A SPECTRAL form Soracte stands, snow-crowned, His shrouded pines beneath their burden bending; Not now, his rifts descending, Leap the wild streams, in icy fetters bound. Heap high the logs! Pour forth with lavish hand, O Thaliarchus, draughts of long-stored wine, Blood of the Sabine vine! To-day be ours: the rest the gods command. While storms lie quelled at their rebuke, no more Shall the old ash her shattered foliage shed, The cypress bow her head, The bursting billow whiten on the shore. Scan not the future: count as gain each day That Fortune gives thee; and despise not, boy, Or love, or dance, or joy Of martial games, ere yet thy locks be gray. Thine be the twilight now from faltering tongue; The joyous laugh that self-betraying guides To where the maiden hides; The ring from finger half resisting wrung. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG OF SLAVES IN THE DESERT by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE FOUNTAIN by MUHAMMAD AL-MU'TAMID II ONCE IN A WAY by ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM THE LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM FIFINE AT THE FAIR by ROBERT BROWNING WAR IS KIND: 3 by STEPHEN CRANE |