by Coleridge · Cluster: Transience · Decay · Carpe Diem
Abstract
Translation from Casimir bidding the lyre cease as a storm gathers; meditation on the fleetingness of pleasure, the lyre, summer wind and approaching tempest.
Connections
Topoi: Tempus Fugit Motifs: Music and Song, Storm, Wind Themes & Concepts: Transience Forms & Genres: Ode Historical References: Classical Antiquity
Testo integrale / Full text
(CASIMIR, BOOK II. ODE 3)
The solemn-breathing air is ended —
Cease, O Lyre! thy kindred lay!
From the poplar-branch suspended
Glitter to the eye of Day!
On thy wires hov’ring, dying, 5
Softly sighs the summer wind:
I will slumber, careless lying,
By yon waterfall reclin’d.
In the forest hollow-roaring
Hark! I hear a deep’ning sound — 10
Clouds rise thick with heavy low’ring!
See! th’ horizon blackens round!
Parent of the soothing measure,
Let me seize thy wetted string!
Swiftly flies the flatterer, Pleasure, 15
Headlong, ever on the wing.
1794.