Two Juvenile Anacreontics

I

I wish to tune my quivering lyre

To deeds of fame and notes of fire;

To echo, from its rising swell,

How heroes fought and nations fell,

When Atreus' sons advanced to war,

Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar;

But still, to martial strains unknown,

My lyre recurs to love alone.

Fired with the hope of future fame,

I seek some nobler hero's name;

The dying chords are strung anew,

To war, to war, my harp is due:

With glowing strings, the epic strain

To Jove's great son I raise again;

Alcides and his glorious deeds,

Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds.

All, all in vain; my wayward lyre

Wakes silver notes of soft desire.

Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms!

Adieu the clang of war's alarms!

To other deeds my soul is strung,

And sweeter notes shall now be sung;

My harp shall all its powers reveal,

To tell the tale my heart must feel;

Love, love alone, my lyre shall claim,

In songs of bliss and sighs of fame.

II

'Twas now the hour when Night had driven

Her car half round yon sable heaven;

Boötes, only, seem'd to roll

His artic charge around the pole;

While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,

Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep:

At this lone hour the Paphian boy,

Descending from the realms of joy,

Quick to my gate directs hs course,

And knocks with all his little force.

My visions fled, alarm'd I rose, --

'What stranger breaks my blest repose?'

'Alas!' replies the wily child,

In faltering accents sweetly mild,

'A hapless infant here I roam,

Far from my dear maternal home.

Oh! shield me from the wintry blast!

The nightly storm is pouring fast.

No prowling robber lingers here.

A wandering baby, who can fear?'

I heard his seeming artless tale,

I heard his sighs upon the gale:

My breast was never pity's foe,

But felt for all the baby's woe.

I drew the bar, and by the light

Young Love, the infant, met my sight;

His bow across his shoulders flung,

And thence his fatal quiver hung

(Ah! little did I think the dart

Would rankle soon within my heart).

With care I tend my weary guest,

His little fingers chill my breast;

His glossy curls, his azure wing,

Which droop with nightly showers, I wring;

His shiver limbs the embers warm;

And now reviving from the storm,

Scarce had he felt his wonted flow,

Than swift he seized his slender bow; --

'I fain would know, my gentle host,'

He cried, 'if this its strength has lost;

I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,

The strings their former aid refuse.'

With poison tipt, his arrow flies,

Deep in my tortured heart it lies;

Then loud the joyous urchin laughed: --

'My bow can still impel the shaft:

'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;

Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?'