Be tranquil, Dellius, I pray; For though you pine your life away With dull complaining breath, Or speed with song and wine each day, Still, still your doom is death. Where the white poplar and the pine In glorious arching shade combine, And the brook singing goes, Bid them bring store of nard and wine And garlands of the rose. Let's live while chance and youth obtain; Soon shall you quit this fair domain Kissed by the Tiber's gold, And all your earthly pride and gain Some heedless heir shall hold. One ghostly boat shall some time bear From scenes of mirthfulness or care Each fated human soul,— Shall waft and leave its burden where The waves of Lethe roll. So come, I prithee, Dellius mine; Let's sing our songs and drink our wine In that sequestered nook Where the white poplar and the pine Stand listening to the brook.

POKING FUN AT XANTHIAS

Of your love for your handmaid you need feel no shame. Don't apologize, Xanthias, pray; Remember, Achilles the proud felt a flame For Brissy, his slave, as they say. Old Telamon's son, fiery Ajax, was moved By the captive Tecmessa's ripe charms; And Atrides, suspending the feast, it behooved To gather a girl to his arms. Now, how do you know that this yellow-haired maid (This Phyllis you fain would enjoy) Hasn't parents whose wealth would cast you in the shade,— Who would ornament you, Xan, my boy? Very likely the poor chick sheds copious tears, And is bitterly thinking the while Of the royal good times of her earlier years, When her folks regulated the style! It won't do at all, my dear boy, to believe That she of whose charms you are proud Is beautiful only as means to deceive,— Merely one of the horrible crowd. So constant a sweetheart, so loving a wife, So averse to all notions of greed Was surely not born of a mother whose life Is a chapter you'd better not read. As an unbiased party I feel it my place (For I don't like to do things by halves) To compliment Phyllis,—her arms and her face And (excuse me!) her delicate calves. Tut, tut! don't get angry, my boy, or suspect You have any occasion to fear A man whose deportment is always correct, And is now in his forty-first year!

TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS

Fuscus, whoso to good inclines, And is a faultless liver, Nor Moorish spear nor bow need fear, Nor poison-arrowed quiver. Ay, though through desert wastes he roam, Or scale the rugged mountains, Or rest beside the murmuring tide Of weird Hydaspan fountains! Lo, on a time, I gayly paced The Sabine confines shady, And sung in glee of Lalage, My own and dearest lady; And as I sung, a monster wolf Slunk through the thicket from me; But for that song, as I strolled along, He would have overcome me! Set me amid those poison mists Which no fair gale dispelleth, Or in the plains where silence reigns, And no thing human dwelleth,— Still shall I love my Lalage, Still sing her tender graces; And while I sing, my theme shall bring Heaven to those desert places!

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS I

Not to lament that rival flame Wherewith the heartless Glycera scorns you, Nor waste your time in maudlin rhyme, How many a modern instance warns you! Fair-browed Lycoris pines away Because her Cyrus loves another; The ruthless churl informs the girl He loves her only as a brother! For he, in turn, courts Pholoe,— A maid unscotched of love's fierce virus; Why, goats will mate with wolves they hate Ere Pholoe will mate with Cyrus! Ah, weak and hapless human hearts, By cruel Mother Venus fated To spend this life in hopeless strife, Because incongruously mated! Such torture, Albius, is my lot; For, though a better mistress wooed me, My Myrtale has captured me, And with her cruelties subdued me!

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS II

Grieve not, my Albius, if thoughts of Glycera may haunt you, Nor chant your mournful elegies because she faithless proves; If now a younger man than you this cruel charmer loves, Let not the kindly favors of the past rise up to taunt you. Lycoris of the little brow for Cyrus feels a passion, And Cyrus, on the other hand, toward Pholoe inclines; But ere this crafty Cyrus can accomplish his designs She-goats will wed Apulian wolves in deference to fashion. Such is the will, the cruel will, of love-inciting Venus, Who takes delight in wanton sport and ill-considered jokes, And brings ridiculous misfits beneath her brazen yokes,— A very infelicitous proceeding, just between us. As for myself, young Myrtale, slave-born and lacking graces, And wilder than the Adrian tides which form Calabrian bays, Entangled me in pleasing chains and compromising ways, When—just my luck—a better girl was courting my embraces.

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