Digby Mackworth Dolben: Anacreontic

Anacreontic

On the tender myrtle-branches,

In the meadow lotus-grassed,
While the wearied sunlight softly

To the Happy Islands passed,
Reddest lips the reddest vintage

Of the bright Aegean quaffing,
There I saw them lie, the evening

Hazes rippled with their laughing.
Round them boys, with hair as golden

As Queen Cytherea’s own is,
Sang to lyres wreathed with ivy

Of the beautiful Adonis
(Of Adonis the Desired,

He has perished on the mountain,)
While their voices, rising, falling,

As the murmur of a fountain,
Glittered upwards at the mention

Of his beauty unavailing ;
Scattered into rainbowed teardrops

To the at ai of the wailing.

Digby Mackworth Dolben
(1848 – 1867)
Anacreontic

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

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