Classic Poem

ODE IV.

Now Winter melts beneath
Spring's genial breath,
And Zephyr
Back to the water yields
The stranded bark—back to the fields
The stabled heifer—
And the gay rural scene
The shepherd's foot can wean,
Forth from his homely hearth, to tread the meadows green.

Now Venus loves to group
Her merry troop
Of maidens,
Who, while the moon peeps out,
Dance with the Graces round about
Their queen in cadence;
While far, 'mid fire and noise,
Vulcan his forge employs,
Where Cyclops grim aloft their ponderoue sledges poise.

Now maids, with myrtle-bough,
Garland their brow—
Each forehead
Shining with flow'rets deck'd;
While the glad earth, by frost uncheck'd,
Buds out all florid;—
Now let the knife devote,
In some still grove remote,
A victim-lamb to Faun; or, should he list, a goat.

Death, with impartial foot,
Knocks at the hut;
The lowly
As the most princely gate.
O favoured friend! on life's brief date
To count were folly;
Soon shall, in vapours dark,
Quenched be thy vital spark,
And thou, a silent ghost, for Pluto's land embark?

Where at no gay repast,
By dice's cast
King chosen,
Wine-laws shalt thou enforce,
But weep o'er joy and love's warm source
For ever frozen;
And tender Lydia lost,
Of all the town the toast,
Who then, when thou art gone, will fire all bosoms most!
To cite this poem: