But, if such grace a vanquish'd foe may find,
Ah! let my body be to earth resign'd.
Too well I know, and dread, alas! too late,
The infuriate vengeance of my people's hate.
From this protect me, and avert its doom;
And let me slumber in my Lausus' tomb.'
Then to the expected steel he gave his throat: And the warm streams of life o'er all his armour float. SYMMONS.
FROM THE LATIN OF HORACE.
ODE XXXVIII. BOOK I.
I HATE the pomp that Persia shows,
And garlands of the linden made;
Seek not for me the curious rose,
With bloom in Winter's lap display'd.
Boy, let the myrtle be thy care,
And simply deck thy brows and mine; The myrtle only will I wear,
Drinking beneath the shady vine.
REV. F. HODGSON.
ODE VII. BOOK III.
WHY fall those tears on fair Asterie's breast?
Spring's earliest zephyrs shall restore,
With faith, that cannot change, with fortune bless'd,
Thy lover to his native shore.
A distant port withholds him from thy sight,
Whilst adverse tempests rend the deep:
And his lone pleasure through the wakeful night
Is but to think of thee, and weep.
In vain fair Chloe spreads her festive snare,
And bids her prompted friend in vain,
With words of artful sympathy declare
The sighing progress of her pain.
In vain she tells, his constant heart to prove,
How from the dame cold Peleus fled,
And found a fit reward of slighted love,
The verge of hell for beauty's bed:
How Argos' amorous queen, with cruel thought,
To heal a woman's wounded pride,
Her credulous lord to her dire humour wrought,
And the chaste fool had nearly died.
In vain her treacherous eloquence assails
With soft insinuating aim;
́Deaf as a rock to her allusive tales,
His ears, his heart reject her claim.
But thou, whilst thus his manly faith disarms
The artillery of the wanton fair,
Beware thy gallant neighbour's graceful charms,
Ah, lest he charm too much beware!
What though he winds at will the fiery steed,
The martial plain's superior pride;
What though his arms victoriously precede
Each youth who swims the Tuscan tide;
Still from thy threshold, at approach of eve,
Let thy barr'd gate his steps deny ;
And though his lyre melodiously may grieve
With airs of tenderest minstrelsy,
Trust not the open'd casement with thine ear, But let the baffled gallant find,
That whilst he artful swears thou art severe, He may not hope to prove thee kind!
WHAT years from Inachus divide,
Codrus, who for his country died,
You tell, and acus's line,
And the sad tale of Troy divine :'
But what the price of Chian; who
Heats for his friend the bagnio;
When I, and at whose genial board,
Shall shut out winter-not a word!
Quick, boy! a bumper to the moon,
Again-one more to night's mid noon,
One to Murena. Three or nine,
As measures, best the cup combine.
Nine, rapt transported poets claim,
Who madden with the Muses' flame:
Link'd with her naked sisters she,
The modest Grace permits but three,
Anxious from feuds her train to save-
O'tis delicious thus to rave!
Why does yon pipe its tones forget?
Why mute the lyre, the flageolet?
Pshaw! what frugality of flowers!
More roses! This wild din of ours,
Old splenetic! let Lycus hear,
And-pair'd not match'd-his wedded dear.
Thee, beamy with thy clustering hair,
Thee, Telephus, as Hesper fair,
Ripe Chloe courts: for Glycera
I slowly, gently melt away.
'LIKE the first mortals bless'd is he, From debts and mortgages and business free, With his own team who ploughs the soil, Which grateful once confess'd his father's toil. The sounds of war nor break his sleep, Nor the rough storm that harrows up the deep; He shuns the courtier's haughty doors, And the loud science of the bar abjures. Sometimes his marriageable vines Around the lofty bridegroom elm he twines, Or lops the vagrant boughs away, Ingrafting better as the old decay;
Or in the lengthening vale surveys
His lowing herd safe-wandering as they graze;
Or careful stores the flowing gold
Press'd from the hive, or shears his tender fold;
Or when with various fruits o'erspread
The mellow autumn lifts his beauteous head,
His grafted pears, or grapes that vie
With the rich purple of the Tyrian dye,
Grateful he gathers; and repays
His guardian gods on their own festal days.
Sometimes beneath an ancient shade,
Or careless on the matted grass he's laid,
While glide the murmuring streams along, And birds in forests chant their plaintive song;
Murmuring the lucid fountain flows,
And with its murmurs courts him to repose.
But when the rain and snows appear,
And wintry Jove loud thunders o'er the year,
With hounds he drives into the toils
The foaming boar, and triumphs in his spoils :
Or for voracious thrushes lays
His nets, and with delusive baits betrays;
Or artful sets the springing snare
To catch the stranger crane or timorous hare.
Thus happy, who would stoop to prove
The pains, the wrongs, and injuries of love?
But if a chaste and virtuous wife
Assist him in the tender cares of life,
Of sun-burnt charms, but honest fame
(Such as the Sabine or Apulian dame);
If, ere her wearied spouse return,
The sacred fire with good old timber burn;
Or if she milk her swelling kine,
Or in their folds his happy flocks confine;
If unbought dainties crown their feast,
And luscious wines from this year's vintage press'd;
No more shall curious oysters please,
Or fish, the luxury of foreign seas,
When eastern tempests, thundering o'er
The wintry wave, shall drive them to our shore ;
Nor wild fowl of delicious taste,
From distant climates brought to crown the feast,
Shall e'er so grateful prove to me
As olives gather'd from their unctuous tree,
Or herbs that love the flowery field;
And cheerful health with pure digestion yield;
Or fatling, on the festal day,
Or kid just rescued from some beast of prey.
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