FRAGMENTS.

I.

THE moon hath sunk beneath the sky:
The Pleiad stars withdraw their light:
It is the darkling noon of night:
The hour, the hour hath glided by,
And yet alone, alone I lie.

II.

MOTHER! Sweet mother! tis in vain;
I cannot now the shuttle throw:

That youth is in my heart and brain;
And Venus' lingering fires within me glow.

III.

WHEN dead, thou shalt in ashes lie,

Nor live in human memory:

Nor any page in time to come

Shall draw thee from thy shrowding tomb.
For thou didst never pluck the rose
That on Pieria's mountain grows:
Dim and unseen thy feet shall tread
The shadowy mansions of the dead:

Thee, maiden! shall no eye survey

Start from th' obscurer ghosts, and wing thy

soaring way.

IV.

VENUS, come! forsake the sky
For this our banquet's gaiety:
Come-while the golden beakers gleam,
The nectar mix in purple stream:
Fill to these gentle friends the wine:

Mine are these, and these are thine.

DID Jove a queen of flowers decree,

The rose the queen of flowers should be. Of flowers the eye; of plants the gem; The meadow's blush; earth's diadem: Glory of colours on the gaze

Lightening in its beauty's blaze:

It breathes of Love: it blooms the guest
Of Venus' ever fragrant breast:

In gaudy pomp its petals spread :
Light foliage trembles round its head:
With vermeil blossoms fresh and fair

It laughs to the voluptuous air.

Erinna.

ERINNA.

Bef. Ch. 600.

REMAINS, EPIGRAMMATIC AND LYRIC.

ENGLISH TRANSLATOR: BLAND,

ERINNA was a Lesbian, and was the intimate friend of Sappho, whose measure she adopted. She composed, however, in a variety of styles; and, in hexameter verse, was thought to rival Homer. She died at the early age of nineteen, and must certainly have been a prodigy of genius.

The poems of Erinna seem to have been extant in the time of Propertius; who alludes to them, while complimenting his mistress.