Hope to the anxious you restore, And when they taste your charms, Kings have no terrors for the poor, And soldiers no alarms.

Bacchus, and Venus, if she'll heed,
And Graces, slow to unveil,
And torches shall our revel speed
Until the stars are pale.

XXII.

TO DIANA.

O Virgin, guard of mount and cave
Who thrice invoked will hear,
In throes of childbirth women save,
And rescue from an early grave,

O three-formed goddess dear!

The pine that overhangs my door
I dedicate to thee;

And gladly every year, before
He learns to butt, I'll slay a boar,

Whose blood shall tinge the tree.

XXIII.

TO PHIDYLE

If when the moon is young you pray,
My simple Phidyle,

And to your gods due offerings pay,
You'll ever prosperous be.

Your vines no pestilence shall know,
Nor crops through blight decay;
When autumn's sickly breezes blow,
Your flocks shall scatheless stray.

'Mid Algidus's oaks of holm

The Pontiff's victims feed,
Or through Albanian pastures roam,
Soon by the axe to bleed.

"Tis not for you, who deck your gods With wreaths of rosemary,

'Tis not for you their low abodes With blood of sheep to dye.

When guiltless hands approach the shrine, Though no rich gifts they bring,

They please as much the powers divine As costly offering.

H

XXIV.

ON THE DEPRAVITY OF THE AGE.

Though wealthier far than Araby,
Or India's golden store,

You build your halls by every sea,
And stretch from shore to shore ;
If Fate her adamantine nails

Has hammered in your roof,
To ward off terror nought avails,
Or keep grim death aloof.
Happier the Scythian's grassy toil,
Whose home in carts is borne,
And Getans, whose unmeted soil
So freely yields the corn.

For one year and no more they please

To cultivate the mead;

And him who fairly earns his ease

Fresh hands in turn succeed.

There matrons with a mother's love

The helpless orphan rear ;

There wives though jointured faithful prove,

And still their lords revere.

No dower so prized as virtuous kin,

And firm-pledged chastity;

There laws command you not to sin,

Or, if you do, to die.

O! where is he will free the town

From civil strife and hate,

And stand one day in sculptured stone, 'The Saviour of the State'?

Let such our license check, and gain
The praise of after years,

For virtue safe we aye disdain,

But mourn her loss with tears.
Ah! what can sad complaints avail,
If crimes no vengeance find?

What use are laws if morals fail
Our consciences to bind ?
If traders scorching deserts brave,
Or shores congealed by snow,
If sailors breast the angry wave
While furious tempests blow?
'Tis Poverty, that vile disgrace,
Impels us with its goad
All crimes to dare, all perils face,
And leave rough virtue's road.
Then to the Capitol we'll go,

While crowds applaud, and there,

Or in the nearest sea, we'll throw
Away our treasures rare,

And gold, whence all our sorrows date;

If true repentance fire,

Our breast, 'tis right to extirpate

The source of vain desire.

More manly toils soft minds must train,

And weakling spirits brace;

Youths nobly born can't scour the plain,

And fear to join the chase;

More skilled are they with hoop at play,

Or dice to gain their ends ;

Their sires meanwhile their guests betray, And cheat their dearest friends.

And so for worthless heirs they haste
Their coffers huge to fill;

But though their wealth increases fast,
There's something wanting still.

XXV.

TO BACCHUS.

Where, Bacchus, dost hurry me full of thy might ? To what groves or what caves am I driven? Where now shall I think on great Cæsar aright, And be heard to exalt him to heaven?

Something noble and new, yet unsung will I say: As priestesses rave in unrest,

When Hebrus and snow-begirt Thrace they survey, And Rhodope's barbarous crest,

So it joys me to wander the desert rocks through,
And lonely groves, leafless and bare.

O Lord of the Naiads and Bacchanals too,
Whose rage not e'en forests will spare,

Nought lowly nor mortal shall breathe in my strain; What peril is sweeter than mine,

O Bacchus, to follow the god in his train,

Who garlands his brow with the vine?