If hoarded gold possest the power

To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,

And purchase from the hand of death

A little span, a moment's breath,

How I would love the precious ore!

And every hour should swell my store;

That when death came, with shadowy pinion,

To waft me to his bleak dominion,

I might, by bribes, my doom delay,

And bid him call some distant day.

But, since not all earth's golden store

Can buy for us one bright hour more,

Why should we vainly mourn our fate,

Or sigh at life's uncertain date?

Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume

The silent midnight of the tomb.

No—give to others hoarded treasures—

Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures—

The goblet rich, the board of friends,

Whose social souls the goblet blends;[2]

And mine, while yet I've life to live,

Those joys that love alone can give.

[1] Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where, on weighing the merits of both these personages, he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet.

[2] The goblet rich, the board of friends. Whose social soul the goblet blends.

This communion Of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life are enumerated with proverbial simplicity:

  Of mortal blessing here the first is health,

    And next those charms by which the eye we move;

  The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth,

    And then, sweet intercourse with those we love!