Of cables bare,
Your keel can scarce endure the lordly wave. 
Your sails are rent; you have no gods to save,
      Or answer pray’r.

      Though Pontic pine,
The noble daughter of a far-famed wood,
You boast your lineage and title good,—­
      A useless line!

      The sailor there
In painted sterns no reassurance finds;
Unless you owe derision to the winds,
      Beware—­beware!

      My grief erewhile,
But now my care—­my longing! shun the seas
That flow between the gleaming Cyclades,
      Each shining isle.

QUITTING AGAIN

  The hero of
  Affairs of love
By far too numerous to be mentioned,
  And scarred as I’m,
  It seemeth time
That I were mustered out and pensioned.

  So on this wall
  My lute and all
I hang, and dedicate to Venus;
  And I implore
  But one thing more
Ere all is at an end between us.

  O goddess fair
  Who reignest where
The weather’s seldom bleak and snowy,
  This boon I urge: 
  In anger scourge
My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!

SAILOR AND SHADE

SAILOR

You, who have compassed land and sea,
  Now all unburied lie;
All vain your store of human lore,
  For you were doomed to die. 
The sire of Pelops likewise fell,—­
  Jove’s honored mortal guest;
So king and sage of every age
  At last lie down to rest. 
Plutonian shades enfold the ghost
  Of that majestic one
Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,
  Had once been Pentheus’ son;
Believe who may, he’s passed away,
  And what he did is done. 
A last night comes alike to all;
  One path we all must tread,
Through sore disease or stormy seas
  Or fields with corpses red. 
Whate’er our deeds, that pathway leads
  To regions of the dead.

SHADE

The fickle twin Illyrian gales
  Overwhelmed me on the wave;
But you that live, I pray you give
  My bleaching bones a grave! 
Oh, then when cruel tempests rage
  You all unharmed shall be;
Jove’s mighty hand shall guard by land
  And Neptune’s on the sea. 
Perchance you fear to do what may
  Bring evil to your race? 
Oh, rather fear that like me here
  You’ll lack a burial place. 
So, though you be in proper haste,
  Bide long enough, I pray,
To give me, friend, what boon shall send
  My soul upon its way!

LET US HAVE PEACE

In maudlin spite let Thracians fight
  Above their bowls of liquor;
But such as we, when on a spree,
  Should never brawl and bicker!

These angry words and clashing swords
  Are quite de trop, I’m thinking;
Brace up, my boys, and hush your noise,
  And drown your wrath in drinking.