No More Learning

Bacchus I saw in mountain glades
Retired (believe it, after years! )
Teaching his strains to Dryad maids,
While goat-hoof'd satyrs prick'd their ears.
Evoe! my eyes with terror glare;
My heart is revelling with the god;
'Tis madness! Evoe! spare, O spare,
Dread wielder of the ivied rod!
Yes, I may sing the Thyiad crew,
The stream of wine, the sparkling rills
That run with milk, and honey-dew
That from the hollow trunk distils;
And I may sing thy consort's crown,
New set in heaven, and Pentheus' hall
With ruthless ruin thundering down,
And proud Lycurgus' funeral.
Thou turn'st the rivers, thou the sea;
Thou, on far summits, moist with wine,
Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly
Dost knot with living serpent-twine.
Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack,
Were clambering up Jove's citadel,
Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back,
In tooth and claw a lion fell.
Who knew thy feats in dance and play
Deem'd thee belike for war's rough game
Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray
Found thee, their centre, still the same.
Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see
Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong,
But gently fawning, follow'd thee,
And lick'd thy feet with triple tongue.




XX.

NON USITATA.


No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied,
Shall bear me through the liquid sky;
A two-form'd bard, no more to bide
Within the range of envy's eye
'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced
By gentle blood, I, whom you call
Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste
Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall.
E'en now a rougher skin expands
Along my legs: above I change
To a white bird; and o'er my hands
And shoulders grows a plumage strange:
Fleeter than Icarus, see me float
O'er Bosporus, singing as I go,
And o'er Gastulian sands remote,
And Hyperborean fields of snow;
By Dacian horde, that masks its fear
Of Marsic steel, shall I be known,
And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hear
My warbling, and the banks of Rhone.
No dirges for my fancied death;
No weak lament, no mournful stave;
All clamorous grief were waste of breath,
And vain the tribute of o grave.




BOOK III.


I.

ODI PROFANUM.


I bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt!
Keep holy silence; strains unknown
Till now, the Muses' hierophant,
I sing to youths and maids alone.
Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield;
E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow:
Victor in giant battle-field,
He moves all nature with his brow.
This man his planted walks extends
Beyond his peers; an older name
One to the people's choice commends;
One boasts a more unsullied fame;
One plumes him on a larger crowd
Of clients. What are great or small?
Death takes the mean man with the proud;
The fatal urn has room for all.
When guilty Pomp the drawn sword sees
Hung o'er her, richest feasts in vain
Strain their sweet juice her taste to please;
No lutes, no singing birds again
Will bring her sleep. Sleep knows no pride;
It scorns not cots of village hinds,
Nor shadow-trembling river-side,
Nor Tempe, stirr'd by western winds.
Who, having competence, has all,
The tumult of the sea defies,
Nor fears Arcturus' angry fall,
Nor fears the Kid-star's sullen rise,
Though hail-storms on the vineyard beat,
Though crops deceive, though trees complain,
One while of showers, one while of heat,
One while of winter's barbarous reign.
Fish feel the narrowing of the main
From sunken piles, while on the strand
Contractors with their busy train
Let down huge stones, and lords of land
Affect the sea: but fierce Alarm
Can clamber to the master's side:
Black Cares can up the galley swarm,
And close behind the horseman ride.
If Phrygian marbles soothe not pain,
Nor star-bright purple's costliest wear,
Nor vines of true Falernian strain,
Nor Achaemenian spices rare,
Why with rich gate and pillar'd range
Upbuild new mansions, twice as high,
Or why my Sabine vale exchange
For more laborious luxury?