drinking,
to his mind: the heat of summer, the cold of winter, the blazing
dog-star and the driving tempest, twilight with its cheerful gleam of
lamps, mid-day with its sunshine--all suggest reasons for indulging in
the cup. Not that we are justified in fancying Alcaeus a mere vulgar
toper: he retained Aeolian sumptuousness in his pleasures, and raised
the art of drinking to an aesthetic attitude."

Alcaeus composed in the Aeolic dialect; for the reason, it is said, that
it was more familiar to his hearers. After his death his poems were
collected and divided into ten books. Bergk has included the
fragments--and one of his compositions has come down to us entire--his
'Poetae Lyrici Graeci.'

His love of political strife and military glory led him to the
composition of a class of poems which the ancients called 'Stasiotica'
(Songs of Sedition). To this class belong his descriptions of the
furnishing of his palace, and many of the fragments preserved to us.
Besides those martial poems, he composed hymns to the gods, and love and
convivial songs.

His verses are subjective and impassioned. They are outbursts of the
poet's own feeling, his own peculiar expression toward the world in
which he lived; and it is this quality that gave them their strength and
their celebrity. His metres were lively, and the care which he expended
upon his strophes has led to the naming of one metre the 'Alcaic.'
Horace testifies (Odes ii. 13, ii. 26, etc.), to the power of
his master.

The first selection following is a fragment from his 'Stasiotica.' It is
a description of the splendor of his palace before "the work of
war began."

THE PALACE

From roof to roof the spacious palace halls
Glitter with war's array;
With burnished metal clad, the lofty walls
Beam like the bright noonday.
There white-plumed helmets hang from many a nail,
Above, in threatening row;
Steel-garnished tunics and broad coats of mail
Spread o'er the space below.
Chalcidian blades enow, and belts are here,
Greaves and emblazoned shields;
Well-tried protectors from the hostile spear,
On other battlefields.
With these good helps our work of war's begun,
With these our victory must be won.

Translation of Colonel Mure.

A BANQUET SONG

The rain of Zeus descends, and from high heaven
A storm is driven:
And o