TRANSLATIONS FROM HORACE.
TO VENUS.
BOOK I., ODE XXX.
Oh! leave thine own loved isle,
Bright Queen of Cyprus and the Paphian shores!
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.
BOOK I., ODE XXXVIII.
I hate the Persian’s costly pride:
The wreaths with bands of linden tied—
These, boy, delight me not;
Nor where the lingering roses bide
Seek thou for me the spot.
For me be naught 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 II., ODE III.
Firm be thy soul!—serene in power,
When adverse fortune clouds the sky;
Undazzled by the triumph’s hour,
Since, Delius, thou must die—
Alike, if still to grief resign’d,
Or if, through festal days, ’tis thine
To quaff, in grassy haunts reclined,
The old Falernian wine—
Haunts where the silvery poplar-boughs
Love with the pine’s to blend on high,
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
From Inachus thy glorious line?
Or, sprung from some ignoble race,
If not a roof be thine?
Since the dread lot for all must leap
Forth from the dark revolving urn,
And we must tempt the gloomy deep,
Whence exiles ne’er return.
TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA.
BOOK III., ODE XIII.
Oh! worthy fragrant gifts of flowers and wine,
Bandusian fount, than crystal far more bright!
To-morrow shall a sportive kid be thine,
Whose forehead swells with horns of infant might:
Ev’n 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,
The genial freshness of their breath shall yield.
And thou, bright fount! ennobled and renown’d
Shalt by thy poet’s votive song be made;
Thou and the oak with deathless verdure crown’d,
Whose boughs, a pendant canopy, o’ershade
Those hollow rocks, whence, murmuring many a tale,
Thy chiming waters pour upon the vale.
TO FAUNUS.
BOOK III., ODE XVIII.
Faunus! who lovest the flying nymphs to chase,
Oh, let thy steps with genial influence tread
My sunny fields, and be thy fostering grace
Soft on my nursling groves and borders shed;
If, at the mellow closing of the year,
A tender kid in sacrifice be thine,
Nor fail the liberal bowls to Venus dear,
Nor clouds of incense to thine antique shrine.
Joyous each flock in meadow herbage plays,
When the December feast returns to thee;
Calmly the ox along the pasture strays,
With festal villagers from toil set free.
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
In triple dance have struck the hated ground.