Ode XVIII
Now the star of day is high,
Fly, my girls, in pity fly.
Bring me wine in brimming urns
Cool my lip, it burns, it burns!
Sunned by the meridian fire,
Panting, languid I expire,
Give me all those humid flowers,
Drop them o’er my brow in showers.
Scarce a breathing chaplet now
Lives upon my feverish brow;
Every dewy rose I wear
Sheds its tears, and withers there.1
But to you, my burning heart,
What can now relief impart?
Can brimming bowl, or floweret’s dew,
Cool the flame that scorches you?
Notes
1 In the poem of Mr. Sheridan’s, “Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone,” there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of Angerianus:—
And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may’st preserve
Some lingering drops of the night-fallen dew:
Let them fall on her bosom of snow, and they’ll serve
As tears of my sorrow entrusted to you.