From Anacreon. Ode 3.

[Greek: Mesonuktiois poth hopais, k.t.l.] [1]     Ode 3.     'Twas now the hour when Night had driven     Her car half round yon sable heaven;     Botes, only, seem'd to roll     His Arctic charge around the Pole;     While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,     Forgot to smile, or ceas'd to weep:     At this lone hour the Paphian boy,     Descending from the realms of joy,     Quick to my gate directs his course,     And knocks with all his little force;     My visions fled, alarm'd I rose, -     "What stranger breaks my blest repose?"     "Alas!" replies the wily child     In faltering accents sweetly mild;     "A hapless Infant here I roam,     Far from my dear maternal home.     Oh! shield me from the wintry blast!     The nightly storm is pouring fast.     No prowling robber lingers here;     A wandering baby who can fear?"     I heard his seeming artless tale,     I heard his sighs upon the gale:     My breast was never pity's foe,     But felt for all the baby's woe.     I drew the bar, and by the light     Young Love, the infant, met my sight;     His bow across his shoulders flung,     And thence his fatal quiver hung     (Ah! little did I think the dart     Would rankle soon within my heart).     With care I tend my weary guest,     His little fingers chill my breast;     His glossy curls, his azure wing,     Which droop with nightly showers, I wring;     His shivering limbs the embers warm;     And now reviving from the storm,     Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,     Than swift he seized his slender bow: -     "I fain would know, my gentle host,"     He cried, "if this its strength has lost;     I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,     The strings their former aid refuse."     With poison tipt, his arrow flies,     Deep in my tortur'd heart it lies:     Then loud the joyous Urchin laugh'd: -     "My bow can still impel the shaft:     'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it;     Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it?"