Away, away, ye men of rules,

What have I do with schools?

They'd make me learn, they'd make me think,

But would they make me love and drink?

Teach me this, and let me swim

My soul upon the goblet's brim;

Teach me this, and let me twine

Some fond, responsive heart to mine,

For, age begins to blanch my brow,

I've time for naught but pleasure now.

  Fly, and cool, my goblet's glow

At yonder fountain's gelid flow;

I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink

This soul to slumber as I drink.

Soon, too soon, my jocund slave,

You'll deck your master's grassy grave;

And there's an end—for ah, you know

They drink but little wine below!

[1] "This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived rhetoricians were not known."—DEGEN.

Though this ode is found in the Vatican manuscript, I am much inclined to agree in this argument against its authenticity: for though the dawnings of the art of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was. Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon.