XII.

Away! bring wine, bring odours, to the shade[206] Where the tall pine and poplar blend on high! Bring roses, exquisite, but soon to fade! Snatch every brief delight,--since we must die!-- Yet is the hour, degenerate Greeks! gone by, For feast in vine-wreath’d bower or pillar’d hall; Dim gleams the torch beneath yon fiery sky, And deep and hollow is the tambour’s call, And from the startled hand th’ untasted cup will fall.