ing of Tom Moore in Sir
Theodore Martin's rendering of it.

* * * * *

On the young grass reclined, near the murmur of fountains,
The shepherds are piping the song of the plains,
And the god who loves Arcady's purple-hued mountains,
The god of the flocks, is entranced by their strains.

* * * * *

To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy!
In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain;
Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,
'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane!

There follows a savage assault on one Lyce, an ancient beauty who had
lost her youthful charms, but kept up her youthful airs:

Where now that beauty? where those movements? where
That colour? what of her, of her is left,
Who, breathing Love's own air,
Me of myself bereft!
Poor Lyce! spared to raven's length of days;
That youth may see, with laughter and disgust,
A firebrand, once ablaze,
Now smouldering in grey dust.

Poor Lyce indeed! what had she done to be so scourged? One address we
miss: there is no ode in this book to Maecenas, who was out of favour
with Augustus, and had lost all political influence. But the friend is
not sunk in the courtier. The Ides or 13th of April is his old patron's
birthday--a nativity, says Horace, dearer to him almost than his own,
and he keeps it always as a feast. With a somewhat ghostly resurrection
of voluptuousness dead and gone he bids Phyllis come and keep it with
him. All things are ready, a cask of Alban nine years old is broached,
the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames
curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a
wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for
never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face--come, and
learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull
care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that
no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; but this is probably
a veritable amorous swan-song. He was older than are most men at
fifty-two. Years as they pass, he sadly says, bereave us one by one
of all our precious things; of mirth, of loves, of banquets; at last
the Muse herself spreads wings to follow them. "You have sported long
enough," she says, "with Amaryllis in the shade, you have eaten and