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The softer spirit of the Sapphic muse.
The polished pillar different sculptures grace;
A work outlasting monumental brass.
Here smiling Loves and Bacchanals appear,
The Julian star, and great Augustus here.
The doves that round the infant poet spread 230
Myrtles and bays, hung hovering o'er his
head.

235

Here in a shrine that cast a dazzling light, Sate fixed in thought the mighty Stagirite; His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned, And various animals his sides surround; His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view Superior worlds, and look all nature through. With equal rays immortal Tully shone, The Roman rostra decked the consul's throne:

as another which follows, to

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius."

The action of the doves hints at a passage in the fourth ode of his third book:

"Me fabulosæ Vulture in Apulo
Altricis extra limen Apuliæ,
Ludo fatigatumque somno,
Fronde nova puerum palumbes

Texere; mirum quod foret omnibus-
Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis
Dormirem et ursis; ut premerer sacra
Lauroque, collataque myrto,

Non sine dis animosus infans."

Which may be thus Englished:

"While yet a child, I chanced to stray,
And in a desert sleeping lay;

The savage race withdrew, nor dared
To touch the Muses' future bard;
But Cytherea's gentle dove

Myrtles and bays around me spread,
And crowned your infant poet's head,
Sacred to music and to love."-P.

Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to

stand

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244

In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.
Behind, Rome's genius waits with civic crowns,
And the great father of his country owns.
These massy columns in a circle rise,
O'er which a pompous dome invades the skies:
Scarce to the top I stretched my aching sight,
So large it spread, and swelled to such a height.
Fall in the midst proud Fame's imperial seat
With jewels blazed, magnificently great;
The vivid emeralds there revive the eye,
The flaming rubies show their sanguine dye,
Bright azure rays from lively sapphires stream,
And lucid amber casts a golden gleam.
With various-coloured light the pavement

shone,

250

And all on fire appeared the glowing throne; 255 The dome's high arch reflects the mingled blaze,

And forms a rainbow of alternate rays.
When on the goddess first I cast my sight,
Scarce seemed her stature of a cubit's height;'
But swelled to larger size, the more I gazed, 260
Till to the roof her towering front she raised.
With her, the temple every moment grew,
And ampler vistas opened to my view:
Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,
And arches widen, and long aisles extend. 265
Such was her form, as ancient bards have told,

1 66

Methought that she was so lite,

That the length of a cubite

Was longer than she seemed be;
But thus soon in a while she,

Herself tho wonderly straight,

That with her feet she the earthe reight,

And with her head she touched heaven"- -P.

Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold; A thousand busy tongues the goddess bears, And thousand open eyes, and thousand listening ears.

Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful Nine1 270 (Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine: With eyes on Fame for ever fixed, they sing: For Fame they raise the voice, and tune the string:

With Time's first birth began the heavenly lays, And last, eternal, through the length of days. Around these wonders as I cast a look,2 276 The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook, And all the nations, summoned at the call, From different quarters fill the crowded hall: Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard;

280

In various garbs promiscuous throngs appeared; Thick as the bees, that with the spring renew Their flowery toils, and sip the fragrant dew, When the winged colonies first tempt the sky, O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly, 285 Or settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield,

1 "I heard about her throne y-sung
That all the palays walles rung;
So sung the mighty Muse, she
That cleped is Calliope,

And her eighte sisters eke ". -P.
2 "I heard a noise approchen blive,
That fared as bees done in a hive,
Against their time of out flying;
Right such a manere murmuring,
For all the world it seemed me.
Tho gan I look about and see
That there came entring into th' hall,
A right great company withal;
And that of sundry regions,

Of all kind of conditions," &c.-P.

And a low murmur runs along the field.
Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend,
And all degrees before the goddess bend;
The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage, 290
And boasting youth, and narrative old age.
Their pleas were different, their request the

same:

For good and bad alike are fond of fame. Some she disgraced, and some with honours crowned;

1

295

Unlike successes equal merits found.
Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns,
And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
First at the shrine the learned world appear,
And to the goddess thus prefer their prayer.
"Long have we sought to instruct and please
mankind,
With studies pale, with midnight vigils blind;
But thanked by few, rewarded yet by none,
We here appeal to thy superior throne:
On wit and learning the just prize bestow,
For fame is all we must expect below."

300

305

The goddess heard, and bade the Muses raise
The golden trumpet of eternal praise :
From pole to pole the winds diffuse the sound,
That fills the circuit of the world around;
Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud; 310
The notes at first were rather sweet than loud:
By just degrees they every moment rise,
Fill the wide earth, and gain upon the skies.
At
every breath were balmy odours shed,
Which still grew sweeter as they wider spread;

1 "And some of them she granted sone,
And some she warned well and fair,
And some she granted the contrair—
Right as her sister dame Fortune,
Is wont to serven in commune."-P.

I

314

Less fragrant scents the unfolding rose exhales, Or spices breathing in Arabian gales.

Next these the good and just, an awful train,'

320

Thus on their knees address the sacred fane. "Since living virtue is with envy cursed, And the best men are treated like the worst, Do thou, just goddess, call our merits forth, And give each deed the exact intrinsic worth." "Not with bare justice shall your act be crowned,

324

(Said Fame), but high above desert renowned: Let fuller notes the applauding world amaze, And the loud clarion labour in your praise."

This band dismissed, behold another crowd Preferred the same request, and lowly bowed; The constant tenor of whose well spent days No less deserved a just return of praise. But straight the direful trump of slander sounds; Through the big dome the doubling thunder bounds;

Loud as the burst of cannon rends the skies,

1 "Tho came the thirde companye,
And gan up to the dees to hye,
And down on knees they fell anone,
And saiden: We ben everichone
Folke that han full truely

Deserved fame rightfully,

And prayen you it might be knowe
Right as it is, and forthe blowe.

"I grant, (quoth she,) for now me list

That your good works shall be wist.
And yet ye shall have better loos,
Right in despite of all your foos,
Than worthy is, and that anone.
Let now (quoth she) thy trumpe gone-
And certes all the breath that went
Out of his trumpes mouthe smel’d
As men a pot of baume held

Among a basket full of roses."-P.

331