CARMEN CI.-LINES ON HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE.

O'er many a land and many a sea,

My brother, I have come,

To pay

the last sad rites to thee

Upon thy silent tomb.

To speak to thee, ah, vain pretence !

Since cruel fate has snatched thee hence

By most untimely doom,

Thine ashes dumb alone remain,

To me survives a lasting pain.

Meanwhile our father's rite of yore
May now accomplished be,
Who to the grave sad offerings bore,
So these accept from me.

Drenched with the tears of bitter woe

Such as a brother's heart can know

The grief I feel for thee.

And now, all hail! my task is o'er,

Brother, farewell for evermore.

CARMEN CII.-TO CORNELIUS.

If friendship's secret to preserve
Men have been ever faithful found,
Who ne'er from loyalty would swerve,
Who by a secret tie were bound;
Count me, my friend, as one of these,
Think me, too, an Harpocrates.

CARMEN CIII.--TO SILO.

Silo, my friend, give back, as due,
The sesterces I paid to you,

And then remain, for all I care,
As coarse and brutal as you are;

Or if the cash you will not pay,
Then cease the pander's trade I pray,

Such brutal coarseness as I deem

That business scarcely can beseem.

CARMEN CIV.-ON LESBIA.

Dost think that I who Lesbia prize
As mine own life, than both my eyes
Dearer by far, that I could e'er

Speak evil slanderous words of her?
It could not be, for were it so

I should not love as now I do,

But when you are with Tappo sitting,

Strange notions through your brain go flitting.

CARMEN CV.-ON MENTULA.

Mentula ever strives amain
To mount the Pimplean height,
The Muses with their forks again
Hurl him down in his despite.

CARMEN CVI.-ON THE BOY AND THE AUCTIONEER.

When an auctioneer walking along
With a good-looking boy we behold,
Our suspicions can hardly be wrong
That the fair youth is meant to be sold.

CARMEN CVII.-TO LESBIA.

When against hope the bosom yearns
Regretful for some vanished bliss,
Which then to our fond wish returns,
What joy can greater be than this?

Wherefore a dearer thing to me

Than all the gold which men acquire, Was the kind fate which gave back thee, My Lesbia, to my fond desire.

For 'twas thine own sweet bosom's pain

Which brought thee back; my hopes were dark, I thought thou ne'er would'st come again,

O happy day of whitest mark!

Who now could be more blest than I

In thus again possessing thee?

Or in a life time's memory,

What joy than this could greater be?

CARMEN CVIII.-TO COMINIUS.

Cominius, if thy hoary age

Stained with all vices that can be,
Could by the doom of popular rage
Be cut off in its infamy,

Then first that foe to all that's good,
Surely thy evil speaking tongue

Would be cut out and cast for food
Unto the hungry vulture throng:

Thy eyes would glut the crow's black maw,
The dogs would on thy entrails feast,

And savage wolves with ravenous jaw

Would make their banquet on the rest.

CARMEN CIX.-TO LESBIA.

My Lesbia, the tender love

Which now exists 'twixt you

and me,

You say shall ever constant be,

Would that your words might truthful prove!

And may the kindly heavens give

To this sweet speech sincerity,

That we may keep the hallowed tie Of friendship perfect while we live.