54

Nay, the blood in Phillid's veins
Surely flows from royal strains,
Though her gods be deaf to-day.
Deem not one so loved by you,
One so void of greed, so true,
Could be low-born, or could claim
Dower of maternal shame,

Showered on her natal day.

Though I'm heart-whole, when I gaze
Face and limbs and feet I praise-
Come, no jealousy of one
Whose eight lustres, fully run,

Lately flitted in dismay.

HORACE AND LYDIA-A DIALOGUE.

ODE III., 9.

HORACE.

So long as I thy love possessed,

Nor any dearer youth caressed
With loving arms thy snowy breast,
No Shah of Persia was so blest.

LYDIA.

So long you owned no other flame,
Nor Lydia after Chloe came,
Your Lydia's widely bruited name
Surpassed old Ilia's classic fame.

HORACE.

'Tis Chloe now I most admire,
Who sings so sweetly to the lyre;

For her sweet sake I'd dare death's ire,
So she escaped the fatal pyre.

LYDIA.

For Calais a mutual fire

Fills all my breast with fond desire;
Twice o'er for him I'd dare death's ire,
So he escaped the fatal pyre.

HORACE.

What if th' old love resumed its reign,
And knit reft hearts with brazen chain,
What if fair Chloe meet disdain,

And open doors for Lydia crane ?

LYDIA.

Though brighter than the star is he,
Though lighter than the cork thou be,
More prone to ire than Hadria's sea,
I'd choose to live and die with thee.

TO NEOBULE.

ODE III., 12.

OH! how hapless are the maidens to whom it is

forbidden

To amuse themselves with flirting, or to lull their cares with wine;

By a testy old guardian so mercilessly chidden With the tongue-lash, till the very life they gladly would resign.

All her spinning, and her knitting, and her wonted. inclination

For the labours of Minerva Neobule put aside ; To the winged son of Venus all were offered in oblation,

On the day, on the hour, when the lad of Lipara she spied

Immersing his sleek shoulders in the waters of the Tiber,

Bonny Hebrus,-unconquered in the footrace or the ring;

Not Bellerophon himself was half as good a rider, The javelin not a hunter so skilfully can fling, When a drove of deer is started across the open

glade ;

None impale the boar so well in the orchard's leafy shade.

TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA.

Он

ODE III., 13.

H! clearer than glass is this fountain of thine, Bandusia, worthy of flowers and wine,

A kid I'll present thee to-morrow, I vow,

Whose first budding horns, just adorning his brow,

Give promise of prowess in love and in fight ;-
Vain promise, alas! for thy ripples so bright
Will soon be stained red with the torrents of blood
This scion of wantons will pour in thy flood.

57

The days when the dog star is blazing above
Will do thee no harm-no, the cool that they love,
Thou'lt find for the oxen released from the team,
And stray roving herds that resort to thy stream.

Among the most noted of founts wilt thou be
When I shall have sung of that old Ilex tree
Which grows on the hollow rocks, over the caves,
Whence leaps the cascade of thy murmuring waves.

TO MELPOMENE.

ODE IV., 3.

HE whom, Melpomene, thou hast regarded

With thy benignant glance at his birth,
Will be no boxer, nor ever rewarded
With any Isthmian honors on earth.

At the Olympians no team of horses
Ever wil draw his conqueror's car,
Nor will he triumph o'er enemy's forces,

Crowned with a bay wreath, fresh from the war,

Up at the capitol-streamlets of Tibur's

Well watered valley, so proud of its name,-
Boscage and bower will find the tough fibres
Wrought in his web of unperishing fame.

Have not the sons of the chief of the cities
Deigned to accord me a seat up among
Loveable choirs of bards for my ditties,

Freed from the gibes of the envious tongue.

O thou Pierian muse, who controllest,

All the sweet notes of the gold mounted shell, Thou who couldst give (tho' the thought's of the drollest,)

Swan-notes to fish if it seemed to thee well.

Thine be the praise if, with finger uplifted,
Wayfarers point out the minstrel of Rome,
Powers of pleasing, if so I am gifted,
Powers of breath-of thy bounty they come.

-0

AN INVITATION TO VIRGIL.

ODE IV., 12.

THOSE Comrades of spring who have calmed the rude seas,

The softest of gales-are now swelling the sails,
No longer be-crisped with the frost are the leas,
The rivers no longer roar loud as they flow,
All swollen with snow.

The nightingale, now, while she plaintively wails
For Itys unblest, is at work on her nest,

The shame which that terrible vengeance entails-
The vengeance that follows the vices of kings—
The burden she sings.

The indolent hinds, with the sleek flocks they keep,
Are watching them graze, and piping their lays
So dear to that guardian God of the sheep,
To whom the blue shadows of Arcady's heights
Are daily delights.

The season, friend Virgil, now savours of drought,
But should you incline to Calenian wine,