Yet who so bad, as lover's lives to harm?

'Gainst Sciron's rocks themselves they'd bear a charm,

Or tread in safety Scythia's steppes of snow

No boor so savage as to work them woe.

The moonbeam cheers, the starlight shows the brake,

To guide their steps Love's self his torch will shake; The watch-dog sleeps, or soothes his savage moodSafe at all seasons walk the brotherhood.

What wretch a lover's worthless life would end? Spurn'd they may be, yet Venus is their friend. But, ah, if forth to certain death I fare,

lie

How dear to me the end that waits me there!
With store of unguents then would Cynthia come,
To scatter flowers, and watch above my tomb.
Pray Heaven these bones of mine may never
'Mid hurrying crowds, and tread of passers-by!
Spurn not dead lover thus: oh, give to me
Some quiet spot beneath the greenwood tree;
Some hillock's turfy mound that shuns the day—
No sepulchre upon the public way.

L

XVII.

Nunc, O Bacche, tuis.

OW at thy shrine, great sire, I kneel in prayer,

Grant me a peaceful course and omens fair! Bacchus, 'tis thou canst calm Love's storms in wine, And mix for all men's cares an anodyne.

Thou who canst lovers join, or bid them part,
Oh, wash this heavy sickness from my heart!
For Ariadne wafted to the skies

Bears witness there to skill in thee that lies,
And each slow, smouldering fire that tortures me
In death alone will slumber, or in thee.

Dark, if thou art not there, is night, and drear
To him who waits alone in hope and fear;

But if thy gifts will soothe my brows, and steep
My bones in warm forgetfulness of sleep,

Then will I set my vines and plant the hill,

And scare each beast that threatens them with ill.

Let but my vats swim deep with purple cream,
And round the foot fresh store of grape-juice
stream,

Then strength I'll draw from thee, and till I die
Sing but of Bacchus, and his prowess high.

I'll tell the lightning pangs thy mother bore,
The Nymph's soft band that routed India's war;
How raved Lycurgus at the stranger vine,
How Pentheus fell before the Mænads trine,
And sailors sank as dolphins in the sea

From the green-tendrill'd raft that shelter'd thee.
Next of the wine-cleft island's soil I'll tell,
And the sweet draught that Naxos knows so well.
Loose on thy marble neck shall clusters fair
Of ivy lie, the fillet bind thy hair,

Thy polish'd brow with fragrant oil be sweet,

Thy robe flow loose to touch th' unsandall'd feet;

Soft on thy ears the roll of Dirce's drum,
With reedy note of goat-foot Pan shall come;
And the great queen of gods with mitred hair
Shall ring the droning brass of Ida there,
While thine own priest, at threshold of the fane,
Pours from his gold to thee thy holy rain.

Themes high as this I'll tune with all the fire
That breathed its glow on deep-toned Pindar's lyre;
But from this bondage set me free, and steep
Once more my sorrows in oblivion deep.

WHERE

XVIII.

Clausus ab umbroso.

HERE dark Avernus pours the Lucrine wave, The steaming baths of Baia's shore to lave, Where on the sand Misenus sleeps, and o’er Alcides' causeway sounds the breaker's roar, (For this the path on earth the hero trod, Though now the cymbal's clash proclaims the God), There some dark power has work'd a baneful charm, And Baia's wave, once pure, is fraught with harmYes, there it was He sank in death's long sleep, And now His gentle spirit haunts the deep.

Could rank, could virtue, could Octavia's care, Or Cæsar's kindred hearth avail him there? The theatre's gazing crowds, the mother's reign, When son could rule no more—all, all in vain ! Scarce twenty summers his, he pass'd away— So brief the setting of so bright a day.

Go then, let dreams of triumph fire the soul Where thousands stand to gaze, and plaudits roll: The broider'd robe of state, the jewell'd show That fires the Circus, all to flames must go. Rich, poor alike be number'd with the deadRough is the way, but all that way must tread, Stammer their prayer to Cerberus, and float, A motley cargo, in grim Charon's boat. In brass, in iron hide thee safe from sight, Yet death shall hail thee back again to light. Could Croesus' golden store avert the hour, Or Nireus' beauty, or Achilles' power? Though for his grief the Greeks unknowing died, So dear the cost of Agamemnon's bride! Ah, ferryman of each pure human soul, Waft his poor breathless body to the goal, Where Claudius fares him now, Sicilia's lord, And far from human ken great Cæsar soar'd.

A

XXI.

Magnum iter ad doctas.

FAR to learnèd Athens must I go,

To lose upon the road love's weight of woe, For constant sight of Beauty swells my care, And love still feasts him in abundance there. In vain each shift I try to cure my ill,

Love bids me gaze, and gazing wounds me still.

Yet stay; the further, Cynthia, that I roam,
Sooner forgetfulness of love shall come.

Then stir, my men, I say, shove off from shore,
Draw each his mate, and ply in turn the oar;
Haul the bright canvas to the tap'ring mast,
And scud before the breeze that follows fast.
Farewell, Rome's towers, farewell, my friends, to ye,
Farewell, my love, whate'er thou wert to me!
Now lone and strange o'er Adria must I roam,
And breathe my prayer to calm the murmuring

foam.

Then when my bark, the long Ionian past,
Shall furl in Corinth's bay her sails at last,
"Tis little then remains-up, take the land
Where the twin seas by earth divided stand,
Till rest we take in calm Pireus' bay,
And mount the avenues of Theseus' way.

Then will I steel my heart with Plato's page,
And haunt thy gardens, Epicurus sage.
Through all I'll roam-the eloquence that lit
Thy tongue, Demosthenes-Menander's wit;
Mayhap some canvas glowing on the eye,
Or masterpiece of bronze, and ivory,

Or circling seasons, or th' estranging brine,
Shall heal in some calm nook these wounds of mine;

And shameful love shall never lay me low,

But honest death, when Nature bids me go.

00

XXIÍ.

Frigida tam multos.

TOO long at Cyzicus has Tullus stay'd,
Cold Cyzicus upon Propontis laid,