Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XLIII.

While our rosy fillets shed     Freshness o'er each fervid head,     With many a cup and many a smile     The festal moments we beguile.     And while the harp, impassioned flings     Tuneful rapture from its strings,[1]     Some airy nymph, with graceful bound,     Keeps measure to the music's sound;     Waving, in her snowy hand,     The leafy Bacchanalian wand,     Which, as the tripping wanton flies,     Trembles all over to her sighs.     A youth the while, with loosened hair,     Floating on the listless air,     Sings, to the wild harp's tender tone,     A tale of woe, alas, his own;     And oh, the sadness in his sigh.     As o'er his lips the accents die!     Never sure on earth has been     Half so bright, so blest a scene.     It seems as Love himself had come     To make this spot his chosen home;--[2]     And Venus, too, with all her wiles,     And Bacchus, shedding rosy smiles,     All, all are here, to hail with me     The Genius of Festivity!