent joy.
With thee in gloomy woods my life were gay, Where pathway ne'er was found for human feet, Thou art my balm of care, in dark my day, In wildest waste, society complete.
If Heaven should send a G.o.ddess to my bed, All were in vain. My pulse would never rise.
I swear thee this by Juno's holy head-- Greatest to us of all who hold the skies.
What madness this? I give away my case!
Swear a fool's oath! Thy tears my safety won.
Now wilt thou flirt, and tease me to my face-- Such mischief has my babbling fully done.
Now am I but thy slave: yet thine remain, My mistress' yoke I never shall undo.
To Venus' altar let me drag my chain!
She brands the proud, and smiles on lovers true.
OVID'S LAMENT FOR TIBULLUS' DEATH
If tears for their dead sons, in deep despair, Mothers of Memnon and Achilles shed, If G.o.ds in mortal grief have any share, O Muse of tears! bow down thy mournful head!
Tibullus, thy true minstrel and best fame, Mere lifeless clay, on tall-built pyre doth blaze; While Eros, with rent bow, extinguished flame, And quiver empty, his wild grief displays.
Behold, he comes with trailing wing forlorn, And smites with desperate hands his bosom bare!
Tears rain unheeded o'er his tresses turn, And many a trembling sob his soft lips bear.
Thus for a brother Eros mourned of yore, Aeneas, in Iulus' regal hall; Not less do Venus' eyes this death deplore Than when she saw her slain Adonis fall.
Yet poets are sacred! Simple souls have deemed That ranked with G.o.ds we sons of song may stand, See one and all by sullen Death blasphemed, And violated by his shadowy hand!
Little avails it Orpheus that his sire Was more than man; for though his songs restrain The wolves of Ismara, his love-lorn lyre Wails in the wildwood gloom with anguish vain.
Maeonides, from whose exhaustless well All bards since then some tribute stream derive,-- Him, even him, th' Avernian shades camped; Only his songs his scattered dust survive
Yet songs endure. Endures the Trojan fame, And how Penelope's wise nights were pa.s.sed.
So Nemesis and Delia have a name,-- A poet's earliest pa.s.sion and his last.
Live piously! Build shrines! Revere the skies!
Death, from the temple, thrusts thee to the tomb Or sing divinely! Lo, Tibullus dies!
One scanty urn gives all his ashes room.
