From crowds dissenting Virtue stands confest, Nor ranks restored Phraates ’mongst the blest; And still from error weans the general mind
By truth refined.
Awarding power secure-the stedfast crown,
The laurel, meed peculiar of renown-
To him alone, whose eyes unmoved behold
Bright glistning gold.
Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo :
Favete linguis: carmina non priùs
Audita, Musarum Sacerdos
Virginibus puerisque canto,
Regum timendorum in proprios greges,
Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis,
Clari Gigantæo triumpho,
Cuncta supercilio moventis.
Est ut viro vir latiùs ordinet
Arbusta sulcis: hic generosior
Descendat in campum petitor:
Moribus hic meliorque famâ
Contendat: illi turba clientium
Sit major. Æquâ lege necessitas
Sortitur insignes et imos;
Omne capax movet urna nomen.
DULL worldling's hateful hand forbear,
Let silence guard ill-omened speech,
The Muses' priest, in strains full rare
I first pure youth and virgins teach.
The monarch rules with dread command;
Above the monarch's power is Jove's,
The Giants felt his red right hand,
His nod a conscious world approves.
One may his fair domain extend,
More wide than others modest claim;
This nobler to Mars' plain descend,
That urge his life and better fame.
Some mark with crowding train the spot;
All stern necessity o'ertakes,
Both great and abject; every lot
The restless urn capacious shakes.
Districtus ensis cui super impiâ
Cervice pendet, non Siculæ dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem,
Non avium citharæque cantus
Somnum reducent. Somnus agrestium
Lenis virorum non humiles domos
Fastidit, umbrosamque ripam,
Non Zephyris agitata Tempe.
Desiderantem quod satis est, neque
Tumultuosum sollicitat mare,
Nec sævus Arcturi cadentis
Impetus, aut orientis Hoedi:
Non verberatæ grandine vineæ,
Fundusque mendax; arbore nunc aquas
Culpante, nunc torrentia agros
Sidera, nunc hyemes iniquas.
Contracta pisces æquora sentiunt,
Jactis in altum molibus. Huc frequens
Cæmenta demittit redemptor
Cum famulis, dominusque terræ
In vain the gorgeous banquet's spread;
If bare the sword's keen point depends
In terror o'er the guilty head,
Sweet sleep no more the Lyre attends,
Nor birds' light warbling. Gentle sleep
Shuns not the peasant's lowly home,
The distant bank o'ershaded deep,
Nor vales where rustling zephyrs roam.
The breast, where rule no large desires,
Fears not the ocean's rudest form,
The pale Arcturus' setting fires,
Nor Hædus lowering with the storm;
Nor vines by hail untimely beat,
And farm rewarding not his pains ;
The tree now plaining stars' fierce heat,
Now frosts, and now the wasting rains.
Mute fishes know the waters shrunk
From pond'rous bulk; here shapeless store
The builder views in masses sunk-
Fastidious too of native shore,
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