Speed thy message. Day goes fast.
Now's the hour; the banquet's past†:
Mid-day suns and goblets flowing
Set my frame with passion glowingt.

Speed thee, Wanton, fair and free!

Tell me I must haste to thee.

ODE TO DIANA.

VIRGINS fair, and boys yet chaste,
We Diana's service bear;

Raise her votive chorus, haste,
Spotless youths and virgins fair!

Mighty child of mightiest Jove,
Thee, Latonia, we adore;

In the Delian olive grove

Thee thy beauteous mother bore.

Born to be the sacred queen

Of the mountain and the wood,

Of the valley's placid scene,

Of the river's echoing flood.

VOL. I.

F

Soothing woman's labouring throe,
Goddess, thou Lucina hight;
Thee, we powerful Trivia know;
Luna, thee, with borrow'd light.

By thy monthly rise and wane
Still th' apportion'd year is sped;
Still thy power with fruits and grain
Stores the peasant's homely shed.

Be thou, by whatever name

Please thee, sacred; and embrace Still with guardian care the same

Ancient Rome's heroic race!

INVITATION TO CECILIUS.

Go, paper, to Cecilius say,

To him I love, the Bard whose lay
The sweetest thoughts attend;
Say, he must quit his loved retreat,
Comum and Larius' Lake, to greet
Verona and his friend.

Here let him some advice receive,
A friend of his and mine will give.

If wise, he'll speed his way;

Although the fair his haste may check A thousand times, and on his neck

May hang, and beg his stay.

For, when of old she read his strains

To her on Dindymus who reigns,

Did raging passion seize

On all her heart; and since that day She idly wears his youth away

In love and slothful ease.

Yet thee, fair girl, I not abuse,

More learned than the Sapphic Muse, And warm with all her fire;

For, ah! so soft, so sweetly flow'd

His melting strains, his tender ode;

They well might love inspire.