No More Learning

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!




XV.

UXOR PAUPERIS IBYCI.


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.




XVI.

INCLUSAM DANAEN.


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.




XVII.

AELI VETUSTO.


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
Where 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; to-morrow shall be gay
With smoking pig and streaming wine,
And lord and slave keep holyday.




XVIII.

FAUNE, NYMPHARUM.


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.




XIX.

QUANTUM DISTAT.


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.




XXI.

O NATE MECUM.


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.




XXII.

MONTIUM CUSTOS.


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.




XXIII.

COELO SUPINAS.


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.




XXIV.

INTACTIS OPULENTIOR.


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 dowried 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.




XXV.

QUO ME, BACCHE.


Whither, Bacchus, tear'st thou me,
Fill'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!




XXVI.

VIXI PUELLIS.


For ladies's 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!




XXVII.

IMPIOS PARRAE.


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. "




XXVIII.

FESTO QUID POTIUS.


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.




XXIX.

TYRRHENA REGUM.


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.




XXX.

EXEGI MONUMENTUM.


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.




BOOK IV.


I.

INTERMISSA, VENUS.


Yet again thou wak'st the flame
That long had slumber'd! Spare me, Venus, spare!
Trust me, I am not the same
As in the reign of Cinara, kind and fair.
Cease thy softening spells to prove
On this old heart, by fifty years made hard,
Cruel Mother of sweet Love!
Haste, where gay youth solicits thy regard.
With thy purple cygnets fly
To Paullus' door, a seasonable guest;
There within hold revelry,
There light thy flame in that congenial breast.
He, with birth and beauty graced,
The trembling client's champion, ne'er tongue-tied,
Master of each manly taste,
Shall bear thy conquering banners far and wide.
Let him smile in triumph gay,
True heart, victorious over lavish hand,
By the Alban lake that day
'Neath citron roof all marble shalt thou stand:
Incense there and fragrant spice
With odorous fumes thy nostrils shall salute;
Blended notes thine ear entice,
The lyre, the pipe, the Berecyntine flute:
Graceful youths and maidens bright
Shall twice a day thy tuneful praise resound,
While their feet, so fair and white,
In Salian measure three times beat the ground.
I can relish love no more,
Nor flattering hopes that tell me hearts are true,
Nor the revel's loud uproar,
Nor fresh-wreathed flowerets, bathed in vernal dew.
Ah! but why, my Ligurine,
Steal trickling tear-drops down my wasted cheek?
Wherefore halts this tongue of mine,
So eloquent once, so faltering now and weak?
Now I hold you in my chain,
And clasp you close, all in a nightly dream;
Now, still dreaming, o'er the plain
I chase you; now, ah cruel! down the stream.




II.

PINDARUM QUISQUIS.


Who fain at Pindar's flight would aim,
On waxen wings, Iulus, he
Soars heavenward, doom'd to give his name
To some new sea.
Pindar, like torrent from the steep
Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows,
With mouth unfathomably deep,
Foams, thunders, glows,
All worthy of Apollo's bay,
Whether in dithyrambic roll
Pouring new words he burst away
Beyond control,
Or gods and god-born heroes tell,
Whose arm with righteous death could tame
Grim Centaurs, tame Chimaeras fell,
Out-breathing flame,
Or bid the boxer or the steed
In deathless pride of victory live,
And dower them with a nobler meed
Than sculptors give,
Or mourn the bridegroom early torn
From his young bride, and set on high
Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn,
Too good to die.
Antonius! yes, the winds blow free,
When Dirce's swan ascends the skies,
To waft him. I, like Matine bee,
In act and guise,
That culls its sweets through toilsome hours,
Am roaming Tibur's banks along,
And fashioning with puny powers
A laboured song.
Your Muse shall sing in loftier strain
How Caesar climbs the sacred height,
The fierce Sygambrians in his train,
With laurel dight,
Than whom the Fates ne'er gave mankind
A richer treasure or more dear,
Nor shall, though earth again should find
The golden year.
Your Muse shall tell of public sports,
And holyday, and votive feast,
For Caesar's sake, and brawling courts
Where strife has ceased.
Then, if my voice can aught avail,
Grateful for him our prayers have won,
My song shall echo, "Hail, all hail,
Auspicious Sun! "
There as you move, "Ho! Triumph, ho!
Great Triumph! " once and yet again
All Rome shall cry, and spices strow
Before your train.
Ten bulls, ten kine, your debt discharge:
A calf new-wean'd from parent cow,
Battening on pastures rich and large,
Shall quit my vow.
Like moon just dawning on the night
The crescent honours of his head;
One dapple spot of snowy white,
The rest all red.




III.

QUEM TU, MELPOMENE.


He whom thou, Melpomene,
Hast welcomed with thy smile, in life arriving,
Ne'er by boxer's skill shall be
Renown'd abroad, for Isthmian mastery striving;
Him shall never fiery steed
Draw in Achaean car a conqueror seated;
Him shall never martial deed
Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,
Climbing Capitolian steep:
But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,
And the tangled forest deep,
On soft Aeolian airs his fame shall nourish.
Rome, of cities first and best,
Deigns by her sons' according voice to hail me
Fellow-bard of poets blest,
And faint and fainter envy's growls assail me.
Goddess, whose Pierian art
The lyre's sweet sounds can modulate and measure,
Who to dumb fish canst impart
The music of the swan, if such thy pleasure:
O, 'tis all of thy dear grace
That every finger points me out in going
Lyrist of the Roman race;
Breath, power to charm, if mine, are thy bestowing!




IV.

QUALEM MINISTRUM.


E'en as the lightning's minister,
Whom Jove o'er all the feather'd breed
Made sovereign, having proved him sure
Erewhile on auburn Ganymede;
Stirr'd by warm youth and inborn power,
He quits the nest with timorous wing,
For winter's storms have ceased to lower,
And zephyrs of returning spring
Tempt him to launch on unknown skies;
Next on the fold he stoops downright;
Last on resisting serpents flies,
Athirst for foray and for flight:
As tender kidling on the grass
Espies, uplooking from her food,
A lion's whelp, and knows, alas!
Those new-set teeth shall drink her blood:
So look'd the Raetian mountaineers
On Drusus:--whence in every field
They learn'd through immemorial years
The Amazonian axe to wield,
I ask not now: not all of truth
We seekers find: enough to know
The wisdom of the princely youth
Has taught our erst victorious foe
What prowess dwells in boyish hearts
Rear'd in the shrine of a pure home,
What strength Augustus' love imparts
To Nero's seed, the hope of Rome.
Good sons and brave good sires approve:
Strong bullocks, fiery colts, attest
Their fathers' worth, nor weakling dove
Is hatch'd in savage eagle's nest.
But care draws forth the power within,
And cultured minds are strong for good:
Let manners fail, the plague of sin
Taints e'en the course of gentle blood.
How great thy debt to Nero's race,
O Rome, let red Metaurus say,
Slain Hasdrubal, and victory's grace
First granted on that glorious day
Which chased the clouds, and show'd the sun,
When Hannibal o'er Italy
Ran, as swift flames o'er pine-woods run,
Or Eurus o'er Sicilia's sea.
Henceforth, by fortune aiding toil,
Rome's prowess grew: her fanes, laid waste
By Punic sacrilege and spoil,
Beheld at length their gods replaced.
Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:--
"Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey,
Blindly we rush on foes, from whom
'Twere triumph won to steal away.
That race which, strong from Ilion's fires,
Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost,
Its sons, its venerable sires,
Bore to Ausonia's citied coast;
That race, like oak by axes shorn
On Algidus with dark leaves rife,
Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn,
And draws new spirit from the knife.
Not the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore
Alcides, chafing at the foil:
No pest so fell was born of yore
From Colchian or from Theban soil.
Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight
More splendid: grappled, it will quell
Unbroken powers, and fight a fight
Whose story widow'd wives shall tell.
No heralds shall my deeds proclaim
To Carthage now: lost, lost is all:
A nation's hope, a nation's name,
They died with dying Hasdrubal. "
What will not Claudian hands achieve?
Jove's favour is their guiding star,
And watchful potencies unweave
For them the tangled paths of war.




V.

DIVIS ORTE BONIS.


Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon
Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:
Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:
Do not thy promise wrong.
Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:
Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine
Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,
And suns serener shine.
See her whose darling child a long year past
Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;
That long year o'er, the envious southern blast
Still bars him from his home:
Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,
Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns:
So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings,
Rome for her Caesar yearns.
In safety range the cattle o'er the mead:
Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain:
O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed:
Fair Honour shrinks from stain:
No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile:
Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within:
The father's features in his children smile:
Swift vengeance follows sin.
Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde,
Or the rank growth that German forests yield,
While Caesar lives? who trembles at the sword
The fierce Iberians wield?
In his own hills each labours down the day,
Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree:
Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay,
He hails his god in thee.
A household power, adored with prayers and wine,
Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease:
Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine,
And her great Hercules.
Ah! be it thine long holydays to give
To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray
At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve,
When ocean hides the day.



VI.

DIVE, QUEM PROLES.


Thou who didst make thy vengeful might
To Niobe and Tityos known,
And Peleus' son, when Troy's tall height
Was nigh his own,
Victorious else, for thee no peer,
Though, strong in his sea-parent's power,
He shook with that tremendous spear
The Dardan tower.
He, like a pine by axes sped,
Or cypress sway'd by angry gust,
Fell ruining, and laid his head
In Trojan dust.
Not his to lie in covert pent
Of the false steed, and sudden fall
On Priam's ill-starr'd merriment
In bower and hall:
His ruthless arm in broad bare day
The infant from the breast had torn,
Nay, given to flame, ah, well a way!
The babe unborn:
But, won by Venus' voice and thine,
Relenting Jove Aeneas will'd
With other omens more benign
New walls to build.
Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre,
Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews,
Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire
My Daunian Muse!
'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue
With minstrel art and minstrel fires:
Come, noble youths and maidens sprung
From noble sires,
Blest in your Dian's guardian smile,
Whose shafts the flying silvans stay,
Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while
The lyre I play:
Sing of Latona's glorious boy,
Sing of night's queen with crescent horn,
Who wings the fleeting months with joy,
And swells the corn.
And happy brides shall say, "'Twas mine,
When years the cyclic season brought,
To chant the festal hymn divine
By HORACE taught. "




VII.

DIFFUGERE NIVES.


The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,
The fields their green:
Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run.
Their banks between.
Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads
The dance essay:
"No 'scaping death" proclaims the year, that speeds
This sweet spring day.
Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,
To vanish, when
Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,--
Winter again!
Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:
We, soon as thrust
Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went,
What are we? dust.
Can Hope assure you one more day to live
From powers above?
You rescue from your heir whate'er you give
The self you love.
When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed
The grand last doom,
Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
Torquatus' tomb.
Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
To life recall,
Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
From Lethe's thrall.




VIII.

DONAREM PATERAS.


Ah Censorinus! to my comrades true
Rich cups, rare bronzes, gladly would I send:
Choice tripods from Olympia on each friend
Would I confer, choicer on none than you,
Had but my fate such gems of art bestow'd
As cunning Scopas or Parrhasius wrought,
This with the brush, that with the chisel taught
To image now a mortal, now a god.
But these are not my riches: your desire
Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
Not public gravings on a marble base,
Whence comes a second life to men of might
E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,
Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,
Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,
In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,
Who from crush'd Afric took away--a name,
Than rude Calabria's tributary lays.
Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought.
Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power
Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,
Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.
Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,
By grace of poets and their silver tongue,
Henceforth to live the happy isles among.
No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,
And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules,
His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove:
So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above,
Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas:
So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,
Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.




IX.

NE FORTE CREDAS.


Think not those strains can e'er expire,
Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar
Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre
I sing with arts unknown before.
Though Homer fill the foremost throne,
Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,
And fierce Alcaeus holds his own,
With Pindar and Simonides.
The songs of Teos are not mute,
And Sappho's love is breathing still:
She told her secret to the lute,
And yet its chords with passion thrill.
Not Sparta's queen alone was fired
By broider'd robe and braided tress,
And all the splendours that attired
Her lover's guilty loveliness:
Not only Teucer to the field
His arrows brought, nor Ilion
Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:
Not Crete's majestic lord alone,
Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:
Not Hector first for child and wife,
Or brave Deiphobus, laid down
The burden of a manly life.
Before Atrides men were brave:
But ah! oblivion, dark and long,
Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,
For lack of consecrating song.
'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,
What difference? YOU shall ne'er be dumb,
While strains of mine have voice and breath:
The dull neglect of days to come
Those hard-won honours shall not blight:
No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,
Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright
When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:
To greed and rapine still severe,
Spurning the gain men find so sweet:
A consul, not of one brief year,
But oft as on the judgment-seat
You bend the expedient to the right,
Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,
Or bear your banners through the fight,
Scattering the foeman's firm array.
The lord of boundless revenues,
Salute not him as happy: no,
Call him the happy, who can use
The bounty that the gods bestow,
Can bear the load of poverty,
And tremble not at death, but sin:
No recreant he when called to die
In cause of country or of kin.




XI.

EST MIHI NONUM.


Here is a cask of Alban, more
Than nine years old: here grows
Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store
Of ivy too
(Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know)
The plate shines bright: the altar, strewn
With vervain, hungers for the flow
Of lambkin's blood.
There's stir among the serving folk;
They bustle, bustle, boy and girl;
The flickering flames send up the smoke
In many a curl.
But why, you ask, this special cheer?
We celebrate the feast of Ides,
Which April's month, to Venus dear,
In twain divides.
O, 'tis a day for reverence,
E'en my own birthday scarce so dear,
For my Maecenas counts from thence
Each added year.
'Tis Telephus that you'd bewitch:
But he is of a high degree;
Bound to a lady fair and rich,
He is not free.
O think of Phaethon half burn'd,
And moderate your passion's greed:
Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd
By his wing'd steed.
So learn to look for partners meet,
Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims
Above your fortune. Come then, sweet,
My last of flames
(For never shall another fair
Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing
With that dear voice: to music care
Shall yield its sting.




XII.

JAM VERIS COMITES.


The gales of Thrace, that hush the unquiet sea,
Spring's comrades, on the bellying canvas blow:
Clogg'd earth and brawling streams alike are free
From winter's weight of snow.
Wailing her Itys in that sad, sad strain,
Builds the poor bird, reproach to after time
Of Cecrops' house, for bloody vengeance ta'en
On foul barbaric crime.
The keepers of fat lambkins chant their loves
To silvan reeds, all in the grassy lea,
And pleasure Him who tends the flocks and groves
Of dark-leaved Arcady.
It is a thirsty season, Virgil mine:
But would you taste the grape's Calenian juice,
Client of noble youths, to earn your wine
Some nard you must produce.
A tiny box of nard shall bring to light
The cask that in Sulpician cellar lies:
O, it can give new hopes, so fresh and bright,
And gladden gloomy eyes.
You take the bait? then come without delay
And bring your ware: be sure, 'tis not my plan
To let you drain my liquor and not pay,
As might some wealthy man.
Come, quit those covetous thoughts, those knitted brows,
Think on the last black embers, while you may,
And be for once unwise. When time allows,
'Tis sweet the fool to play.




XIII.

AUDIVERE, LYCE.


The gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer;
Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still
You struggle to look fair;
You drink, and dance, and trill
Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak
With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love!
He dwells in Chia's cheek,
And hears her harp-strings move.
Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath
Past wither'd trees like you; you're wrinkled now;
The white has left your teeth
And settled on your brow.
Your Coan silks, your jewels bright as stars,
Ah no! they bring not back the days of old,
In public calendars
By flying Time enroll'd.
Where now that beauty? where those movements? where
That colour? what of her, of her is left,
Who, breathing Love's own air,
Me of myself bereft,
Who reign'd in Cinara's stead, a fair, fair face,
Queen of sweet arts? but Fate to Cinara gave
A life of little space;
And now she cheats the grave
Of Lyce, spared to raven's length of days,
That youth may see, with laughter and disgust,
A fire-brand, once ablaze,
Now smouldering in grey dust.




XIV.

QUAE CURA PATRUM.


What honours can a grateful Rome,
A grateful senate, Caesar, give
To make thy worth through days to come
Emblazon'd on our records live,
Mightiest of chieftains whomsoe'er
The sun beholds from heaven on high?
They know thee now, thy strength in war,
Those unsubdued Vindelici.
Thine was the sword that Drusus drew,
When on the Breunian hordes he fell,
And storm'd the fierce Genaunian crew
E'en in their Alpine citadel,
And paid them back their debt twice told;
'Twas then the elder Nero came
To conflict, and in ruin roll'd
Stout Raetian kernes of giant frame.
O, 'twas a gallant sight to see
The shocks that beat upon the brave
Who chose to perish and be free!
As south winds scourge the rebel wave
When through rent clouds the Pleiads weep,
So keen his force to smite, and smite
The foe, or make his charger leap
Through the red furnace of the fight.
Thus Daunia's ancient river fares,
Proud Aufidus, with bull-like horn,
When swoln with choler he prepares
A deluge for the fields of corn.
So Claudius charged and overthrew
The grim barbarian's mail-clad host,
The foremost and the hindmost slew,
And conquer'd all, and nothing lost.
The force, the forethought, were thine own,
Thine own the gods. The selfsame day
When, port and palace open thrown,
Low at thy footstool Egypt lay,
That selfsame day, three lustres gone,
Another victory to thine hand
Was given; another field was won
By grace of Caesar's high command.
Thee Spanish tribes, unused to yield,
Mede, Indian, Scyth that knows no home,
Acknowledge, sword at once and shield
Of Italy and queenly Rome.
Ister to thee, and Tanais fleet,
And Nile that will not tell his birth,
To thee the monstrous seas that beat
On Britain's coast, the end of earth,
To thee the proud Iberians bow,
And Gauls, that scorn from death to flee;
The fierce Sygambrian bends his brow,
And drops his arms to worship thee




XV.

PHOEBUS VOLENTEM.


Of battles fought I fain had told,
And conquer'd towns, when Phoebus smote
His harp-string: "Sooth, 'twere over-bold
To tempt wide seas in that frail boat. "
Thy age, great Caesar, has restored
To squalid fields the plenteous grain,
Given back to Rome's almighty Lord
Our standards, torn from Parthian fane,
Has closed Quirinian Janus' gate,
Wild passion's erring walk controll'd,
Heal'd the foul plague-spot of the state,
And brought again the life of old,
Life, by whose healthful power increased
The glorious name of Latium spread
To where the sun illumes the east
From where he seeks his western bed.
While Caesar rules, no civil strife
Shall break our rest, nor violence rude,
Nor rage, that whets the slaughtering knife
And plunges wretched towns in feud.
The sons of Danube shall not scorn
The Julian edicts; no, nor they
By Tanais' distant river born,
Nor Persia, Scythia, or Cathay.
And we on feast and working-tide,
While Bacchus' bounties freely flow,
Our wives and children at our side,
First paying Heaven the prayers we owe,
Shall sing of chiefs whose deeds are done,
As wont our sires, to flute or shell,
And Troy, Anchises, and the son
Of Venus on our tongues shall dwell.




CARMEN SAECULARE.

PHOEBE, SILVARUMQUE.


Phoebus and Dian, huntress fair,
To-day and always magnified,
Bright lights of heaven, accord our prayer
This holy tide,
On which the Sibyl's volume wills
That youths and maidens without stain
To gods, who love the seven dear hills,
Should chant the strain!
Sun, that unchanged, yet ever new,
Lead'st out the day and bring'st it home,
May nought be present to thy view
More great than Rome!
Blest Ilithyia! be thou near
In travail to each Roman dame!
Lucina, Genitalis, hear,
Whate'er thy name!
O make our youth to live and grow!
The fathers' nuptial counsels speed,
Those laws that shall on Rome bestow
A plenteous seed!
So when a hundred years and ten
Bring round the cycle, game and song
Three days, three nights, shall charm again
The festal throng.
Ye too, ye Fates, whose righteous doom,
Declared but once, is sure as heaven,
Link on new blessings, yet to come,
To blessings given!
Let Earth, with grain and cattle rife,
Crown Ceres' brow with wreathen corn;
Soft winds, sweet waters, nurse to life
The newly born!
O lay thy shafts, Apollo, by!
Let suppliant youths obtain thine ear!
Thou Moon, fair "regent of the sky,"
Thy maidens hear!
If Rome is yours, if Troy's remains,
Safe by your conduct, sought and found
Another city, other fanes
On Tuscan ground,
For whom, 'mid fires and piles of slain,
AEneas made a broad highway,
Destined, pure heart, with greater gain.
Their loss to pay,
Grant to our sons unblemish'd ways;
Grant to our sires an age of peace;
Grant to our nation power and praise,
And large increase!
See, at your shrine, with victims white,
Prays Venus and Anchises' heir!
O prompt him still the foe to smite,
The fallen to spare!
Now Media dreads our Alban steel,
Our victories land and ocean o'er;
Scythia and Ind in suppliance kneel,
So proud before.
Faith, Honour, ancient Modesty,
And Peace, and Virtue, spite of scorn,
Come back to earth; and Plenty, see,
With teeming horn.
Augur and lord of silver bow,
Apollo, darling of the Nine,
Who heal'st our frame when languors slow
Have made it pine;
Lov'st thou thine own Palatial hill,
Prolong the glorious life of Rome
To other cycles, brightening still
Through time to come!
From Algidus and Aventine
List, goddess, to our grave Fifteen!
To praying youths thine ear incline,
Diana queen!
Thus Jove and all the gods agree!
So trusting, wend we home again,
Phoebus and Dian's singers we,
And this our strain.