‘The hour has not yet arrived. More draughts must be drunk, more libations poured out, ere the mystery of the curtain is revealed! Ho, Glyco!’ he continued, turning towards the singing-boy, who had silently entered the room, ‘the moment is yours! Tune your lyre, and recite my last ode, which I have addressed to you! Let the charms of Poetry preside over the feast of Death!’
The boy advanced, trembling; his once ruddy face was colourless and haggard; his eyes were fixed with a look of rigid terror on the black curtain; his features palpably expressed the presence within him of some secret and overwhelming recollection which had crushed all his other faculties and perceptions. Steadily,fake uggs boots, almost guiltily, averting his face from his master’s countenance, he stood by Vetranio’s couch, a frail and fallen being, a mournful spectacle of perverted docility and degraded youth.
Still true, however, to the duties of his vocation, he ran his thin, trembling fingers over the lyre, and mechanically preluded the commencement of the ode. But during the silence of attention which now prevailed, the confused noises from the people in the street penetrated more distinctly into the banqueting-room; and at this moment, high above them all — hoarse, raving, terrible, rose the voice of one man.
‘Tell me not,’ it cried, ‘of perfumes wafted from the palace! — foul vapours flow from it! — see, they sink, suffocating over me! — they bathe sky and earth, and men who move around us, in fierce, green light,fake uggs for sale!’
Then other voices of men and women, shrill and savage,nike training 3.0, broke forth in interruption together:— ‘Peace, Davus! you awake the dead about you!’ ‘Hide in the darkness; you are plague-struck; your skin is shrivelled; your gums are toothless!’ ‘When the palace is fired you shall be flung into the flames to purify your rotten carcass!’
‘Sing!’ cried Vetranio furiously, observing the shudders that ran over the boy’s frame and held him speechless. ‘Strike the lyre, as Timotheus struck it before Alexander! Drown in melody the barking of the curs who wait for our offal in the street!’
Feebly and interruptedly the terrified boy began; the wild continuous noises of the moaning voices from without sounding their awful accompaniment to the infidel philosophy of his song as he breathed it forth in faint and faltering accents. It ran thus:—
TO GLYCO
Ah, Glyco! why in flow’rs array’d?
Those festive wreaths less quickly fade
Than briefly-blooming joy!
Those high-prized friends who share your mirth
Are counterfeits of brittle earth,
False coin’d in Death’s alloy!
The bliss your notes could once inspire,
When lightly o’er the god-like lyre
Your nimble fingers pass’d,
Shall spring the same from others’ skill —
When you’re forgot, the music still
The player shall outlast!
The sun-touch’d cloud that mounts the sky,
That brightly glows to warm the eye,
Then fades we know not where,rolex submariner price,
Is image of the little breath
Of life — and then, the doom of Death
That you and I must share!
Helpless to make or mar our birth,
We blindly grope the ways of earth,
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