TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE. TO VENUS. Oh! leave thine own loved isle, And here in Glycera's fair temple smile, Where vows and incense lavishly she pours. Waft here thy glowing son; Bring Hermes; let the Nymphs thy path surround, And youth unlovely till thy gifts be won, And the light Graces with the zone unbound. TO HIS ATTENDANT. I Hate the Persian's costly pride— These, boy, delight me not; Seek thou for me the spot. For me be nought but myrtle twined— The modest myrtle, sweet to bind Alike thy brows and mine; While thus I quaff the bowl, reclined Beneath th* o'erarching vine* TO DELIUS. Book. 2d, Ode 8d. ** iEquam memento rebus in arduis," &o. Firm be thy soul!—serene in power, Undazzled by the triumph's hour, Alike, if still to grief resign'd, Or if, through festal days, 'tis thine To quaff, in grassy haunts reclined, Haunts where the silvery poplar-boughs And some clear fountain brightly flows In graceful windings by. There be the rose with beauty fraught, So soon to fade, so brilliant now, There be the wine, the odours brought, While time and fate allow! For thou, resigning to thine heir Thy halls, thy bowers, thy treasured store, Must leave that home, those woodlands fair, On yellow Tiber's shore. What then avails it if thou trace Or, sprung from some ignoble race, Since the dread lot for all must leap And we must tempt the gloomy deep, TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA. Oh! worthy fragrant gifts of flowers and wine, To-morrow shall a sportive kid be thine, Whose forehead swells with horns of infant might: Evn now of love and war he dreams in vain, Doom'd with his blood thy gelid wave to stain. Let the red dog-star burn!—his scorching beam, Fierce in resplendence shall molest not thee! Still shelter'd from his rays, thy banks, fair stream, To the wild flock around thee wandering free, And the tired oxen from the furrow'd field And thou, bright fount! ennobled and renown'd Thou and the oak with deathless verdure crown'd, Those hollow rocks, whence, murmuring many a tale, Thy chiming waters pour upon the vale. TO FAUNUS. Faun us, who lov'st the flying nymphs to chase, My sunny fields, and be thy fostering grace, If, at tbe mellow closing of the year Nor fail the liberal bowls to Venus dear; Joyous each flock in meadow herbage plays, Calmly the ox along the pasture strays, VOL* HI. H Then from the wolf no more the lambs retreat, Then shower the woods to thee their foliage round; And the glad labourer triumphs that his feet THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. [The beautiful constellation of the Cross is seen only in the southern hemisphere. The following lines are supposed to be addressed to it by a Spanish traveller in South America.] In the silence and grandeur of midnight I tread, Where savannahs, in boundless magnificence, spread, And bearing sublimely their snow-wreaths on high, The far Cordilleras unite with the sky. The fir-tree waves o'er me, the fire-flies' red light But to thee, as thy lode-stars resplendently burn Scarce regret the loved land of the olive and vine. |