The kids with pleasure browse the bushy plain;
The showers are grateful to the swelling grain;
To teeming ewes the sallow's tender tree;
But, more than all the world, my love to me.
Pollio my rural verse vouchsafes to read:
A heifer, Muses, for your patron breed.
My Pollio writes himself:-a bull he bred,
With spurning heels, and with a butting head.
Who Pollio loves, and who his Muse admires,
Let Pollio's fortune crown his full desires.
Let myrrh instead of thorn his fences fill,
And show'rs of honey from his oaks distil.
Who hates not living Bavius, let him be
(Dead Mævius!) damn'd to love thy works and thee! The same ill taste of sense would serve to join Dog-foxes in the yoke, and shear the swine.
Ye boys, who pluck the flow'rs, and spoil the spring,
Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting.
Graze not too near the banks, my jolly sheep:
The ground is false; the running streams are deep:
See, they have caught the father of the flock,
Who dries his fleece upon the neighb'ring rock.
From rivers drive the kids, and sling your hook
Anon I'll wash them in the shallow brook.
To fold, my flock!-when milk is dried with heat,
In vain the milk-maid tugs an empty teat.
How lank my bulls from plenteous pasture come!
But love, that drains the herd, destroys the groom. 155
My flocks are free from love, yet look so thin,
Their bones are barely covered with their skin.
What magic has bewitch'd the woolly dams,
And what ill eyes beheld the tender lambs?
Say, where the round of heav'n, which all contains, 160 To three short ells on earth our sight restrains:
Tell that, and raise a Phoebus for thy pains.
Nay tell me first, in what new region springs
A flow'r, that bears inscrib'd the names of kings;
And thou shalt gain a present as divine
As Phoebus' self: for Phyllis shall be thine.`
So nice a diff'rence in your singing lies,
That both have won, or both deserv'd the prize.
Rest equal happy both; and all who prove
The bitter sweets, and pleasing pains of love.
Now dam the ditches, and the floods restrain:
Their moisture has already dreuch'd the plain.
The Poet celebrates the birthday of Saloninus, the son of Pol lio, born in the consulship of his father, after the taking of Salon, a city in Dalmatia. Many of the verses are transla ted from one of the Sibyls, who prophesied of our Saviour's
SICILIAN Muse, begin a loftier strain!
Tho' lowly shrubs, and trees that shade the pla
Delight not all; Sicilian Muse, prepare
To make the vocal woods deserve à consul's care.
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finish'd course: Saturnian times
Roll round again; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb in radiant circles-run.
The base degen'rate iron offspring ends;
A golden progeny from heaven descends.
O chaste Lucina! speed the mother's pains;
And haste the glorious birth! thy own Apollo reigns!
The lovely boy, with his auspicious face,
Shall Pollio's consulship and triumph grace:
Majestic months set out(with him) to their appointed
The father banish'd virtue shall restore;
And crimes shall threat the guilty world no more.
The son shall lead the life of gods, and be
By gods and heroes seen, and gods and heroes see.
The jarring nations he in peace shan bind,
And with paternal virtues rule mankind.
Unbidden earth shall wreathing ivy bring,
And fragrant herbs (the promises of spring,)
As her first off'rings to her infant king.
The goats with strutting dugs shall homeward speed, 25
And lowing herds secure from lions feed.
His cradle shall with rising flow'rs be crown'd:
The serpent's brood shall die: the sacred ground
Shall weeds and pois'nous plants refuse to bear;
Each common bush shall Syrian roses wear.
But when heroic verse his youth shall raise,
And form it to hereditary praise,
Unlabour'd harvests shall the fields adorn,
And cluster'd grapes shall blush on every thorn;
The knotted oaks shall showers of honey weep;
And thro' the matted grass the liquid gold shall creep.
Yet, of old fraud some footsteps shall remain :
The merchant still shall plough the deep for gain:
Great cities shall with walls be compass'd round;
And sharpen'd shares shall vex the fruitful ground; 40
Another Tiphys shall new seas explore;
Another Argo land the chiefs upon th' Iberian shore;
Another Helen other wars create,
And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate.
But, when to ripen'd manhood he shall grow,
The greedy sailor shall the seas forego:
No keel shall cut the waves for foreign ware;
For every soil shall every product bear.
The lab'ring hind his oxen shall disjoin:
No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning-hook the
Nor wool shall in dissembled colour shine;
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple, and unborrow'd gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat;
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.
The Fates, when they this happy web have spun,
Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it smoothly run.
Mature in years, to ready honours move,
O, of celestial seed! O, foster-son of Jove!
See, lab'ring Nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding frame of heav'n, and earth, and main !
See to their base restor'd, earth, seas, and air;
And joyful ages, from behind, in crowding ranks appear.
To sing thy praise, would heav'n my breath prolong,
Infusing spirits worthy such a song,
Not Thracian Orpheus should transcend my lays,
Nor Linus crown'd with never fading bays;
Though each his heav'nly parent should inspire;
The Muse instruct the voice, and Phoebus tune the lyre.
Should Pan contend in verse, and thou my theme,
Arcadian judges should their god condemn.
Begin, auspicious boy! to cast about
Thy infant eyes, and, with a smile thy mother single out.
Thy mother well deserves that short delight.
The nauseous qualms of ten long months and travail to
Then smile the frowning infant's doom is read:
No god shall crown the board, nor goddess bless the bed.
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