s dis superis atque sodalibus
Nobis, quis eadem quae tibi vivo patuit via
Non aequis patet, at te sequimur passibus haud tuis,
At maesto cinerem carmine non illacrymabilem
Tristesque exuvias floribus ac fletibus integris
Una contegimus, nec cithara nec sine tibia,
Votoque unanimae vocis Ave dicimus et Vale.

AD CATULLUM

Catulle frater, ut velim comes tibi
Remota per vireta, per cavum nemus
Sacrumque Ditis haud inhospiti specus,
Pedem referre, trans aquam Stygis ducem
Secutus unum et unicum, Catulle, te,
Ut ora vatis optimi reviserem,
Tui meique vatis ora, quem scio
Venustiorem adisse vel tuo lacum,
Benigniora semper arva vel tuis,
Ubi serenus accipit suos deus,
Tegitque myrtus implicata laurea,
Manuque mulcet halituque consecrat
Fovetque blanda mors amabili sinu,
Et ore fama fervido colit viros
Alitque qualis unus ille par tibi
Britannus unicusque in orbe praestitit
Amicus ille noster, ille ceteris
Poeta major, omnibusque floribus
Priore Landor inclytum rosa caput
Revinxit extulitque, quam tua manu
Recepit ac refovit integram sua.

DEDICATION

1878

Some nine years gone, as we dwelt together
In the sweet hushed heat of the south French weather
Ere autumn fell on the vine-tressed hills
Or the season had shed one rose-red feather,

Friend, whose fame is a flame that fills
All eyes it lightens and hearts it thrills
With joy to be born of the blood which bred
From a land that the grey sea girds and chills

The heart and spirit and hand and head
Whose might is as light on a dark day shed,
On a day now dark as a land's decline
Where all the peers of your praise are dead,

In a land and season of corn and vine
I pledged you a health from a beaker of mine
But halfway filled to the lip's edge yet
With hope for honey and song for wine.

Nine years have risen and eight years set
Since there by the wellspring our hands on it met:
And the pledge of my songs that were then to be,
I could wonder not, friend, though a friend should forget.

For life's helm rocks to the windward and lee,
And time is as wind, and as waves are we;
And song is as foam that the sea-winds fret,
Though the thought at its heart should be deep as the sea.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems & Ballads (Second Series), by
Algernon Charles Swinburne

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS & BALLADS (SECOND SERIES) ***

***** This file should be named 27401.txt or 27401.z