So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine,—for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A Lyre immense, per se,
A Lyre to which the Muse might chant
A truly "Orphic tale,"
Could she but find that public want,
A Bard—of equal scale!
Oh, for a Bard of awful words,
And lungs serenely strong,
To sweep from your sonorous chords
Niagaras of song,
Till, dinned by that tremendous strain,
The grovelling world aghast,
Should leave its paltry greed of gain,
And mend its ways ... at last!
A ROMAN "ROUND-ROBIN."
("HIS FRIENDS" TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS.)
"Hæc decies repetita [non] placebit."—Ars Poetica.
Flaccus, you write us charming songs:
No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
To brief and bright addresses;
No man can say that Life is short
With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
In phrases less regretful;
Or touch, with more serene distress,
On Fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
From Alp to Adriatic: