Anacreon's 15th Ode

Come here, some youth the Muse has taught
To mimic terms and picture thoughts,
In all her virgin charms display
My peerless love that's far away.
Her lucid form before me streams
And hovers round my precious dreams:
Draw her ebon ringlets flowing,
Golden lights around them throwing.
Stream o'er the curls of silky twine
Sweets that breathe and tints that shine;
Her brow in shadowy splendor trace
Gliding in the lines of grace
Blending love with quaint reproof
That bid rude gazers stand aloof.
But where, fond artist, are the dyes
To match the brilliance of her eyes?
For while they living lightening stream
Love must soften every beam.
With liquid roses touch her cheek,
Mellowing blent with dimples sleek:
Rubies then in honey drip,
To form her kiss-inviting lip.
Thence, softening round with pencil thin
Bound with bloom her dimpled chin:
But what sweet hand her neck may form
With gliding lines and tinctures warm
There all must live and breathe and move,
That touch her peerless seat of love!
A sunny veil be round her twined
Loose, transparent, unconfin'd
Folds here and there in amorous play
May kiss her limbs and melt away
Just here and there a part concealing,
In warmer light the rest revealing.
Enough! Fair artist cease thy wiles
She lives, she breathes, my charmer smiIes!