C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Last Word to Lesbia

Associated with the famous passion for Lesbia: Translation of James Cranstoun

O FURIUS and Aurelius! comrades sweet!

Who to Ind’s farthest shore with me would roam,

Where the far-sounding Orient billows beat

Their fury into foam;

Or to Hyrcania, balm-breathed Araby,

The Sacian’s or the quivered Parthian’s land,

Or where seven-mantled Nile’s swoll’n waters dye

The sea with yellow sand;

Or cross the lofty Alpine fells, to view

Great Cæsar’s trophied fields, the Gallic Rhine,

The paint-smeared Briton race, grim-visaged crew,

Placed by earth’s limit line;

To all prepared with me to brave the way,

To dare whate’er the eternal gods decree—

These few unwelcome words to her convey

Who once was all to me.

Still let her revel with her godless train,

Still clasp her hundred slaves to passion’s thrall,

Still truly love not one, but ever drain

The life-blood of them all.

Nor let her more my once fond passion heed,

For by her faithlessness ’tis blighted now,

Like flow’ret on the verge of grassy mead

Crushed by the passing plow.