The Odes and Secular Hymn of Horace Author:Horace Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II To Augustus Caesar AT length enough of direful hail and snow The Sire has sent and, hurling lightnings down With red right hand 'gainst Sacred Heights b... more »elow, Has terrified the Town, Yea, terrified the nations, filled with dread Lest Pyrrha's time return with portents strange. When Proteus all his herd of seals upled On mountain peaks to range, And fish were caught in elm limbs' topmost height, Where erst the doves were wont to build their home, While here and there hinds swam in sore affright Across the swelling foam. We saw the yellow Tiber, strongly rolled Back from the Etruscan shore in turbid sheets, Upsurge to flood the King's Memorial old And Vesta's templed seats, Bragging too stoutly that he would redress Lorn Ilia and, tho' Jove withheld his nod, Presuming past his leftward bank to press, Uxorious river god. Our youth, their number thinned by parent stain, Shall hear of Romans whetting well the knife By which dread Persians better had been slain, Shall hear of civil strife. What god to buttress our declining realm Shall we implore? With what fond prayer shall throngs Of holy virgins Vesta's ear o'erwhelm, Regardless of their songs? To whom shall Jupiter assign the task Of freeing us from guilt? With shoulders clear Mantled in cloud, O come at length, we ask, Apollo, prescient seer; Or, laughing Erycina, if thou will, Around whom always hover Mirth and Love; Or, if thy slighted sons thou pity still, Our Founder, from above, Cloyed with thy game, too long, alas! pursued, Pleased with the polished helms, the battle shout, And scowl of Marsian foot, their charge renewed The bloody foe to rout; Or if in altered semblance, flitting free To earth, benignant Maia's winged child, Thou bear the guise of youth ...« less