“Well hast thou spoke, and well thy generous tongue
With decent pride refutes a public wrong: 
Warm are thy words, but warm without offence;
Fear only fools, secure in men of sense;
Thy worth is known.  Then hear our country’s claim,
And bear to heroes our heroic fame: 
In distant realms our glorious deeds display,
Repeat them frequent in the genial day;
When, blest with ease, thy woes and wanderings end,
Teach them thy consort, bid thy sons attend;
How, loved of Jove, he crown’d our sires with praise,
How we their offspring dignify our race.

“Let other realms the deathful gauntlet wield,
Or boast the glories of the athletic field: 
We in the course unrivall’d speed display,
Or through cerulean billows plough the way;
To dress, to dance, to sing, our sole delight,
The feast or bath by day, and love by night: 
Rise, then, ye skill’d in measures; let him bear
Your fame to men that breathe a distant air;
And faithful say, to you the powers belong
To race, to sail, to dance, to chant the song.

“But, herald, to the palace swift repair,
And the soft lyre to grace our pastimes bear.”

Swift at the word, obedient to the king,
The herald flies the tuneful lyre to bring. 
Up rose nine seniors, chosen to survey
The future games, the judges of the day
With instant care they mark a spacious round
And level for the dance the allotted ground: 
The herald bears the lyre:  intent to play,
The bard advancing meditates the lay. 
Skill’d in the dance, tall youths, a blooming band,
Graceful before the heavenly minstrel stand: 
Light bounding from the earth, at once they rise,
Their feet half-viewless quiver in the skies: 
Ulysses gazed, astonish’d to survey
The glancing splendours as their sandals play. 
Meantime the bard, alternate to the strings,
The loves of Mars and Cytherea sings: 
How the stern god, enamour’d with her charms
Clasp’d the gay panting goddess in his arms,
By bribes seduced; and how the sun, whose eye
Views the broad heavens, disclosed the lawless joy. 
Stung to the soul, indignant through the skies
To his black forge vindictive Vulcan flies: 
Arrived, his sinewy arms incessant place
The eternal anvil on the massy base. 
A wondrous net he labours, to betray
The wanton lovers, as entwined they lay,
Indissolubly strong; Then instant bears
To his immortal dome the finish’d snares: 
Above, below, around, with art dispread,
The sure inclosure folds the genial bed: 
Whose texture even the search of gods deceives,
Thin as the filmy threads the spider weaves,
Then, as withdrawing from the starry bowers,
He feigns a journey to the Lemnian shores,
His favourite isle:  observant Mars descries
His wish’d recees, and to the goddess flies;
He glows, he burns, the fair-hair’d queen of love
Descends, smooth gliding from the courts of Jove,
Gay blooming in full charms:  her hand he press’d
With eager joy, and with a sigh address’d: