"Hast thou forgot my window worn more wide
By cunning nightly wiles, and how I'd go
And swing me through it by a rope, and slide
Hand under hand on to your neck below?

"Oft on the stones we lay in loving guise,

And sought the lonely nooks to lovers dear; Alas our secret bond! whose honeyed lies

Were borne on wandering winds that would not hear!

"When closed my eyes, no piercing voice 'gan plead; I'd gained one day hadst thou but called the while : For me no watch blew shrill the cloven reed;

My head lay gashed upon a broken tile.

"Who saw thee at my burial bow thee low?
Or scald thy sable vestments with a tear?
If thou didst grudge beyond the gates to go,
Thou mightst have bid them slowlier bear my

"By thee no winds to fan my pyre were prayed;

bier.

No spikenard fed my flame; ingrate! o'er me Cheap hyacinths thou mightst have strewn, and laid

My ghost with cask new-broached-this grudged by thee!

"For Lygdamus let now the iron glow;

I felt the cup was drugged-heat red the brand;

Let Nomas, hag, her spittle-spells forego

The burning tile will show her guilty hand.

"The trull, who lately prowled the streets o' nights, Now sails along in gold-embroidered gown,

And with a double task of wool requites

The maid who lauds my charms or old renown.

N

"Poor Petalè must bear the clog and chain, Because with garlands to my tomb she came, And by the hair my Lalagè is ta'en,

Swung up and slapped for suing in my name.

"Thou lett'st her melt my golden image down,
And from my burning pyre a dowry gain;
But yet for all, my own, I do not frown:
Long in thy verse, and glorious, was my reign.

"O, by the irrevoluble song of doom!-
So moan the triple hound in gentle tones-
I still was true: if not, athwart my tomb
Let vipers hiss, and nestle on my bones.

"O'er the dark wave two homes of old were made,
And all must seek at last the fatal shore;

To one is borne foul Clytemnestra's shade,
And the mad mother of the Minotaur.

"Yon flower-crowned bark for happier realms is bound,
Elysian rose-bowers by soft breezes fanned,
Where the stringed lyre and the round cymbals sound,
And Lydian lutes delight the mitred band.

"Andromeda and Hypermnestra there

Wives leal in love-their famous story tell; One wails her tender arms all bruised and bare, Doomed by a mother's pride to shackles fell—

"And blameless hands that might have well been spared
The terrors of the frozen rocks they prest:
The other tells the crime her sisters dared,
And the strong weakness of her wifely breast.

"Thus o'er life's loves death drops the healing tear :
Thy faults were many, but I hide them all;
Yet list my latest wish if still thou'lt hear,
Nor Chloris' magic holds thee all in thrall.

"Let not my nurse Parthenia want when old—
Her house was open and her fee was light-
Nor darling Latris, named from service, hold
The mirror up to some new favourite.

"Burn every lay thou'st written in my praise;
Why keep them now I am no longer thine?
My tomb of ivy strip, whose struggling sprays
And wattled locks my tender bones entwine.

"Where Anio foams 'mid groves of apple-trees,
And the white sheen of ivory's ever clear
By favour of Tiburtine Hercules,

A pillar with a meet inscription rear,

"But brief, and such as may arrest the eyes

Of traveller as he hurries from the town;

'In Tibur's land here golden Cynthia lies:

66

Hence hath thy bank, O Anio! reaped renown.'

Spurn not the dreams that leave the gates of horn;

For, coming thence, affection's dreams are true:

Night frees the imprisoned shades, and, earthward borne, By night we reappear to mortal view.

"Then roams the hound beyond the awful bourn,

Loosed from the chain that bars the infernal gate;

Till morn to Lethe's mere bids all return,

When the weird boatman counts his shadowy freight.

"Let others clasp thee now, soon mine once more

With me thou’lt dwell, and bone will chafe with bone." Such was the tone her plaintive chidings wore :

I strove to grasp the phantom-it was gone.

VIII.

THE SURPRISE.

Disce, quid Esquilias hac nocte fugarit aquosas.

Now learn how marshy Esquiline was scared so yesternight, When all the new-park neighbours hurried forth in wildered

plight.

Long 'neath an aged dragon's care Lanuvium's walls have been,
And many a one goes there to see a sight so seldom seen.
A hallowed path abruptly leads down to his den abysmal,
Through which is sent-O maiden fair! beware all paths so
dismal-

The tribute of this hungry snake, claimed as the year comes round,

What time he writhes and hisses in the deep dark underground.
Such are the rites to which the girls go down with pallid face,
When rashly in the serpent's mouth their helpless hands they
place.

If maid she be who proffers it, the food he quickly takes,
While in the tender virgin's hands the very basket shakes.

If chaste, they soon return, and clasp the necks of parents dear,

And rustics shout with joyful heart, ""Twill be a fruitful year.”

With ponies twain, clipped tail and mane, my Cynthia thither drove ;

She laid the blame on Juno's name, but Venus' web she wove. O Appian Way! declare how gay in triumph then she shone, As o'er thy pavement rough with flying wheels she thundered

on;

While from a tavern out of view the sound of bickerings came,
If not on my account, at least with damage to my fame :
For, forward leaning o'er the pole, a scandal to behold,
She plied along the rugged road the reins with daring bold.

Yon shaven fop's silk-cushioned car I leave now out of sight, And dogs of the Molossian breed with collars gleaming bright; Ere long he'll stuff his venal skin with prize-ring's filthy fare, And odious whiskers will o'ergrow those cheeks now smooth and bare.

Since she so often left me thus, and still abroad would range, I thought I'd shift my camp, and try another for a change.

On Aventine, near Dian's shrine, dwells Phyllis, who no doubt

Is dull when sober; in her cups she's charming out and out. There's Teia in Tarpeia's grove, and prettier girl there's

none;

But then, when she is warmed with wine, she's game for more than one.

Well, I resolved to ask them in, and spend with them the

night,

In pleasure's bowers to cull the flowers and raptures of delight.