The sweet spring-flowers not always keepTheir bloom, nor moonlight shines the sameEach evening. Why with thoughts too deepO'ertask a mind of mortal frame?Why not, just thrown at careless ease'Neath plane or pine, our locks of greyPerfumed with Syrian essencesAnd wreathed with roses, while we may,Lie drinking? Bacchus puts to shameThe cares that waste us. Where's the slaveTo quench the fierce Falernian's flameWith water from the passing wave?Who'll coax coy Lyde from her home?Go, bid her take her ivory lyre,The runaway, and haste to come,Her wild hair bound with Spartan tire.The weary war where fierce Numantia bled,Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian mainPurpled with Punic blood—not mine to wedThese to the lyre's soft strain,