The man of life, unstained and free from craft,
Ne'er needs, my Fuscus, Moorish darts to throw;
He needs no quiver filled with venomed shaft,
Nor e'er a bow.
Whether he fare thro' Afric's boiling shoals,
Or o'er the Caucasus inhospitable,
Or where the great Hydaspes river rolls,
Renowned in fable.
Once in a Sabine forest as I strayed
Beyond my boundary, by fancy charmed,
Singing my Lalage, a wolf, afraid,
Shunned me unarmed.
The broad oak-woods of hardy Daunia,
Rear no such monster mid their fiercest scions,
Nor Juba's arid Mauretania,
The nurse of lions.
Set me where, in the heart of frozen plains,
No tree is freshened by a summer wind,
A quarter of the globe enthralled by rains,
And Jove unkind;
Or set me 'neath the chariot of the Sun,
Where, overnear his fires, no homes may be;
I'll love, for her sweet smile and voice, but one—
My Lalage.
TRANQUILLITY
Should fortune frown, live thou serene;
Nor let thy spirit rise too high,
Though kinder grown she change the scene;
Bethink thee, Delius, thou must die.
Whether thy slow days mournful pass,
Or swiftly joyous fleet away,
While thou reclining on the grass
Dost bless with wine the festal day.
Where poplar white and giant pine
Ward off the inhospitable beam;
Where their luxuriant branches twine,
Where bickers down its course the stream,