ODE 13.

TO THE FOUNTAIN OF BANDUSIA.

BANDUSIA, stainless mirror of the sky!

Thine is the flower-crown'd bowl, for thee shall die,

When dawns yon sun, the kid;

Whose horns, half-seen, half-hid,

Challenge to dalliance or to strife-in vain !

Soon must the firstling of the wild herd be slain,

And those cold springs of thine

With blood incarnadine.

Fierce glows the Dogstar, but his fiery beam Toucheth not thee: still grateful thy cool stream

To labour-wearied ox,

Or wanderer from the flocks:

And henceforth thou shalt be a royal fountain:
My harp shall tell how from yon cavernous mountain,
Where the brown oak grows tallest,
All babblingly thou fallest.

ODE 18.

TO A FAUN,

WOOER of young Nymphs who fly thee, Lightly o'er my sunlit lawn,

Trip, and go, nor injured by thee

Be my weanling herds, O Faun:

If the kid his doomed head bows, and

Brims with wine the loving cup, When the year is full; and thousand Scents from altars hoar go up.

Each flock in the rich grass gambols

When the month comes which is thine; And the happy village rambles

Fieldward with the idle kine:

Lambs play on, the wolf their neighbour :
Wild woods deck thee with their spoil;
And with glee the sons of labour
Stamp upon their foe the soil.

BOOK IV.

ODE 13.

TO LYCE.

LYCE, the gods have listened to my prayer:
The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey,
And still would'st thou seem fair;

Still unshamed drink, and play,

And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with

weak

Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell, Queen of the harp; her cheek

Is his sweet citadel:

He marked the withered oak, and on he flew Intolerant; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled,

Whose teeth are ghastly-blue,

Whose temples snow-besprinkled :

Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows, Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast,

Time hath once shut in those

Dark annals of the Past.

Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue

And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest,

Her, who breathed love, who drew
My heart out of my breast?

Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face Ranked next to Cinara's. But to Cinara fate

Gave but a few years' grace;

And lets live, all too late,

Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow:

That fiery youth may see with scornful brow
The torch that long ago

Beamed bright, a cinder now.

EPODE 2.

"HAPPY-who far from turmoil, like the men

That lived in days gone by,

With his own oxen ploughs his native glen,

Nor dreams of usury!

Him the fierce clarion summons not to war;

He dreads not angry seas:

The courts the stately citizens' proud door

He gets him far from these.

His maiden-vines it is his gentle craft
With poplars tall to wed:

Or the rank outgrowth lopping off, ingraft
Fair branches in its stead;

To watch his kine, that wander, lowing, far
Into the valley deep:

Store the prest honey in the taintless jar,

Or shear his tender sheep.

And soon as Autumn, with fair fruitage tricked,

Peeps o'er the fallows bare;

Then with what glee his purpling grape is picked, And newly-grafted pear,