Explore "From Anacreon I" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I wish to tune my quivering lyre / To deed of fame and notes of fire; / To echo, from its rising swell, / How heroes fought and nations fell, / When Atreus' sons advanced to war, / Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar; / But still, to martial strains unknown, / My lyre recurs to love alone.
Fired with the hope of future fame, / I seek some nobler hero's name; / The dying chords are strung anew, / To war, to war, my harp is due.
With glowing strings, the epic strain / To Jove's great son I raise again; / Alcides and his glorious deeds, / Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds.
All, all in vain; my wayward lyre / Wakes silver notes of soft desire.
Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms! / Adieu the clang of war's alarms! / To other deeds my soul is strung, / And sweeter notes shall now be sung; / My harp shall all its powers reveal, / To tell the tale my heart must feel; / Love, Love alone, my lyre shall claim, / In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.