Adown the Lesbian vales

    LIV


    …Τάδε νῦν ἐταίραις
    ταῖς ἔμαισι τέρπνα κάλως ἀείσω·

     ADOWN the Lesbian vales, 
       When spring first flashes out, 
       I watch the lovely rout 
    Of maidens flitting 'mid the honey-bees 
       For thyme and heath, 
       Cistus, and trails 
       Of myrtle-wreath : 
       They bring me these 
    My passionate, unsated sense to please. 

       In turn, to please my maids, 
       Most deftly will I sing 
       Of their soft cherishing 
    In apple-orchards with cool waters by, 
       Where slumber streams 
       From quivering shades, 
       And Cypris seems 
       To bend and sigh, 
    Her golden calyx offering amorously.

       What praises would be best 
       Wherewith to crown my girls ? 
       The rose when she unfurls 
    Her balmy, lighted buds is not so good, 
       So fresh as they 
       When on my breast 
       They lean, and say 
       All that they would, 
    Opening their glorious, candid maidenhood. 

       To that pure band alone 
       I sing of marriage-loves ; 
       As Aphrodite's doves 
    Glance in the sun their colour comes and goes : 
       No girls let fall 
       Their maiden zone 
       At Hymen's call 
       Serene as those 
    Taught by a poet why sweet Hesper glows.