YET on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride, O ship? What dost thou? Seek a hav’n, and there Rest thee: for lo! thy side Is oarless all and bare,
And the swift south-west wind hath maimed thy mast, And thy yards creak, and, every cable lost, Yield must thy keel at last On pitiless sea-waves tossed
Too rudely. Goodly canvas is not thine, Nor gods, to hear thee now, when need is sorest:— Though thou—a Pontic pine, Child of a stately forest,—
Boastest high name and empty pedigree, Pale seamen little trust the gaudy sail: Stay, unless doomed to be The plaything of the gale.
Flee—what of late sore burden was to me, Now a sad memory and a bitter pain,— Those shining Cyclads flee That stud the far-off main.
UNSHAMED, unchecked, for one so dear We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir, Melpomene, to whom thy sire Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear!
Sleeps He the sleep that knows no morn? Oh Honour, oh twin-born with Right, Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light, When shall again his like be born?
Many a kind heart for Him makes moan; Thine, Virgil, first. But ah! in vain Thy love bids heaven restore again That which it took not as a loan:
Were sweeter lute than Orpheus given To thee, did trees thy voice obey; The blood revisits not the clay Which He, with lifted wand, hath driven
Into his dark assemblage, who Unlocks not fate to mortal’s prayer. Hard lot! Yet light their griefs who BEAR The ills which they may not undo.
TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA. OD. iii. 13.
BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky! Thine is the flower-crown’d bowl, for thee shall die, When dawns again yon sun, the kid; Whose budding horns, half-seen, half-hid,
Challenge to dalliance or to strife—in vain! Soon must the hope of the wild herd be slain, And those cold springs of thine With blood incarnadine.
Fierce glows the Dog-star, but his fiery beam Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream To labour-wearied ox, Or wanderer from the flocks:
And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain: My harp shall tell how from yon cavernous mountain, Topt by the brown oak-tree, Thou breakest babblingly.
SPOUSE of penniless Ibycus, Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies, All thy studious infamy:— Nearing swiftly the grave—(that not an early one)— Cease girls’ sport to participate, Blurring stars which were else cloudlessly brilliant. What suits her who is beautiful Suits not equally thee: rightly devastates Thy fair daughter the homes of men, Wild as Thyad, who wakes stirred by the kettle-drums. Nothus’ beauty constraining her, Like some kid at his play, holds she her revelry: Thy years stately Luceria’s Wools more fitly become—not din of harpsichords, Not pink-petallèd roseblossoms, Not casks drained by an old lip to the sediment.