Tell me, why, my sweetest dove,

Thus your humid pinions move,

Shedding through the air in showers

Essence of the balmiest flowers?

Tell me whither, whence you rove,

Tell me all, my sweetest dove.

Curious stranger, I belong

To the bard of Teian song;

With his mandate now I fly

To the nymph of azure eye;—

She, whose eye has maddened many,

But the poet more than any,

Venus, for a hymn of love,

Warbled in her votive grove,[2]

('Twas, in sooth a gentle lay,)

Gave me to the bard away.

See me now his faithful minion,—

Thus with softly-gliding pinion,

To his lovely girl I bear

Songs of passion through the air.

Oft he blandly whispers me,

"Soon, my bird, I'll set you free."

But in vain he'll bid me fly,

I shall serve him till I die.

Never could my plumes sustain

Ruffling winds and chilling rain,

O'er the plains, or in the dell,

On the mountain's savage swell,

Seeking in the desert wood

Gloomy shelter, rustic food.

Now I lead a life of ease,

Far from rugged haunts like these.

From Anacreon's hand I eat

Food delicious, viands sweet;

Flutter o'er his goblet's brim,

Sip the foamy wine with him.

Then, when I have wantoned round

To his lyre's beguiling sound;

Or with gently moving-wings

Fanned the minstrel while he sings;

On his harp I sink in slumbers,

Dreaming still of dulcet numbers!

This is all—away—away—

You have made me waste the day.

How I've chattered! prating crow

Never yet did chatter so.

[1] The dove of Anacreon, bearing a letter from the poet to his mistress, is met by a stranger, with whom this dialogue, is imagined.

[2] "This passage is invaluable, and I do not think that anything so beautiful or so delicate has ever been said. What an idea does it give of the poetry of the man, from whom Venus herself, the mother of the Graces and the Pleasures, purchases a little hymn with one of her favorite doves!"—LONGEPIERRE.