Ode XXIV ❉ | Anacreon

PhotographerEmma Justine Farnsworth

CountryUnited States

MediumPhotogravure

VolumeIn Arcadia

AtelierGeorge M. Allen & Co. (New York City)

Year1892

View Additional Information & Tags

Allegorical, Birds, Fashion, Genre: Women, Mythology

Dimensions

Image Dimensions: 15.7 x 17.5 cm | 12.4 x 15.1 cm (spot-glued on four corners to support, with entire tissue gravure shown)
Support Dimensions: 29.7 x 25.0 cm Bristol paper leaf


❉ note to reader: letterpress attribution states ODE XXIV although this may be in error. Rather, ODE XXV is believed to be correct translated ode.



The following poem by Greek poet Anacreon (582 BC – 485 BC) accompanies this photograph in volume pagination:



ODE XXIV.


Once in each revolving year,
Gentle bird! we find thee here.
When Nature wears her summer-vest,
Thou comest to weave thy simple nest;
But when the chilling winter lowers,
Again thou seekest the genial bowers
Of Memphis, or the shores of Nile,
Where sunny hours of verdure smile.
And thus thy wing of freedom roves,
Alas! unlike the plumèd loves
That linger in this hapless breast,
And never, never change their nest!
Still every year, and all the year,
A flight of loves engender here;
And some their infant plumage try,
And on a tender winglet fly;
While in the shell, impregn’d with fires,
Cluster a thousand more desires;

Some from their tiny prisons peeping,
And some in formless embryo sleeping.
My bosom, like the vernal groves
Resounds with little warbling loves;
One urchin snips the other’s feather,
Then twin desires they wing together,
But is there then no kindly art,
To chase these Cupids from my heart?
No, no!  I fear, alas !  I fear
They will forever nestle here!

Anacreon.

Ode XXIV  ❉ | Anacreon