inexorable to his captives, (oh impious! oh!) would have burned
speechless babes with Grecian fires, even him concealed in his mother's
womb: had not the father of the gods, prevailed upon by thy entreaties
and those of the beauteous Venus, granted to the affairs of Aeneas walls
founded under happier auspices. Thou lyrist Phoebus, tutor of the
harmonious Thalia, who bathest thy locks in the river Xanthus, O
delicate Agyieus, support the dignity of the Latian muse. Phoebus gave
me genius, Phoebus the art of composing verse, and the title of poet. Ye
virgins of the first distinction, and ye youths born of illustrious
parents, ye wards of the Delian goddess, who stops with her bow the
flying lynxes, and the stags, observe the Lesbian measure, and the
motion of my thumb; duly celebrating the son of Latona, duly
[celebrating] the goddess that enlightens the night with her shining
crescent, propitious to the fruits, and expeditious in rolling on the
precipitate months. Shortly a bride you will say: "I, skilled in the
measures of the poet Horace, recited an ode which was acceptable to the
gods, when the secular period brought back the festal days."

* * * * *



ODE VII.

TO TORQUATUS.


The snows are fled, the herbage now returns to the fields, and the
leaves to the trees. The earth changes its appearance, and the
decreasing rivers glide along their banks: the elder Grace, together