In his Return to Cuma
Swiftly my feet sustain me to the town,
Where men inhabit whom due honours crown,
Whose minds with free-given faculties are mov’d,
And whose grave counsels best of best approv’d.
Upon the Sepulchre of Midus Cut in Brass, in the Figure of a Virgin
A maid of brass I am, infixed here
T’ eternize honest Midus’ sepulchre;
And while the stream her fluent seed receives,
And steep trees curl their verdant brows with leaves,
While Phœbus rais’d above the earth gives sight,
And th’ humorous Moon takes lustre from his light,
While floods bear waves, and seas shall wash the shore,
At this his sepulchre, whom all deplore,
I’ll constantly abide; all passers by
Informing, “Here doth honest Midus lie.”
Cuma, refusing to eternize their State, Though Brought Thither by the Muses
O to what fate hath Father Jove given o’er
My friendless life, born ever to be poor!
While in my infant state he pleas’d to save me,
Milk on my reverend mother’s knees he gave me,
In delicate and curious nursery;
Æolian Smyrna, seated near the sea,
(Of glorious empire, and whose bright sides
Sacred Meletus’ silver current glides,)
Being native seat to me. Which, in the force
Of far-past time, the breakers of wild horse,
Phriconia’s noble nation, girt with tow’rs;
Whose youth in fight put on with fiery pow’rs,
From hence, the Muse-maids, Jove’s illustrous Seed,
Impelling me, I made impetuous speed,
And went with them to Cuma, with intent
T’ eternize all the sacred continent
And state of Cuma. They, in proud ascent
From off their bench, refus’d with usage fierce
The sacred voice which I aver is verse.
Their follies, yet, and madness borne by me,
Shall by some pow’r be thought on futurely,
To wreak of him whoever, whose tongue sought
With false impair my fall. What fate God brought
Upon my birth I’ll bear with any pain,
But undeserv’d defame unfelt sustain.
Nor feels my person (dear to me though poor)
Any great lust to linger any more
In Cuma’s holy highways; but my mind
(No thought impair’d, for cares of any kind
Borne in my body) rather vows to try
The influence of any other sky,
And spirits of people bred in any land
Of ne’er so slender and obscure command.
An Essay of his begun Iliads
Ilion, and all the brave-horse-breeding soil,
Dardania, I sing; that many a toil
Impos’d upon the mighty Grecian pow’rs,
Who were of Mars the manly servitours.
To Thestor’s Son[1] inquisitive about the Causes of Things
Thestorides! of all the skills unknown
To errant mortals, there remains not one
Of more inscrutable affair to find
Than is the true state of a human mind.