English

Princes and Fav'rites are most deere, while they
By giving and receiving hold the play:
But the Relation then of both growes poor,
When These can aske, and Kings can give no more.

Aske me, why I do not sing
To the tension of the string,
As I did, not long ago,
When my numbers full did flow?
Griefe (ay me!) hath struck my Lute,
And my tongue at one time mute.

As my little Pot doth boyle,
We will keep this Levell-Coyle;
That a Wave, and I will bring
To my God, a Heave-offering.

As oft as Night is banish'd by the Morne,
So oft, we'll think, we see a King new born.

Thus feverish fancies floated in my brain.
Longing, yet forced my purpose to restrain,
Upon the brink of infamy I staid,
Now half resolved to plunge, now half afraid.
But fate, that turns the eddy of our lives,
And, at its will, like straws our fortune drives,
Saved me, ere yet the desperate chance was run;
For death deprived me of my Eddleston.
I pass the useless hours in college spent—
The morning's lounge, the evening's merriment,
The tutor's lecture flippantly disdained,
The bottle emptied and the punchbowl drained,

Among the yeomen's sons on my estate
A gentle boy would at my mansion wait:
And now that time has almost blanched my hair,
And with the past the present I compare,
Full well I know, though decency forbad
The same caresses to a rustic lad;
Love, love it was, that made my eyes delight
To have his person ever in my sight.
Yes, Rushton, though to unobserving eyes,
My favours but as lordly gifts were prized;
Yet something then would inwardly presage
The predilections of my riper age.
Why did I give the gauds to deck thy form?

Archilochus' chant of the sweet voice singing
The Olympian hymn of victory,
With its threefold measure of triumph outringing,
Sufficed to lead onward the revelry
To the Hill of Kronos, as paced along
Epharmostus amidst of his comrade-throng
But now with such soul-stirring arrows of song
As in these our days fly fittingly
Shot from the Muses' bows far-ranging,
Sing praises, my soul, unto Zeus, whose hand
Hurls red-glowing lightnings sin-avenging;
And the holy foreland of Elis-land
Praise thou, the land which long agone

Mother of contests golden-crowned, O Queen
Of truth, Olympia, where from sacrifice
Diviners seek the will of Zeus to glean,
Who hurls white-flickering lightnings through the skies,
To wot if he hath any word of grace
For men whose hearts yearn hotly to attain
To high achievement, and a breathing-space
From toil to gain.

This he vouchsafes to reverent prayer and vow.
O Pisan precinct fair with olive-lines,
Welcome this victory-procession thou,
And the crown-bearing! Bright his glory shines

As a father with wealth-laden hand uplifteth a cup
With the flashing dew of the joy-giving wine brimmed up,
And pledgeth therein the youth who hath won for a bride
His daughter, and therewith giveth to him, to bear
From the old home unto the new, that golden pride
Of his treasures, and maketh the fair feast yet more fair,
And his kinsman envied of all friends banqueting there
For the marriage that joins hearts, one evermore to abide;

So send I the Song-queens' gift, the nectar outpoured

Oh Tyndarids, lords of all guest-welcoming,
Oh Helen of the tresses beauty-crowned,
Take pleasure in my praises, when I sing
Akragas far-renowned,
Chanting her son's Olympian victory,
The glory of his tireless-footed team.
The Muse hath thrilled me with new harmony
Of wedded song and dance, in revelry
Where Dorian sandals gleam.

Garlands of victory twined in Theron's hair
Exact of me this debt that Heaven ordains
For Ainesidamus' son in order fair
To blend the varying strains