Classic Poem

Willing to sing upon my lyre,
The fights we dare, the tow'rs we scale;
Apollo bade me check my fond desire,
Nor on the vast Tyrrhenian spread my little sail.
Caesar, in this thy better age,
Again the fertile fields have throve;
And from proud Parthia's fanes thy godlike rage
Our standards has retook, and giv'n to Roman Jove.
And Janus' temple too is clos'd,
Good order from the peace deriv'd;
And curbs upon licentiousness impos'd,
Have banish'd vice afar, and ancient arts reviv'd.
From which the Latin name and strength
Of Italy are so increast,
And our imperial glory, breadth and length,
From the sun's western bed have reach'd remotest east.
While Caesar the dominion claims,
Nor civil rage nor active spite,
Can take us from our peace; nor wrath, whose flames
Forge hostile swords, and states in friendship disunite.
Not those that in deep Danube lave,
Shall now the Julian edicts scorn;
Nor Getans, Seres, or the treach'rous slave
Of Persia, nor the folk upon the Tanais born.
And we on work and festal days,
Amidst our cups of jovial wine;
With wives and children (first with pray'r and praise,
Having made application to the pow'rs divine)
Will, like our sires, in songs of joy,
With many a Lydian air between,
Sing our accepted chiefs Anchises, Troy,
And those descendant heirs of love's indulgent queen.