Ours the task to take in time
This baleful lust, and crush it in the bud. 
Ours to mould our weakling sons
To nobler sentiment and manlier deed: 
Now the noble’s first-born shuns
The perilous chase, nor learns to sit his steed: 
Set him to the unlawful dice,
Or Grecian hoop, how skilfully he plays! 
While his sire, mature in vice,
A friend, a partner, or a guest betrays,
Hurrying, for an heir so base,
To gather riches.  Money, root of ill,
Doubt it not, still grows apace: 
Yet the scant heap has somewhat lacking still.

XXV.

Quo me, BACCHE.

Whither, Bacchus, tear’st thou me,
Fill’d with thy strength?  What dens, what forests these,
Thus in wildering race I see? 
What cave shall hearken to my melodies,
Tuned to tell of Caesar’s praise
And throne him high the heavenly ranks among? 
Sweet and strange shall be my lays,
A tale till now by poet voice unsung. 
As the Evian on the height,
Housed from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,
Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,
And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,
So my truant eyes admire
The banks, the desolate forests.  O great King
Who the Naiads dost inspire,
And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring! 
Not a lowly strain is mine,
No mere man’s utterance.  O, ’tis venture sweet
Thee to follow, God of wine,
Making the vine-branch round thy temples meet!

XXVI.

VIRI PUELLIS.

     For ladies’s love I late was fit,
       And good success my warfare blest,
     But now my arms, my lyre I quit,
       And hang them up to rust or rest. 
     Here, where arising from the sea
       Stands Venus, lay the load at last,
     Links, crowbars, and artillery,
       Threatening all doors that dared be fast. 
     O Goddess!  Cyprus owns thy sway,
       And Memphis, far from Thracian snow: 
     Raise high thy lash, and deal me, pray,
       That haughty Chloe just one blow!

XXVII.

IMPIOS PARRAE.

When guilt goes forth, let lapwings shrill,
And dogs and foxes great with young,
And wolves from far Lanuvian hill,
Give clamorous tongue: 
Across the roadway dart the snake,
Frightening, like arrow loosed from string,
The horses.  I, for friendship’s sake,
Watching each wing,
Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,
The harbinger of tempest flies,
Will call the raven, croaking harsh,
From eastern skies. 
Farewell!—­and wheresoe’er you go,
My Galatea, think of me: 
Let lefthand pie and roving crow
Still leave you free. 
But mark with what a front of fear
Orion lowers.  Ah! well I know
How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear