The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace Part 14

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 a.s.sail me.

G.o.ddess, 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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds, 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 sh.o.r.e she clings, Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns: So, smit by loyal pa.s.sion'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 l.u.s.ts 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 G.o.d 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 t.i.tyos 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, n.o.ble youths and maidens sprung From n.o.ble 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 a.s.sure 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 rehea.r.s.ed 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.