For mighty Mars, the dreadful god of arms,
Who wakes or stills the battle's dire alarms,
In love's strong fetters by thy charms is bound,
And languishes with an eternal wound.

Oft from his bloody toil the god retires

To quench in thy embrace his fierce desires.
Soft on thy heaving bosom he reclines,
And round thy yielding neck transported twines;
There fix'd in ecstacy intense surveys
Thy kindling beauties with insatiate gaze,
Grows to thy balmy mouth, and ardent sips
Celestial sweets from thy ambrosial lips.
O while the god with fiercest raptures blest
Lies all dissolving on thy sacred breast,
O breathe thy melting whispers to his ear,
And bid him still the loud alarms of war.
In these tumultuous days the Muse in vain,
Her steady tenour lost, pursues the strain,
And Memmius's generous soul disɑ ins to taste
The calm delights of philosophic rest;
Paternal fires his beating breast inflame,
To rescue Rome, and vindicate her name

HORACE, BOOK II. ODE X.

Rectius vives, Licini WOULDST thou through life securely glide, Nor boundless o'er the ocean ride; Nor ply too near th' insidious shore, Scared at the tempest's threat'ning roar. The man who follows Wisdom's voice, And makes the golden mean his choice, Nor plunged in antique gloomy cells 'Midst hoary desolation dwells;

Nor to allure the envious eye

Rears his proud palace to the sky.

The pine, that all the grove transcends,
With every blast the tempest rends;
Totters the tower with thund'rous sound,
And spreads a mighty ruin round;
Jove's bolt with desolating blow
Strikes the ethereal mountain's brow.

The man, whose steadfast soul can bear
Fortune indulgent or severe,

Hopes when she frowns, and when she smiles

With cautious fear eludes her wiles.

Jove with rude winter wastes the plain,

Jove decks the rosy spring again.

Life's former ills are overpast,
Nor will the present always last.

Now Phoebus wings his shafts, and now
He lays aside th' unbended bow,
Strikes into life the trembling string,
And wakes the silent Muse to sing.
With unabating courage, brave
Adversity's tumultuous wave;
When too propitious breezes rise,
And the light vessel swiftly flies,
With timid caution catch the gale,
And shorten the distended sail.

HORACE, BOOK III. ODE XIII.

O Fons Blandusiæ

BLANDUSIA! more than crystal clear!
Whose soothing murmurs charm the ear!
Whose margin soft with flowrets crown'd
Invites the festive band around,

Their careless limbs diffused supine,
To quaff the soul-enlivening wine.
To thee a tender kid I vow,
That aims for fight his budding brow;
In thought, the wrathful combat prove
Or wantons with his little loves:
But vain are all his purposed schemes,
Delusive all his flattering dreams;
To-morrow shall his fervent blood
Stain the pure silver of thy flood.

When fiery Sirius blasts the plain,
Untouch'd thy gelid streams remain.
To thee, the fainting flocks repair,
To taste thy cool reviving air;
To thee, the ox with toil opprest,

And lays his languid limbs to rest.

As springs of old renown'd, thy name, Biest fountain! I devote to fame; Thus while I sing in deathless lays, The verdant holm, whose waving sprays, Thy sweet retirement to defend,

High o'er the moss grown rock impend, Whence prattling in loquacious play Thy sprightly waters leap away.

THE PASTORALS OF VIRGIL.

Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem
Quod te imitari aveo

Lucret. lib. iii.

PASTORAL I.*

MELIBUS, TITYRUS.

Melibæus.

WHERE the broad beech an ample shade displays,
Your slender reed resounds the sylvan lays,
O happy Tityrus! while we, forlorn,

Driven from our lands, to distant climes are borne,
Stretch'd careless in the peaceful shade you sing,
And all the groves with Amaryllis ring.

It has been observed by some critics, who have treated of pastoral poetry, that, in every poem of this kind, it is proper that the scene or landscape, connected with the little plot or fable on which the poem is founded, be delineated with at least as much accuracy as is sufficient to render the description particular and pictur sque. How far Virgil has thought fit to attend to such a rule may appear from the Temarks which the translator has subjoined to every pastoral.

The scene of the first pastoral is pictured out with great accuracy. The shepherds Melibœus and Tityrus are represented as conversing together beneath a spreading beech-tree. Flocks and herds are leding hard by. At a little distance we behold, on the one hand a great rock, and on the other a fence of flowering willows. The prospect as it widens is diver itied with groves, and streams, and some tall Frees, particularly elms. Beyond all these appear marsby grounds, and rocky his. The ragged and drooping flock of the unfortunate shepherd particularly the she-goat which he leads along, are no incon-iderable figures in this picture.-The time is the evening of a summerday, a little before sunset. See of the original, v. 1. 5. 9. 52. 51. 57. 59. 81, &c.

This pastoral is said to have been written on the following occasion. Augustus, in order to reward the services of his veterans, by means of whồn: he had established himself in the Roman empire, distributed among them the lands that lay contiguous to Mantua and Cremona. To make way for these intruders, the rightful owners, of whom Virgil was one, were turned out. But our poet, by the intercession of Mecænus, was reinstated in his possessions. Melibaus here personates one of the unhappy exiles, and Virgil is represented under the character of Tityrus.

Tityrus.

This peace to a propitious god I owe;

None else, my friend, such blessings could bestow.
Him will I celebrate with rights divine,

And frequent lambs shall stain his sacred shrine.
By him, these feeding herds in safety stray;
By him, in peace I pipe the rural lay.

Melibœus.

I envy not, but wonder at your fate,

That no alarms invade this blest retreat;

While neighbouring fields the voice of woe resound.
And desolation rages all around.

Worn with fatigue I slowly onward bend,
And scarce my feeble fainting goats attend.
My hand this sickly dam can hardly bear,

Whose young new yean'd (ah once an hopeful pair!)
Amid the tangling hazels as they lay,

On the sharp flint were left to pine away.
These ills I had foreseen, but that my mind
To all portents and prodigies was blind.
Oft have the blasted oaks foretold my woe:
And often has the inauspicious crow,
Perch'd on the wither'd holm, with fateful cries
Scream'd in my ear her dismal prophecies.

But say, O Tityrus, what god bestows

This blissful life of undisturb'd repose?

Tityrus.

Imperial Rome, while yet to me unknown,

I vainly liken'd to our country town,

Our little Mantua, at which is sold

The yearly offspring of our fruitful fold:

As in the whelp the father's shape appears,
And as the kid its mother's semblance bears.
Thus greater things my inexperienced mind
Rated by others of inferior kind.