Pontic Amastris! Box-tree-clad Cytórus!Cognisant were ye, and you weet full well(So saith my Pinnace) how from earliest ageUpon your highmost-spiring peak she stood,How in your waters first her sculls were dipt,And thence thro' many and many an important straitShe bore her owner whether left or right,Where breezes bade her fare, or Jupiter deigned At once propitious strike the sail full square;Nor to the sea-shore gods was aught of vowBy her deemed needful, when from Ocean's bourneExtreme she voyaged for this limpid lake.Yet were such things whilome: now she retiredIn quiet age devotes herself to thee(0 twin-born Castor) twain with Castor's twin.
TO LESBIA, (OF LESBOS-CLODIA?)Love we (my Lesbia!) and live we our day,While all stern sayings crabbed sages say,At one doit's value let us price and prize!The Suns can westward sink again to riseBut we, extinguished once our tiny light,Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!Kiss me a thousand times, then hundred more,Then thousand others, then a new five-score,Still other thousand other hundred store.Last when the sums to many thousands grow,The tale let's trouble till no more we know,