LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM 129
LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM
TO
OSCAR ECKENSTEIN,
WITH WHOM I HAVE WANDERED IN SO MANY SOLITUDES OF
NATURE, AND THEREBY LEARNT THE WORDS AND
SPELLS THAT BIND HER CHILDREN
Taxa & év rais wodvdévdpoow ’OAprov
Oardpuats, évOa ror’ ’Opdevs xidapifwy
fvvayev Oévipea povoass, Evvayev Ofjpas dypwras.
—Baxyar
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart—
Fall asleep, or hearing die.
—FHenry VITI,
. vocalem temere insecutze
Orphea sylvz,
Arte materna rapidos morantem
Fluminum lapsus, celeresque ventos,
Blandum et auritas fidibus canoris
Ducere quercus.
—Ffor, Carm,, Taib. I. xii.
INTRODUCTORY ODE. When virgin I came to him stainless,
When love was a pleasure and painless !
_ What Destiny dreams and discovers
Sur. a. : The fragrance men know for a lover's?
| Peace turned into laughter and tears,
‘Borne down the cold stream of the years !
CALLIOPE, ORPHEUS.
CALLIOPE.
IN the days of the spring of my being,
When maidenly bent I above
Ant. a.
The head of the poet, and, seeing Orpuegus
Not love, was the lyre of his love ; °
When laurels I bore to the harper, O mother, O queen many-minded,
When bays for the lyrist I bore, | More beauty than beauty may be,
My life was diviner and sharper, | More light than the Sun; I am blinded,
My name in the Muses was more ;
Sink, tremble, am lost in the sea.
VOL. III.
I