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ODE XLIV.—THE DREAM.^[1]

I dream'd, that over earth and sky,
Possess'd with wings, I seem'd to fly;
While Love pursued with swiftest pace,
And soon o'ertook me in the chase;
Though at his little feet were hung
Large leaden weights, that loosely swung.
"What can this vision mean?" I cried;
"It surely may be thus applied,—
That I, who once could freely rove
Through all the flowery paths of love,
Who laugh'd at lovers and their pains,
Am fettered now with stronger chains."

 

ODE XLV.—CUPID'S DARTS.

The rugged mate of love's soft queen
Was at the Lemnian forges seen;^[2]

Pure emanation! uncorrupted flood!
Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood.
(For not the bread of man their life sustains,
Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins.)"
Pope's Homer, book v. 


1. Madame Dacier says that this is one of the finest and most gallant odes of antiquity, and if she for whom it was composed was as beautiful, all Greece could produce nothing more charming. Its meaning seems to be simply this: that passion suddenly conceived is generally transient and fleeting; but love founded on esteem and regulated by reason, though slow in its approaches, and imperceptible in its growth, makes an impression on the heart at once permanent and indelible.
2. Lemnos was an island in the Ægean Sea, sacred to Vulcan, who, in the first book of the Iliad, gives an account of Jupiter's throwing him from heaven, and his fall on that island:—
   "Once in your cause I felt his matchless might,
   Hurl'd headlong downward from th' ethereal height;
   Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round;
   Nor till the sun descended touch'd the ground;