Come Close

Because the blessèd Graces grant gifts to the garlanded

And snub the worshipper with no flowers on her head

She who shuns love soon will pursue it,

She who scorns gifts will send them still:

That girl will learn love, though she do it

Against her will.’

Come to me now. Drive off this brutal

Distress. Accomplish what my pride

Demands. Come, please, and in this battle

Stand at my side

I declare

That later on,

Even in an age unlike our own,

Someone will remember who we are.

Either I have slipped out of your head

Or you adore some fellow more, instead.

I don’t know what the right course is;

Twofold are my purposes.

Nightingale,

All you sing

Is desire;

You are the crier

Of coming spring.

Some call ships, infantry or horsemen

The greatest beauty earth can offer;

I say it is whatever a person

Most lusts after.

And I would rather watch her body

Sway, her glistening face flash dalliance

Than Lydian war cars at the ready

And armed battalions.

I have a daughter who reminds me of

A marigold in bloom.

Kleïs is her name,

And I adore her.

I would refuse all Lydia’s glitter for her

And all other love.

I do not have an

Ornately woven

Bandeau to hand you,

Kleïs. From

Where would it come?

Excuse the misdeeds in his past,

Make him his friends’ boon and foes’ bane,

And may we never find the least

Cause to complain.

Age weighs heavily on me, and the knees

Buckle that long ago, like fawns, pranced nimbly.

I groan much but to what end? Humans simply

Cannot be ageless like divinities.