Classic Poem

Tread back--and back, the lewd and lay!--
Grace guard your tongues!--what never ear
Heard yet, the Muses' man, today
I bid the boys and maidens hear.

Kings herd it on their subject droves
But Jove's the herd that keeps the kings--
Jove of the Giants: simple Jove's
Mere eyebrow rocks this round of things.

Say man than man may more enclose
In ranked vineyards; one with claim
Of blood to our green hustings goes;
One with more conscience, cleaner frame;

One better backed comes crowding by:--
That level power whose word is Must
Dances the balls for low or high:
Her urn takes all, her deal is just.

Sinner who saw the blade that hung
Vertical home, could Sicily fare
Be managed tasty to that tongue?
Or bird with pipe, viol with air.

Bring sleep round then?--sleep not afraid
Of country bidder's calls or low
Entries or banks all over shade
And Tempe with the west to blow.

Who stops his asking mood at par
The burly sea may quite forget
Nor fear the violent calendar
At Haedus-rise, Arcturus-set,

For hail upon the vine nor break
His heart at farming, what between
The dog-star with the fields abake
And spitting snows to choke the green.

Fish feel their waters drawing to
With our abutments: there we see
The lades discharged and laded new,
And Italy flies from Italy.

But fears, fore-motions of the mind,
Climb quits: one boards the master there
On brazed barge and hard behind
Sits to the beast that seats him--Care.

O if there's that which Phrygian stone
And crimson wear of starry shot
Not sleek away; Falernian-grown
And oils of Shushan comfort not,

Why . . .
Why should I change a Sabine dale
For wealth as wide as weariness?