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ON THE GRASSHOPPER.

HAPPY songster, perched above,
On the summit of the grove,
Whom a dewdrop cheers to sing
With the freedom of a king!
From thy perch survey the fields
Where prolific nature yields
Nought that, willingly as she,
Man surrenders not to thee.
For hostility or hate

None thy pleasures can create.
Thee it satisfies to sing

Sweetly the return of spring,
Herald of the genial hours,
Harming neither herbs nor flowers.
Therefore man thy voice attends
Gladly, thou and he are friends
Nor thy never-ceasing strains
Phoebus or the Muse disdains
As too simple or too long,
For themselves inspire the song.
Earth-born, bloodless, undecaying,
Ever singing, sporting, playing,
What has nature else to show
Godlike in its kind as thou?

ON A THIEF.

WHEN Aulus, the nocturnal thief, made prize
Of Hermes, swift-winged envoy of the skies,
Hermes, Arcadia's king, the thief divine,
Who when an infant stole Apollo's kine,
And whom, as arbiter and overseer

Of our gymnastic sports, we planted here;

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Hermes," he cried, you meet no new disaster;

Ofttimes the pupil goes beyond his master.”

ON PALLAS BATHING.

FROM A HYMN OF CALLIMACHUS.

NOR Oils of balmy scent produce,
Nor mirror for Minerva's use,

Ye nymphs who lave her; she, arrayed
In genuine beauty, scorns their aid.
Not even when they left the skies

To seek on Ida's head the prize

From Paris' hand, did Juno deign,
Or Pallas in the crystal plain

Of Simois' stream her locks to trace,
Or in the mirror's polished face,
Though Venus oft with anxious care
Adjusted twice a single hair.

TO DEMOSTHENES,

ON A FLATTERING MIRROR.

Ir flatters and deceives thy view,
This mirror of ill-polished ore;
For were it just, and told thee true,
Thou wouldst consult it never more.

ON A SIMILAR CHARACTER.

You give your cheeks a rosy stain,
With washes dye your hair;
But paint and washes both are vain
To give a youthful air.

Those wrinkles mock your daily toil,
No labour will efface 'em,

You wear a mask of smoothest oil,
Yet still with ease we trace 'em.

An art so fruitless then forsake,
Which though you much excel in,
You never can contrive to make
Old Hecuba young Helen.

ON MILTIADES.

MILTIADES! thy valour best
(Although in every region known)
The men of Persia can attest,
Taught by thyself at Marathon.

ON A BATTERED BEAUTY.

HAIR, wax, rouge, honey, teeth you buy, A multifarious store!

A mask at once would all supply,

No would it cost you more.

ON PEDIGREE.

FROM EPICHARMUS.

My mother! if thou love me, name no more
My noble birth! Sounding at every breath
My noble birth, thou kill'st me. Thither fly,

As to their only refuge, all from whom
Nature withholds all good besides; they boast
Their noble birth, conduct us to the tombs
Of their forefathers, and from age to age
Ascending, trumpet their illustrious race:
But whom hast thou beheld, or canst thou name,
Derived from no forefathers? Such a man
Lives not; for how could such be born at all
And if it chance that, native of a land
Far distant, or in infancy deprived
Of all his kindred, one, who cannot trace
His origin, exist, why deem him sprung
From baser ancestry than theirs who can ?
My mother! he whom nature at his birth
Endowed with virtuous qualities, although
An Ethiop and a slave, is nobly born.

ON ENVY.

PITY, says the Theban bard,
From my wishes I discard;
Envy, let me rather be,
Rather far, a theme for thee!
Pity to distress is shown,
Envy to the great alone.
So the Theban: but to shine
Less conspicuous be mine!
I prefer the golden mean,
Pomp and penury between ;
For alarm and peril wait
Ever on the loftiest state,
And the lowest, to the end,
Obloquy and scorn attend.

TRANSLATION OF AN EPIGRAM OF HOMER.

PAY me my price, potters! and I will sing.
Attend, O Pallas! and with lifted arm
Protect their oven; let the cups and all

No title is prefixed to this piece, but it appears to be a translation of one of the 'Er ypáμμата of Homer called 'O Kauvos, or The Furnace. Herodotus, or whoever was the author of the Life of Homer ascribed to him, observes: "Certain potters, while they were busy in baking their ware, seeing Homer at a small distance, and having heard much said of his wisdom, called to him, and promised him a present of their commodity and of such other things as they could afford, if he would sing to them; when he sang as follows."

The sacred vessels blacken well, and, baked
With good success, yield them both fair renown
And profit, whether in the market sold

Or streets, and let no strife ensue between us.
But oh, ye potters! if with shameless front
Ye falsify your promise, then I leave
No mischief uninvoked to avenge the wrong.
Come Syntrips, Smaragus, Sabactes, come,
And Asbetus; nor let your direst dread,
Omodamus, delay! Fire seize your house!
May neither house nor vestibule escape!
May ye lament to see confusion mar
And mingle the whole labour of your hands,
And may a sound fill all your oven, such
As of a horse grinding his provender,

While all your pots and flagons bounce within.
Come hither also, daughter of the sun,
Circe the sorceress, and with thy drugs

Poison themselves, and all that they have made!
Come also, Chiron, with thy numerous troop
Of Centaurs, as well those who died beneath
The club of Hercules, as who escaped,
And stamp their crockery to dust; down fal!
Their chimney; let them see it with their eyes,
And howl to see the ruin of their art,
While I rejoice; and if a potter stoop
To peep into his furnace, may the fire
Flash in his face and scorch it, that all men
Observe, thenceforth, equity and good faith

BY PHILEMON.

OFT we enhance our ills by discontent,

And give them bulk beyond what Nature meant.
A parent, brother, friend deceased, to cry,
"He's dead indeed, but he was born to die"
Such temperate grief is suited to the size
And burthen of the loss; is just and wise:
But to exclaim, "Ah! wherefore was I born,
"Thus to be left for ever thus forlorn?"
Who thus laments his loss invites distress,
And magnifies a woe that might be less,
Through dull despondence to his lot resigned,
And leaving reason's remedy behind.

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BY MOSCHUS.

I SLEPT when Venus entered: to my bed
A Cupid in her beauteous hand she led,
A bashful seeming boy, and thus she said:
Shepherd, receive my little one! I bring
"An untaught love, whom thou must teach to sing."
She said, and left him. I, suspecting nought,
Many a sweet strain my subtle pupil taught,
How reed to reed Pan first with osier bound,
How Pallas formed the pipe of softest sound,
How Hermes gave the lute, and how the quire
Of Phoebus owe to Phoebus' self the lyre.

Such were my themes; my themes nought heeded he,
But ditties sang of amorous sort to me,

The pangs that mortals and immortals prove
From Venus' influence, and the darts of love.
Thus was the teacher by the pupil taught ;
His lessons I retained, and mine forgot.

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