O'er wanton Tityus' heart the bird,

That miscreant's gaoler, still doth hover;

And still Pirithöus, lawless lover,

Do thrice a hundred fetters gird.

ODE 5.

JOVE we call King, whose bolts rive heaven: Then a god's presence shall be felt

In Cæsar, with whose power the Celt And Parthian stout in vain have striven.

Could Crassus' men wed alien wives,

And greet, as sons-in-law, the foe?

In the foes' land (oh Romans, oh Lost honour!) end, in shame, their lives,

'Neath the Mede's sway? They, Marsians and Apulians-shields and rank and name

Forgot, and that undying flame—

And Jove still reign, and Rome still stand?

This thing wise Regulus could presage:

He brooked not base conditions; he

Set not a precedent to be

The ruin of a coming age:

"No," cried he, "let the captives die,

Spare not. I saw Rome's ensigns hung In Punic shrines; with sabres, flung Down by Rome's sons ere blood shed. I

"Saw our free citizens with hands

Fast pinioned; and, through portals now

Flung wide, our soldiers troop to plough, As once they trooped to waste, the lands.

"Bought by our gold, our men will fight

But keener.' What? To shame would you Add loss? As wool, its natural hue Once gone, may not be painted white;

"True Valour, from her seat once thrust, Is not replaced by meaner wares.

Do stags, delivered from the snares, Fight? Then shall he fight, who did trust

"His life to foes who spoke a lie:

And his sword shatter Carthage yet,

Around whose arms the cords have met,

A sluggard soul, that feared to die!

"Life, howe'er bought, he treasured: he

Deemed war a thing of trade. Ah fie!—
Great art thou, Carthage-towerest high

O'er shamed and ruined Italy!"

As one uncitizen'd-men said

He put his wife's pure kiss away, His little children; and did lay Stern in the dust his manly head:

Till those unequalled words had lent

Strength to the faltering sires of Rome;

Then from his sorrowstricken home Went forth to glorious banishment.

Yet knew he, what wild tortures lay
Before him knowing, put aside

His kin, his countrymen-who tried
To bar his path, and bade him stay:

He might be hastening on his way,—
A lawyer freed from business-down
To green Venafrum, or a town
Of Sparta, for a holiday.

ODE 6.

THOU 'lt rue thy fathers' sins, not thine, Till built the temples be, replaced

The statues, foul and smoke-defaced,Roman,—and reared each tottering shrine.

Thou rul'st but under heaven's hand.

Thence all beginnings come, all ends.
Neglected, mark what woes it sends

On this our miserable land.

Twice Pacorus and Monæses foiled

Our luckless onset: huge their glee, When to their necklaces they see Hanging the wealth of Rome despoiled.

Dacian and Æthiop nigh laid low

Our state, with civil feuds o'errun; One with his fleet dismayed her, one Smote her with arrows from his bow.