The bridegroom views her coming near, -
The slender youth that led her here
May now release her arm.

With a fixt intense regard
He beholds her close and hard
In awful interview:
Shortly now she must be sped
To the chamber and the bed,
With attendance due.

Fear not! with the coming year
The new Torquatus will be here:
Him we soon shall see

With infant gesture fondly seek
To reach his father's manly cheek,
From his mother's knee.

With laughing eyes and dewy lip,
Pouting like the purple tip

That points the rose's bud;

While mingled with the mother's grace,
Strangers shall recognize the trace
That marks the Manlian blood.

So the mother's fair renown

Shall betimes adorn and crown
The child with dignity,

As we read in stories old

Of Telemachus the bold
And chaste Penelope.

Now the merry task is o'er,
Let us hence and close the door,
While loud adieus are paid;
"Live in honor, love, and truth,
And exercise your lusty youth
In matches fairly played."

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS OF CATULLUS.

TAKEN AT HIS WORD.

(Version of Walter Savage Landor.)

VARUS would take me t'other day
To see a little girl he knew;
Pretty and witty in her way,

With impudence enough for two.

Scarce are we seated, ere she chatters
(As pretty girls are wont to do)

About all persons, places, matters:

"And pray, what has been done for you?"

"Bithynia, lady," I replied,

"Is a fine province for a prætor,

For none, I promise you, beside,

And least of all am I her debtor."

"Sorry for that!" said she.

"However,

You have brought with you, I dare say, Some litter-bearers: none so clever

In any other part as they.

"Bithynia is the very place

For all that's steady, tall, and straight; It is the nature of the race:

Could you not lend me six or eight?"

"Why, six or eight of them or so,"
Said I, determined to be grand:

"My fortune is not quite so low
But these are still at my command."

"You'll send them?"

"Willingly!" I told her;

Although I had not here or there One who could carry on his shoulder The leg of an old broken chair.

"Catullus, what a charming hap is Our meeting in this sort of way! I would be carried to Serapis

To-morrow!"-"Stay, fair lady, stay!

"You overvalue my intention;

Yes, there are eight . . . there may be nine;

I merely had forgot to mention

That they are Cinna's, and not mine."

TO LESBIA'S SPARROW.

(Translation of Sir Charles Elton.)

Sparrow! my nymph's delicious pleasure!
Who with thee, her pretty treasure,
Fanciful in frolic, plays

Thousand, thousand wanton ways;
And, fluttering, lays to panting rest
On the soft orbings of her breast;
Thy beak with finger-tip incites,
And dallies with thy becks and bites;
When my beauty, my desire,
Feels her darling whim inspire,
With nameless triflings, such as these,
To snatch, I trow, a tiny ease
For some keen fever of the breast,
While passion toys itself to rest;
I would that happy lady be,

And so in pastime sport with thee,
And lighten love's soft agony.

The sweet resource were bliss untold,

Dear as that apple of ripe gold,

Which, by the nimble virgin found,

Unloos'd the zone that had so fast been bound.

TO HIMSELF; ON LESBIA'S INCONSTANCY.

(Translation of Thomas Moore.)

Cease the sighing fool to play;
Cease to trifle life away;

Nor vainly think those joys thine own,
Which all, alas, have falsely flown.
What hours, Catullus, once were thine,
How fairly seem'd thy day to shine,
When lightly thou didst fly to meet
The girl whose smile was then so sweet-
The girl thou lov'dst with fonder pain
Than e'er thy heart can feel again.

Ye met your souls seem'd all in one,
Like tapers that commingling shone;
Thy heart was warm enough for both,
And hers in truth was nothing loath.

Such were the hours that once were thine;
But, ah! those hours no longer shine.
For now the nymph delights no more
In what she loved so much before;
And all Catullus now can do,
Is to be proud and frigid too;
Nor follow where the wanton flies,
Nor sue the bliss that she denies.

False maid! he bids farewell to thee,
To love, and all love's misery;
The heyday of his heart is o'er,
Nor will he court one favor more.

Fly, perjured girl!- but whither fly?
Who now will praise thy cheek and eye?
Who now will drink the siren tone,
Which tells him thou art all his own?
Oh, none:- and he who loved before
Can never, never love thee more.

A WOMAN'S PROMISES.

(Translation of Sir Theodore Martin.)

Never a soul but myself, though Jove himself were to woo her, Lesbia says she would choose, might she have me for her mate. Says but what woman will say to a lover on fire to possess her Write on the bodiless wind, write on the stream as it runs.

TO LESBIA, ON HER FALSEHOOD.

(Translation of Thomas Moore.)

Thou told'st me, in our days of love,
That I had all that heart of thine;

That ev'n to share the couch of Jove,

Thou wouldst not, Lesbia, part from mine.

How purely wert thou worship'd then!
Not with the vague and vulgar fires
Which Beauty wakes in soulless men,
But loved, as children by their sires.

That flattering dream, alas, is o'er ;

I know thee now- and though these eyes

Dote on thee wildly as before,

Yet, ev'n in doting, I despise.

Yes, sorceress mad as it may seem

With all thy craft, such spells adorn thee,

That passion ev'n outlives esteem,

And I at once adore and scorn thee.