Classic Poem

ODE III.— TO THE SHIP BEARING VIRGIL TO GREECE .

May Love's own planet guide thee o'er the wave!
Brightly aloft
H ELEN'S star-brother's twinkling,
And Æ OLUS chain all his children, save
A west-wind soft
Thy liquid pathway wrinkling,
Galley! to whom we trust, on thy parole,
Our V IRGIL ,—mark
Thou bear him in thy bosom
Safe to the land of G REECE ; for half my soul,
O gallant bark!
Were lost if I should lose him.

A breast of bronze full sure, and ribs of oak,
Where his who first
Defied the tempest-demon:
Dared in a fragile skiff the blast provoke,
And boldly burst
Forth on the deep a Seaman!
Whom no conflicting hurricanes could daunt,
Nor B OREAS chill,
Nor weeping H YADS sadden,
E'en on yon gulf, whose lord, the loud L EVANI
Can calm at will,
Or to wild frenzy madden.

What dismal form must Death put on for him
Whose cold eye mocks
The dark deep's huge indwellers!
Who calm athwart the billows sees the grim
C ERAUNIA rocks,
Of wail and woe tale-tellers!—
Though Providence poured out its ocean-flood,
Whose broad expanse
Might land from land dissever,
Careering o'er the waters, Man withstood
Jove's ordinance
With impious endeavour.

The human breast, with bold aspirings fraught,
Throbs thus unawed,
Untamed, and unquiescent,
Fire from the skies a son of Japhet brought,
And, fatal fraud!
Made earth a guilty present.
Scarce was the spark snatch'd from the bright abode,
When round us straight
A ghastly phalanx thickened,
Fever and Palsy: and grim Death, who strode
With tardy gait
Far off,—his coming quickened!

Wafted on daring art's fictitious plume
The Cretan rose,
And waved his wizard pinions;
Downwards Alcides pierced the realms of gloom,
Where darkly flows
Styx, through the dead's dominions.
Naught is beyond our reach, beyond our scope,
And heaven's high laws
Still fail to keep us under;
How can our unreposing malice hope
Respite or pause
From Jove's avenging thunder?