BOOK IV.

I.

Callimachi manes.

HADE of Callimachus! Philetas' shrine!

Let groves your feet have trod, be trod by mine; First bard of all to quit the vulgar throng And warm with Grecian rapture Roman song. Say to what grot your polish'd Muse retired, What path allured her, and what fount inspired ? I like not him who sings of arms alone, Mine be the polish of the smoothing stone; Such be the Fame that bids me soar aloft, My natural muse triumphant still, though soft; Boy-loves, my children, in the selfsame car, And crowds of poets following afar;

Yet throng me not, nor press thus madly on, 'Tis but a narrow road to Helicon.

Many will sing Rome's glories, and the day When Bactria's realm shall bound th' imperial

sway;

By paths yet new I leave the Muses' bower,

And tune a lay to charm some peaceful hour;

Soft be the flowers ye weave your bard, ye Nine,
No chaplet rough will suit these brows of mine;
Though jealous critics slander now, to me

Shall glory pay when dead a double fee;
Succeeding time enhances all things' worth,
And death will oftentimes give glory birth.
Who else had known the horse that captured Troy,
The fights of Xanthus with th' Hæmonian boy;
The woods, the streams where first great Jove drew
breath,

The blood-stain'd axletree, and Hector's death;
Deiphobus, Pyladamas, the fray

Where fought brave Helenus, and Paris lay

So changed in death Troy scarce had known his clay?
And Ilion's self had else been little known,
Twice by the might of Hercules o'erthrown;
The mighty bard that sung of all her woe
Has learnt ere this that time bids glory grow;
So Rome, as years roll on, shall sing my praise,
And life, though I be dead, attend my lays;
For Lycia's god has heard my prayer, and I

Hid in some nameless tomb shall never lie.

Now tread, my Muse, once more the well-known round,

That love may list the old, old story's sound.

II.

Orphea detinuisse feras.

MEN say that Thracian Orpheus by his skill

Soothed the fierce beast, and stay'd the

huddling rill;

Citharon's rocks at sweet Amphion's call

Took shape themselves to frame the Theban wall; And Galatea coursed the waves along

To list 'neath Etna Polyphemus' song.

No wonder then my verse each maiden moves
Whom Bacchus and the great Apollo loves.
What though no porphyry shafts my roof uphold,
No ivory panel parts the beams of gold,
No grottos wet with Martius' wave have I,
No orchards with Phæacian woods to vie;
Yet are the Muses mine, the world is pleased,
And by my verse Calliope appeased.
Ah, lucky maid, whoe'er art sung by me,
My lays will bid thy beauty deathless be!
The Pyramids that soar to heaven above,
The home, star-spangled, of Elëan Jove,
The tomb where rich Mausolus lies in state-
None can escape the final doom of fate;

'Mid fire or storm away their pride will pass,

Or time's rude stroke will cleave the crumbling

mass;

But glory shrined in song can never die,

Talent alone wins immortality.

III.

Visus eram molli.

METHOUGHT that I in Helicon's soft shade,

Hard by the fount of Hippocrene, was laid,

And would have sung the tale in language high
Of Alba's wars, and Alba's royalty;

Το my weak lips that mighty wave I bore
Whence father Ennius drank deep before,
To sing the Curii three, Horatius' son,
The royal trophies by Emilius won;

The wreaths that Fabius reap'd by war's delay, Vows heard by heaven on Canna's luckless day; The gods that stay'd the Afric conqueror's arm, And geese whose cackling note saved Jove from harm.

Then, leaning on his golden lyre, to me Spoke Phoebus from the wood of Castaly, “Wouldst thou, mad fool, a wave so potent drain, "Who bade thee soar in high, heroic strain ? "No glory canst thou reap, Propertius, there— "Soft are the meads thy humble wheel must wear, “And on the sofa oft thy book be thrown "Where Beauty waits, expectant and alone.

"Why hast o'erstepp'd the groove ordain'd by fate ?

"Load not thy talents with too large a freight;
"Safe with one oar on land, and one at sea;
"But the deep waters will imperil thee."
He spoke, and with his quill of ivory show'd
Across the smooth greensward a secret road,
Where, sunk in leaves, a grot with pebbles gay,
And roof'd with canopy of pumice, lay;
The Muses' image, and Silenus too,
And Pan's own pipe was there in order due;
There too the Cyprian's doves with rosy bill
Drain'd, darling birds, the Gorgon courser's rill;

And the nine maids that rule Art's varied field
Work'd each the gift their own fair fingers yield:
This binds the ivied wand, that twines the rose,
Another on the strings her rapture throws;
Then from that goddess-band there spoke to me
One fair enough for fair Calliope:

On snow-white swans be thou content to soar,

No warrior steed shall summon thee to war;

Be it not thine war's brazen note to sound,

"Or scare with clang of arms this haunted ground; Sing not the plains that saw the serried fight

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"Of Roman Marius crush the Teuton's might;

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Nor Rhine, whose wave ran mourning to the sea,

Red with the blood of German chivalry.

"But shall the spoil of midnight routs be thine, "The serenader's wreath, the reveller's wine, "That from their rooms thy verse the fair may charm,

"And rob a husband's jealousy of harm.”

She spoke, and to my lips the goddess gave The fresh-drawn strength of pure Philetas' wave.

IV.

Arma Deus Cæsar.

HE pearl-starr'd billows of the Indian main

THE

Great Cæsar cleaves, with warfare in his train. Heroes, what wealth! no land to bar your way, Euphrates, Tigris bending to your sway; Though late, shall Parthia feel the Roman rod, And all her spoils enrich a Latin god.