Poem by Thomas Moore

From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 43

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, impassion’d, flings
Tuneful rapture from its strings,
Some airy nymph, with graceful bound,
Keeps measure to the music’s sound;
Waving, in her snowy hand,
The leafy Baccahalian wand,
Which, as the tripping wanton flies,
Trembles all over to her sighs.
A youth the while, with loosen’d hair,
Floating on the listless air,
Sings, to the wild harp’s tender tone,
A tale of woes, alas, his own;
And oh, the sadness in his sigh,
As o’er his lip 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; —
And Venus, too, with all her wiles,
And Bacchus, sheddng rosy smiles,
All, all are here, to hail with me
To Genius of Festivity.

1. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 52
2. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 38
3. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 54
4. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 56
5. From “The Odes of Anacreon”. Ode 17

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