My Phidyle, retir'd in shady wild,
If thou thy virgin hands shalt suppliant raise,
If primal fruits are on thy altars pil'd,
And incense pure thy duteous care conveys,
To sooth the Lares, when the moon adorns,
With their first modest light, her taper horns;
And if we pierce the throat of infant swine,
A frugal victim, not the baleful breath
Of the moist South shall blast our tender vine;
Nor shall the lambs sink in untimely death
When the unwholesome gales of Autumn blow,
And shake the ripe fruit from the bending bough.
Let snowy Algidum's wide vallies feed,
Beneath their stately holme, and spreading oak,
Or the rich herbage of Albania's mead,
The Steer, whose blood on lofty Shrines shall smoke!
Red may it stain the Priest's uplifted knife,
And glut the higher Powers with costly life!
The rosemary and myrtle's simple crown
Thou on our household Gods, with decent care
Art gently placing; and they will not frown;
No stern demand is theirs, that we prepare
Rich Flocks, and Herds, at Duty's solemn call,
And, in the pomp of slaughter, bid them fall.
O! if an innocent hand approach the shrine,
The little votive cake it humbly lays,
The crackling salt, that makes the altar shine,
Flung on the cheerful sacrificial blaze,
To the mild Lares shall be grateful found
As the proud Steer, with all his garlands crown'd.
TO MELPOMENE.
BOOK THE FOURTH, ODE THE THIRD.
Not he, O Muse! whom thy auspicious eyes
In his primeval hour beheld,
Shall victor in the Isthmian Contest rise;
Nor o'er the long-resounding field
Impetuous steeds his kindling wheels shall roll,
Gay in th' Olympic Race, and foremost at the goal.
Nor in the Capitol, triumphant shown,
The victor-laurel on his brow,
For Cities storm'd, and vaunting Kings o'erthrown;—
But Tibur's streams, that warbling flow,
And groves of fragrant gloom, resound his strains,
Whose sweet Æolian grace high celebration gains.
Now that his name, her noblest Bards among,
Th' imperial City loudly hails,
That proud distinction guards his rising song,
When Envy's carping tongue assails;
In sullen silence now she hears his praise,
Nor sheds her canker'd spots upon his springing bays.