Book 3

Bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt!

Keep holy silence; strains unknown

Till now, the Muses' hierophant,

I sing to youths and maids alone.

Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield;

E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow:

Victor in giant battle-field,

He moves all nature with his brow.

This man his planted walks extends

Beyond his peers; an older name

One to the people's choice commends;

One boasts a more unsullied fame;

One plumes him on a larger crowd

Of clients. What are great or small?

Death takes the mean man with the proud;

The fatal urn has room for all.

When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees

Hung o'er her, richest feasts in vain

Strain their sweet juice her taste to please;

No lutes, no singing birds again

Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride;

It scorns not cots of village hinds,

Nor shadow-trembling river-side,

Nor Tempe, stirr'd by western winds.

Who, having competence, has all,

The tumult of the sea defies,

Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall,

Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise,

Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat,

Though crops deceive, though trees complain,

One while of showers, one while of heat,

One while of winter's barbarous reign.

Fish feel the narrowing of the main

From sunken piles, while on the strand

Contractors with their busy train

Let down huge stones, and lords of land

Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm

Can clamber to the master's side:

Black Cares can up ihe galley swarm,

And close behind the horseman ride.

If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain,

Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear,

Nor vines of true Falernian strain,

Nor Achaemenian spices rare,

Why with rich gate and pillard range

Upbuild new mansions, twice as high,

Or why my Sabine vale exchange

For more laborious luxury?

To suffer hardness with good cheer,

In sternest school of warfare bred,

Our youth should learn; let steed and spear

Make him one day the Parthian's dread;

Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.

Methinks I see from rampired town

Some battling tyrant's matron wife,

Some maiden, look in terror down,—

“Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!

O tempt not the infuriate mood

Of that fell lion I see! from far

He plunges through a tide of blood!“

What joy, for fatherland to die!

Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake,

Nor spare a recreant chivalry,

A back that cowers, or loins that quake.

True Virtue never knows defeat:

Her robes she keeps unsullied still,

Nor takes, nor quits, her curule seat

To please a people's veering will.

True Virtue opens heaven to worth:

She makes the way she does not find:

The vulgar crowd, the humid earth,

Her soaring pinion leaves behind.

Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come:

Who drags Eleusis ' rite today,

That man shall never share my home,

Or join my voyage: roofs give way

And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves

Neglected Justice oft confounds:

Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves

The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.

The man of firm and righteous will,

No rabble, clamorous for the wrong,

No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill,

Can shake the strength that makes him strong:

Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway,

Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red:

Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way,

That wreck would strike one fearless head.

Pollux and roving Hercules

Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep,

'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease,

Dyes his red lips with nectar deep.

For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew

Thy glorious car, untaught to slave

In harness: thus Quirinus flew

On Mars ' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave,

When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent:

“O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town!

The judge accurst, incontinent,

And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down.

Pallas and I, since Priam's sire

Denied the gods his pledged reward,

Had doom'd them all to sword and fire,

The people and their perjured lord.

No more the adulterous guest can charm

The Spartan queen: the house forsworn

No more repels by Hector's arm

My warriors, baffled and outworn:

Hush'd is the war our strife made long:

I welcome now, my hatred o'er,

A grandson in the child of wrong,

Him whom the Trojan priestess bore.

Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame

May open: let him taste forgiven

The nectar, and enrol his name

Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven.

Let the wide waters sever still

Ilium and Rome, the exiled race

May reign and prosper where they will:

So but in Paris ' burial-place

The cattle sport, the wild beasts hide

Their cubs, the Capitol may stand

All bright, and Rome in warlike pride

O'er Media stretch a conqueror's hand.

Aye, let her scatter far and wide

Her terror, where tbe land-lock'd waves

Europe from Afric's shore divide,

Where swelling Nile the corn-field laves—

Of strength more potent to disdain

Hid gold, best buried in the mine,

Than gather it with hand profane,

That for man's greed would rob a shrine.

Whate'er the bound to earth ordain'd,

There let her reach the arm of power,

Travelling, where raves the fire unrein'd,

And where the storm-cloud and the shower.

Yet, warlike Roman, know thy doom,

Nor, drunken with a conqueror's joy,

Or blind with duteous zeal, presume

To build again ancestral Troy.

Should Troy revive to hateful life,

Her star again should set in gore,

While I, Jove's sister and his wife,

To victory led my host once more.

Though Phoebus thrice in brazen mail

Should case her towers, they thrice should fall,

Storm'd by my Greeks: thrice wives should wail

Husband and son, themselves in thrall.”—

Such thunders from the lyre of love!

Back, wayward Muse! refrain, refrain

To tell the talk of gods above,

And dwarf high themes in puny strain.

Come down, Calliope, from above:

Breathe on the pipe a strain of fire:

Or if a graver note thou love,

With Phoebus' cittern and his lyre.

You hear her? or is this the play

Of fond illusion? Hark! meseems

Through gardens of the good I stray,

'Mid murmuring gales and purling streams.

Me, as I lay on Vultur's steep,

A truant past Apulia 's bound,

O'ertired, poor child, with play and sleep,

With living green the stock-doves crown'd—

A legend, nay, a miracle,

By Acherontia's nestlings told,

By all in Bantine glade that dwell,

Or till the rich Forentan mould.

“Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay,

The sacred garland deck'd his hair,

The myrtle blended with the bay:

The child's inspired: the gods were there.”

Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me still

On Sabine heights, or lets me range

Where cool Praeneste, Tibur 's hill,

Or liquid Baiae proffers change.

Me to your springs, your dances true,

Philippi bore not to the ground,

Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew,

Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd.

Grant me your presence, blithe and fain

Mad Bosporus shall my bark explore;

My foot shall tread the sandy plain

That glows beside Assyria's shore;

'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe,

And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood,

And quiver'd Scythians, will I go

Unharm'd, and look on Tanais ' flood.

When Caesar's self in peaceful town

The weary veteran's home has made,

You bid him lay his helmet down

And rest in your Pierian shade.

Mild thoughts you plant, and joy to see

Mild thoughts take root. The nations know

How with descending thunder he

The impious Titans hurl'd below,

Who rules dull earth and stormy seas,

And towns of men, and realms of pain,

And gods, and mortal companies,

Alone, impartial in his reign.

Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush,

Their upraised arms, their port of pride,

And the twin brethren bent to push

Huge Pelion up Olympus ' side.

But Typhon, Mimas, what could these,

Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn,

Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees,

Enceladus, from earth uptorn,

As on they rush'd in mad career

'Gainst Pallas' shield? Here met the foe

Fierce Vulcan, queenly Juno here,

And he who ne'er shall quit his bow,

Who laves in clear Castalian flood

His locks, and loves the leafy growth

Of Lycia next his native wood,

The Delian and the Pataran both.

Strength, mindless, falls by its own weight;

Strength, mix'd with mind, is made more strong

By the just gods, who surely hate

The strength whose thoughts are set on wrong.

Let hundred-handed Gyas bear

His witness, and Orion known

Tempter of Dian, chaste and fair,

By Dian's maiden dart o'erthrown.

Hurl'd on the monstrous shapes she bred,

Earth groans, and mourns her children thrust

To Orcus; Aetna 's weight of lead

Keeps down the fire that breaks its crust;

Still sits the bird on Tityos' breast,

The warder of Unlawful love;

Still suffers lewd Pirithous, prest

By massive chains no hand may move.

Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows;

Henceforth Augustus earth shall own

Her present god, now Briton foes

And Persians bow before his throne.

Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife

A base barbarian, and grown grey

(Woe, for a nation's tainted life!)

Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay,

His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire

A Marsian? can he name forget,

Gown, sacred shield, undying fire,

And Jove and Rome are standing yet?

'Twas this that Regulus foresaw,

What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace

Of peace, whose precedent would draw

Destruction on an unborn race,

Should aught but death the prisoner's chain

Unrivet. “I have seen,” he said,

“Rome 's eagle in a Punic fane,

And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed,

Stripp'd from the soldier; I have seen

Free sons of Rome with arms fast tied;

The fields we spoil'd with corn are green,

And Carthage opes her portals wide.

The warrior, sure, redeem'd by gold,

Will fight the bolder! Aye, you heap

On baseness loss. The hues of old

Revisit not the wool we steep;

And genuine worth, expell'd by fear,

Returns not to the worthless slave.

Break but her meshes, will the deer

Assail you? then will he be brave

Who once to faithless foes has knelt;

Yes, Carthage yet his spear will fly,

Who with bound arms the cord has felt,

The coward, and has fear'd to die.

He knows not, he, how life is won;

Thinks war, like peace, a thing of trade!

Great art thou, Carthage! mate the sun,

While Italy in dust is laid!”

His wife's pure kiss he waved aside,

And prattling boys, as one disgraced,

They tell us, and with manly pride

Stern on the ground his visage placed.

With counsel thus ne'er else aread

He nerved the fathers' weak intent,

And, girt by friends that mourn'd him, sped

Into illustrious banishment.

Well witting what the torturer's art

Design'd him, with like unconcern

The press of kin he push'd apart

And crowds encumbering his return,

As though, some tedious business o'er

Of clients' court, his journey lay

Towards Venafrum 's grassy floor,

Or Sparta-built Tarentum 's bay.

Your fathers' guilt you still must pay,

Till, Roman, you restore each shrine,

Each temple, 'mouldering in decay,

And smoke-grimed statue, scarce divine.

Revering Heaven, you rule below;

Be that your base, your coping still;

'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow

The measure of Italian ill.

Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice

Have given our unblest arms the foil;

Their necklaces, of mean device;

Smiling they deck with Roman spoil.

Our city, torn by faction's throes,

Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed,

These with their dreadful navy, those

For archer-prowess rather praised.

An evil age erewhile debased

The marriage-bed, the race, the home;

Thence rose the flood whose waters waste

The nation and the name of Rome.

Not such their birth, who stain'd for us

The sea with Punic carnage red,

Smote Pyrrhus, smote Antiochus,

And Hannibal, the Roman's dread.

Theirs was a hardy soldier-brood,

Inured all day the land to till

With Sabine spade, then shoulder wood

Hewn at a stern old mother's will,

When sunset lengthen'd from each height

The shadows, and unyoked the steer,

Restoring in its westward flight

The hour to toilworn travail dear.

What has not cankering Time made worse?

Viler than grandsires, sires beget

Ourselves, yet baser, soon to curse

The world with offspring baser yet.

Why weep for him whom sweet Favonian airs

Will waft next spring, Asteria, back to you,

Rich with Bithynia 's wares,

A lover fond and true,

Your Gyges? He, detain'd by stormy stress

At Oricum, about the Goat-star's rise,

Cold, wakeful, comfortless,

The long night weeping lies.

Meantime his lovesick hostess' messenger

Talks of the flames that waste poor Chloe's heart

(Flames lit for you, not her!)

With a besieger's art;

Shows how a treacherous woman's lying breath

Once on a time on trustful Proetus won

To doom to early death

Too chaste Bellerophon;

Warns him of Peleus' peril, all but slain

For virtuous scorn of fair Hippolyta,

And tells again each tale

That e'er led heart astray.

In vain; for deafer than Icarian seas

He hears, untainted yet. But, lady fair,

What if Enipeus please

Your listless eye? beware!

Though true it be that none with surer seat

O'er Mars's grassy turf is seen to ride,

Nor any swims so fleet

Adown the Tuscan tide,

Yet keep each evening door and window barr'd;

Look not abroad when music strikes up shrill,

And though he call you hard,

Remain obdurate still.

The first of March! a man unwed!

What can these flowers, this censer mean?

Or what these embers, glowing red

On sods of green?

You ask, in either language skill'd!

A feast I vow'd to Bacchus free,

A white he-goat, when all but kill'd

By falling tree.

So, when that holyday comes round,

It sees me still the rosin clear

From this my wine-jar, first embrown'd

In Tullus' year.

Come, crush one hundred cups for life

Preserved, Maecenas; keep till day

The candles lit; let noise and strife

Be far away.

Lay down that load of state-concern;

The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown;

The Mede, that sought our overturn,

Now seeks his own;

A servant now, our ancient foe,

The Spaniard, wears at last our chain;

The Scythian half unbends his bow

And quits the plain.

Then fret not lest the state should ail;

A private man such thoughts may spare;

Enjoy the present hour's regale,

And banish care.

Horace: While I had power to bless you,

Nor any round that neck his arms did fling

More privileged to caress you,

Happier was Horace than the Persian king.

Lydia: While you for none were pining

Sorer, nor Lydia after Chloe came,

Lydia, her peers outshining,

Might match her own with Ilia's Roman fame.

Horace: Now Chloe is my treasure,

Whose voice, whose touch, can make sweet music flow:

For her I'd die with pleasure,

Would Fate but spare the dear survivor so.

Lydia: I love my own fond lover,

Young Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus:

For him I'd die twice over,

Would Fate but spare the sweet survivor thus.

Horace: What now, if Love returning

Should pair us 'neath his brazen yoke once more,

And, bright-hair'd Chloe spurning,

Horace to off-cast Lydia ope his door?

Lydia: Though he is fairer, milder,

Than starlight, you lighter than bark of tree,

Than stormy Hadria wilder,

With you to live, to die, were bliss for me.

Ah Lyce! though your drink were Tanais,

Your husband some rude savage, you would weep

To leave me shivering, on a night like this,

Where storms their watches keep.

Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove

In your fair courtyard, while the wild winds blow,

Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove

Is glazing the driven snow!

Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not:

The rope may break, the wheel may backward turn:

Begetting you, no Tuscan sire begot

Penelope the stern.

O, though no gift, no “prevalence of prayer,”

Nor lovers' paleness deep as violet,

Nor husband, smit with a Pierian fair,

Move you, have pity yet!

O harder e'en than toughest heart of oak,

Deafer than uncharm'd snake to suppliant moans!

This side, I warn you, will not always brook

Rain-water and cold stones.

Come, Mercury, by whose minstrel spell

Amphion raised the Theban stones,

Come, with thy seven sweet strings, my shell,

Thy “diverse tones,”

Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now

To rich man's board and temple dear:

Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow

Her stubborn ear.

She, like a three-year colt unbroke,

Is frisking o'er the spacious plain,

Too shy to bear a lover's yoke,

A husband's rein.

The wood, the tiger, at thy call

Have follow'd: thou caust rivers stay:

The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall

To thee gave way,

Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head

A hundred snakes are hissing death,

Whose triple jaws black venom shed,

And sickening breath.

Ixion too and Tityos smooth'd

Their rugged brows: the urn stood dry

One hour, while Danaus' maids were sooth'd

With minstrelsy.

Let Lyde hear those maidens' guilt,

Their famous doom, the ceaseless drain

Of outpour'd water, ever spilt,

And all the pain

Reserved for sinners, e'en when dead:

Those impious hands, (could crime do more?)

Those impious hands had hearts to shed

Their bridegrooms' gore!

One only, true to Hymen's flame,

Was traitress to her sire forsworn:

That splendid falsehood lights her name

Through times unborn.

“Wake!” to her youthful spouse she cried,

“Wake! or you yet may sleep too well:

Fly—from the father of your bride,

Her sisters fell:

They, as she-lions bullocks rend,

Tear each her victim: I, less hard

Than these, will slay you not, poor friend,

Nor hold in ward:

Me let my sire in fetters lay

For mercy to my husband shown:

Me let him ship far hence away,

To climes unknown.

Go; speed your flight o'er land and wave,

While Night and Venus shield you; go

Be blest: and on my tomb engrave

This tale of woe.”

How unhappy are the maidens who with Cupid may not play,

Who may never touch the wine-cup, but must tremble all the day

At an uncle, and the scourging of his tongue!

Neobule, there's a robber takes your needle and your thread,

Lets the lessons of Minerva run no longer in your head;

It is Hebrus, the athletic and the young!

O, to see him when anointed he is plunging in the flood!

What a seat he has on horseback! was Bellerophon's as good?

As a boxer, as a runner, past compare!

When the deer are flying blindly all the open country o'er,

He can aim and he can hit them; he can steal upon the boar,

As it couches in the thicket unaware.

Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline,

O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!

Tomorrow shall be thine

A kid, whose crescent brow

Is sprouting all for love and victory.

In vain: his warm red blood, so early stirr'd.

Thy gelid stream shall dye,

Child of the wanton herd.

Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,

Forbears to touch: sweet cool thy waters yield

To ox with ploughing tired,

And lazy sheep afield.

Thou too one day shalt win proud eminence

'Mid honour'd founts, while I the ilex sing

Crowning the cavern, whence

Thy babbling wavelets spring.

Our Hercules, they told us, Rome,

Had sought the laurel Death bestows:

Now Glory brings him conqueror home

From Spaniard foes.

Proud of her spouse, the imperial fair

Must thank the gods that shield from death;

His sister too:—let matrons wear

The suppliant wreath

For daughters and for sons restored:

Ye youths and damsels newly wed,

Let decent awe restrain each word

Best left unsaid.

This day, true holyday to me,

Shall banish care: I will not fear

Rude broils or bloody death to see,

While Caesar's here.

Quick, boy, the chaplets and the nard,

And wine, that knew the Marsian war,

If roving Spartacus have spared

A single jar.

And bid Neaera come and trill,

Her bright locks bound with careless art:

If her rough porter cross your will,

Why then depart.

Soon palls the taste for noise and fray,

When hair is white and leaves are sere:

How had I fired in life's warm May,

In Plancus' year!

Wife of Ibycus the poor,

Let aged scandals have at length their bound:

Give your graceless doings o'er,

Ripe as you are for going underground.

You the maidens' dance to lead,

And cast your gloom upon those beaming stars!

Daughter Pholoe may succeed,

But mother Chloris what she touches mars.

Young men's homes your daughter storms,

Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat:

Nothus' love her bosom warms:

She gambols like a fawn with silver feet.

Yours should be the wool that grows

By fair Luceria, not the merry lute:

Flowers beseem not wither'd brows,.

Nor wither'd lips with emptied wine-jars suit.

Full well had Danae been secured, in truth,

By oaken portals, and a brazen tower,

And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth

That prowl at midnight's hour:

But Jove and Venus mock'd with gay disdain

The jealous warder of that close stronghold:

The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain

When gods could change to gold.

Gold, gold can pass the tyrant's sentinel,

Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow

Than is the thunder's. Argos ' prophet fell,

He and his house laid low,

And all for gain. The man of Macedon

Cleft gates of cities, rival kings o'erthrew

By force of gifts: their cunning snares have won

Rude captains and their crew.

As riches grow, care follows: men repine

And thirst for more. No lofty crest I raise:

Wisdom that thought forbids, Maecenas mine,

The knightly order's praise.

He that denies himself shall gain the more

From bounteous Heaven. I strip me of my pride,

Desert the rich man's standard, and pass o'er

To bare Contentment's side,

More proud as lord of what the great despise

Than if the wheat thresh'd on Apulia 's floor

I hoarded all in my huge granaries,

'Mid vast possessions poor.

A clear fresh stream, a little field o'ergrown

With shady trees, a crop that ne'er deceives,

Pass, though men know it not, their wealth, that own

All Afric's golden sheaves.

Though no Calabrian bees their honey yield

For me, nor mellowing sleeps the god of wine

In Formian jar, nor in Gaul 's pasture-field

The wool grows long and fine,

Yet Poverty ne'er comes to break my peace;

If more I craved, you would not more refuse.

Desiring less, I better shall increase

My tiny revenues,

Than if to Alyattes' wide domains

I join'd the realms of Mygdon. Great desires

Sort with great wants. 'Tis best, when prayer obtains

No more than life requires.

Aelius, of Lamus' ancient name

(For since from that high parentage

The prehistoric Lamias came

And all who fill the storied page,

No doubt you trace your line from him,

Who stretch'd his sway o'er Formiae,

And Liris, whose still waters swim

Whore green Marica skirts the sea,

Lord of broad realms), an eastern gale

Will blow to-morrow, and bestrew

The shore with weeds, with leaves the vale,

If rain's old prophet tell me true,

The raven. Gather, while 'tis fine,

Your wood; tomorrow shall be gay

With smoking pig and streaming wine,

And lord and slave keep holyday.

O wont the flying Nymphs to woo,

Good Faunus, through my sunny farm

Pass gently, gently pass, nor do

My younglings harm.

Each year, thou know'st, a kid must die

For thee; nor lacks the wine's full stream

To Venus' mate, the bowl; and high

The altars steam.

Sure as December's Nones appear,

All o'er the grass the cattle play;

The village, with the lazy steer,

Keeps holyday.

Wolves rove among the fearless sheep;

The woods for thee their foliage strow;

The delver loves on earth to leap,

His ancient foe.

What the time from Inachus

To Codrus, who in patriot battle fell,

Who were sprung from Aeacus,

And how men fought at Ilion,—this you tell.

What the wines of Chios cost,

Who with due heat our water can allay,

What the hour, and who the host

To give us house-room,—this you will not say

Ho, there! wine to moonrise, wine

To midnight, wine to our new augur too!

Nine to three or three to nine,

As each man pleases, makes proportion true.

Who the uneven Muses loves,

Will fire his dizzy brain with three times three;

Three once told the Grace approves;

She with her two bright sisters, gay and free,

Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife:

But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire

Of the Berecyntian fife?

Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre?

Out on niggard-handed boys!

Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear,

Envious churl, our senseless noise,

And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere.

You with your bright clustering hair,

Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky,

Rhoda loves, as young, as fair;

I for my Glycera slowly, slowly die.

O born in Manlius' year with me,

Whate'er you bring us, plaint or jest,

Or passion and wild revelry,

Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest;

Howe'er men call your Massic juice,

Its broaching claims a festal day;

Come then; Corvinus bids produce

A mellower wine, and I obey.

Though steep'd in all Socratic lore

He will not slight you; do not fear.

They say old Cato o'er and o'er

With wine his honest heart would cheer.

Tough wits to your mild torture yield

Their treasures; you unlock the soul

Of wisdom and its stores conceal'd,

Arm'd with Lyaeus' kind control.

'Tis yours the drooping heart to heal;

Your strength uplifts the poor man's horn;

Inspired by you, the soldier's steel,

The monarch's crown, he laughs to scorn,

Liber and Venus, wills she so,

And sister Graces, ne'er unknit,

And living lamps shall see you flow

Till stars before the sunrise flit.

Guardian of hill and woodland, Maid,

Who to young wives in childbirth's hour

Thrice call'd, vouchsafest sovereign aid,

O three-form'd power!

This pine that shades my cot be thine;

Here will I slay, as years come round,

A youngling boar, whose tusks design

The side-long wound.

If, Phidyle, your hands you lift

To heaven, as each new moon is born,

Soothing your Lares with the gift

Of slaughter'd swine, and spice, and corn,

Ne'er shall Scirocco's bane assail

Your vines, nor mildew blast your wheat.

Ne'er shall your tender younglings fail

In autumn, when the fruits are sweet.

The destined victim 'mid the snows

Of Algidus in oakwoods fed,

Or where the Alban herbage grows,

Shall dye the pontiff's axes red;

No need of butcher'd sheep for you

To make your homely prayers prevail;

Give but your little gods their due,

The rosemary twined with myrtle frail.

The sprinkled salt, the votive meal,

As soon their favour will regain,

Let but the hand be pure and leal,

As all the pomp of heifers slain.

Though your buried wealth surpass

The unsunn'd gold of Ind or Araby,

Though with many a ponderous mass

You crowd the Tuscan and Apulian sea,

Let Necessity but drive

Her wedge of adamant into that proud head,

Vainly battling will you strive

To 'scape Death's noose, or rid your soul of dread.

Better life the Scythians lead,

Trailing on waggon wheels their wandering home,

Or the hardy Getan breed,

As o'er their vast unmeasured steppes they roam;

Free the crops that bless their soil;

Their tillage wearies after one year's space;

Each in turn fulfils his toil;

His period o'er, another takes his place.

There the step-dame keeps her hand

From guilty plots, from blood of orphans clean;

There no downed wives command

Their feeble lords, or on adulterers lean.

Theirs are dowries not of gold,

Their parents' worth, their own pure chastity,

True to one, to others cold;

They dare not sin, or, if they dare, they die.

O, whoe'er has heart and head

To stay our plague of blood, our civic brawls,

Would he that his name be read

“Father of Rome” on lofty pedestals,

Let him chain this lawless will,

And be our children's hero! cursed spite!

Living worth we envy still,

Then seek it with strain'd eyes, when snatch'd from sight.

What can sad laments avail

Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin?

What can laws, that needs must fail

Shorn of the aid of manners form'd within,

If the merchant turns not back

From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow,

Turns not from the regions black

With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow;

Sailors override the wave,

While guilty poverty, more fear'd than vice.

Bids us crime and suffering brave,

And shuns the ascent of virtue's precipice?

Let the Capitolian fane,

The favour'd goal of yon vociferous crowd,

Aye, or let the nearest main

Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud:

Slay we thus the cause of crime,

If yet we would repent and choose the good:

Ours the task to take in time

This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud.

Ours to mould our weakling sons

To nobler sentiment and manlier deed:

Now the noble's first-born shuns

The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed:

Set him to the unlawful dice,

Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays!

While his sire, mature in vice,

A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays,

Hurrying, for an heir so base,

To gather riches. Money, root of ill,

Doubt it not, still grows apace:

Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still.

Whither, Bacchus, tear'st thou me.

FiIl'd with thy strength? What dens, what forests these,

Thus in wildering race I see?

What cave shall hearken to my melodies,

Tuned to tell of Caesar's praise

And throne him high the heavenly ranks among?

Sweet and strange shall be my lays,

A tale till now by poet voice unsung.

As the Evian on the height,

Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,

Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,

And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,

So my truant eyes admire

The banks, the desolate forests. O great King

Who the Naiads dost inspire,

And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!

Not a lowly strain is mine,

No mere man's utterance. O, 'tis venture sweet

Thee to follow, God of wine,

Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet!

For ladies' love I late was fit,

And good success my warfare blest,

But now my arms, my lyre I quit,

And hang them up to rust or rest.

Here, where arising from the sea

Stands Venus, lay the load at last,

Links, crowbars, and artillery,

Threatening all doors that dared be fast.

O Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway,

And Memphis, far from Thracian snow;

Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray,

That haughty Chloe just one blow!

When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill,

And dogs and foxes great with young,

And wolves from far Lanuvian hill,

Give clamorous tongue:

Across the roadway dart the snake,

Frightening, like arrow loosed from string,

The horses. I, for friendship's sake,

Watching each wing,

Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,

The harbinger of tempest flies,

Will call the raven, croaking harsh,

From eastern skies.

Farewell!—and wheresoe'er you go,

My Galatea, think of me:

Let lefthand pie and roving crow

Still leave you free.

But mark with what a front of fear

Orion lowers. Ah! well I know

How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear

The west-winds blow.

Let foemen's wives and children feel

The gathering south-wind's angry roar,

The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal,

The quivering shore.

So to the bull Europa gave

Her beauteous form, and when she saw

The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,

Grew pale with awe.

That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,

Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:

That gloomy night she look'd on nought

But stars and seas.

Then, as in hundred-citied Crete

She landed,—“O my sire!” she said,

“O childly duty! passion's heat

Has struck thee dead.

Whence came I? death, for maiden's shame,

Were little. Do I wake to weep

My sin? or am I pure of blame,

And is it sleep

From dreamland brings a form to trick

My senses? Which was best? to go

Over the long, long waves, or pick

The flowers in blow?

O, were that monster made my prize,

How would I strive to wound that brow,

How tear those horns, my frantic eyes

Adored but now!

Shameless I left my father's home;

Shameless I cheat the expectant grave;

O heaven, that naked I might roam

In lions' cave!

Now, ere decay my bloom devour

Or thin the richness of my blood,

Fain would I fall in youth's first flower,

The tigers' food.

Hark! 'tis my father—‘Worthless one!

What, yet alive? the oak is nigh.

'Twas well you kept your maiden zone,

The noose to tie.

Or if your choice be that rude pike,

New barb'd with death, leap down and ask

The wind to bear you. Would you like

The bondmaid's task,

You, child of kings, a master's toy,

A mistress' slave?’” Beside her, lo!

Stood Venus smiling, and her boy

With unstrung bow.

Then, when her laughter ceased, “Have done

With fume and fret,” she cried, “my fair;

That odious bull will give you soon

His horns to tear.

You know not you are Jove's own dame:

Away with sobbing; be resign'd

To greatness: you shall give your name

To half mankind.”

Neptune's feast-day! what should man

Think first of doing? Lyde mine, be bold,

Broach the treasured Caecuban,

And batter Wisdom in her own stronghold.

Now the noon has pass'd the full,

Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt,

Tardy as you are to pull

Old Bibulus' wine-jar from its sleepy vault.

I will take my turn and sing

Neptune and Nereus' train with locks of green;

You shall warble to the string

Latona and her Cynthia 's arrowy sheen.

Hers our latest song, who sways

Cnidos and Cyclads, and to Paphos goes

With her swans, on holydays;

Night too shall claim the homage music owes.

Heir of Tyrrhenian kings, for you

A mellow cask, unbroach'd as yet,

Maecenas mine, and roses new,

And fresh-drawn oil your locks to wet,

Are waiting here. Delay not still,

Nor gaze on Tibur, never dried,

And sloping Aesule, and the hill

Of Telegon the parricide.

O leave that pomp that can but tire,

Those piles, among the clouds at home;

Cease for a moment to admire

The smoke, the wealth, the noise of Rome!

In change e'en luxury finds a zest:

The poor man's supper, neat, but spare,

With no gay couch to seat the guest,

Has smooth'd the rugged brow of care.

Now glows the Ethiop maiden's sire;

Now Procyon rages all ablaze;

The Lion maddens in his ire,

As suns bring back the sultry days:

The shepherd with his weary sheep

Seeks out the streamlet and the trees,

Silvanus' lair: the still banks sleep

Untroubled by the wandering breeze.

You ponder on imperial schemes,

And o'er the city's danger brood:

Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams,

And Tanais, toss'd by inward feud.

The issue of the time to be

Heaven wisely hides in blackest night,

And laughs, should man's anxiety

Transgress the bounds of man's short sight.

Control the present: all beside

Flows like a river seaward borne,

Now rolling on its placid tide,

Now whirling massy trunks uptorn,

And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock,

In chaos blent, while hill and wood

Reverberate to the enormous shock,

When savage rains the tranquil flood

Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he,

Self-centred, who each night can say,

“My life is lived: the morn may see

A clouded or a sunny day:

That rests with Jove: but what is gone,

He will not, cannot turn to nought;

Nor cancel, as a thing undone,

What once the flying hour has brought.”

Fortune, who loves her cruel game,

Still bent upon some heartless whim,

Shifts her caresses, fickle dame,

Now kind to me, and now to him:

She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake

Those wings, her presents I resign,

Cloak me in native worth, and take

Chaste Poverty undower'd for mine.

Though storms around my vessel rave,

I will not fall to craven prayers,

Nor bargain by my vows to save

My Cyprian and Sidonian wares,

Else added to the insatiate main.

Then through the wild Aegean roar

The breezes and the Brethren Twain

Shall waft my little boat ashore.

And now 'tis done: more durable than brass

My monument shall be, and raise its head

O'er royal pyramids: it shall not dread

Corroding rain or angry Boreas,

Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.

I shall not wholly die: large residue

Shall 'scape the queen of funerals. Ever new

My after fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb

With silent maids the Capitolian height.

“Born,” men will say, “where Aufidus is loud,

Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bow'd

The rustic tribes, from dimness he wax'd bright,

First of his race to wed the Aeolian lay

To notes of Italy.” Put glory on,

My own Melpomene, by genius won,

And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay.