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النشر الإلكتروني

TO LYCE.

OD. iv. 13.

LYCE, the Gods have listened to my prayer ; The Gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey,

And still would'st thou seem fair;

Still unshamed drink, and play,

And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with

weak

Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell,

Queen of the harp; her cheek

Is his sweet citadel:-
:-

He marked the withered oak, and on he flew

Intolerant; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled,

Whose teeth are ghastly-blue,

Whose temples snow-besprinkled :

Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows,

Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast,

Time hath once shut in those

Dark annals of the Past.

Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue

And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest,

Her, who breathed love, who drew

My heart out of my breast?

Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face

Ranked next to Cinara's. But to Cinara fate

Gave but a few years' grace;

And lets live, all too late,

Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow:

That fiery youth may see with scornful brow

The torch that long ago

Beamed bright, a cinder now.

TO HIS SLAVE.

OD. i. 38.

PERSIAN grandeur I abhor;

Linden-wreathèd crowns, avaunt:

Boy, I bid thee not explore

Woods which latest roses haunt:

Try on nought thy busy craft

Save plain myrtle; so arrayed

Thou shalt fetch, I drain, the draught

Fitliest 'neath the scant vine-shade.

THE DEAD OX.

GEORG. IV.

LO! smoking in the stubborn plough, the ox

Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-stained,
And sobs his life out. Sad of face the ploughman
Moves, disentangling from his comrade's corpse
The lone survivor: and its work half-done,
Abandoned in the furrow stands the plough.
Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns,
May move him now: not river amber-pure,
That rolls from crag to crag unto the plain.
Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye,

And low and lower sinks the ponderous neck.
What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled,

The heavy-clodded land in man's behoof

Upturning? Yet the grape of Italy,

The stored-up feast hath wrought no harm to him: Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare;

The clear rill or the travel-freshen'd stream

Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.

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