Classic Poem

Come down from heaven, Calliope, and sing,
O queen, an ode sustained, or to the flute
With voice high-pitched, or if to match the string
Thou rather choose of lyre or Phoebus' lute.

Hear ye? Or doth upon my senses play
Illusion sweet? Meseems her strains I hear
About me, while through hallowed groves I stray
Pierced by soft airs and brooks of water clear.

Once on Apulian Vultur, past the bound
Of my nurse-land Apulia, when, a child,
I played, the doves of legend gathering round
On my tired limbs o'ercome with slumber piled

A coverlet of green leaves—portent to fill
All who in Acherontia nestling high
Dwell, or on Bantia's upland lawns, or till
Rich fields that deep in low Forentium lie

With awe and wonder, how, from danger kept
Of the black vipers' venom and of bear,
'Neath sacred bays and myrtle heaped I slept,
Brave babe, of gods indeed the special care.

Yours am I, Muses, when to Sabine height
Rapt up, or if Praeneste's breezy down,
Or Tibur's hanging wood with more delight
My fancy takes, or Baiae, radiant town.

For that your fountains and your haunts to me
Are dear, safe through Philippi's rout I sped,
And 'scaped that tree accursed, and the sea
Of Sicily by Palinurus head.

When ye are with me blithely will I start
The raging straits of Bosphorus to explore,
And tread, a traveller of undaunted heart,
The burning desert of the Assyrian shore.

The Britons who their spite on strangers wreak,
The Concans who on horses' blood regale,
The quiver-girt Gelonians will I seek,
And roam unharmed the Scythian river's vale.

Ye in some cool Pierian grot provide
For noble Caesar recreation sweet,
When, sending in their townships to abide
His war-worn troops, from toil he would retreat.

Ye give ripe counsel, in the giving too
Kind pleasure take. We know the tale full well,
How on the wicked Titans' giant crew
Swift thunderbolts with dire destruction fell,

Shot forth by him who rules the sluggish earth
And windy sea, o'er towns, the nether fields
Of sorrow, gods, and crowds of mortal birth
One just and universal empire wields.

Grave fear those youths into the heart of Jove
Had struck, each bristling o'er with many a hand
Defiant, and the twins who Pelion strove
Upon tree-clad Olympus' top to stand.

But could Typhoeus or the mighty thews
Of Mimas, could Porphyrion towering vast,
Rhoetus, and bold Enceladus wont to use
Uprooted trunks upon his foes to cast,

Dashing 'gainst Pallas' clanging aegis aught
Avail? Here Vulcan thirsting to attack,
Queen Juno there, and he, ne'er to be caught
Without his bow slung ready on his back,

Who loves in Castaly's pure dew to dip
His flowing locks, who of his native wood
And Lycian thickets holds the guardianship—
Delos' and Patara's lord, Apollo stood.

Force without guiding mind by its own weight
O'erbalanced falls. Trained force to higher ends
The gods help forward; but brute strength they hate
That to all evil aims its efforts bends.

Hundred-armed Gyas of my meaning stands
Example, and to all Orion known,
Who tried on chaste Diana to lay hands,
And by a maiden's arrow was o'erthrown.

Earth on her monsters heaved is filled with woe,
Mourning her sons by lightning to the gloom
Of Orcus hurled. Ne'er served quick fire below
The incumbent mass of Etna to consume,

Nor of lewd Tityos' liver loosed his hold
The warder fowl set o'er him to restrain
From shameful crime. Bonds thrice an hundred-fold
The ravisher Pirithous detain.