Select poems of Edward Hovel Thurlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

He, who with Pindar would essay a flight,
O great Antonius, in the crystal realms of light,
With Dædalean art, and waxen wings
Into the fatal flood of glory springs,
But falls, forsaken, like a glittering star,
Shot from bright Phœbus' ever-burning car,
Falls with a headlong haste, and flashes from afar:

Deep Ocean whelms him. But great Pindar burns,
Now flows majestic, and now foams by turns;

As a vast river from the threatening brow
Of some huge hoary mountain falls below,
When watery stars and endless winter swell
His rage above the banks, and make his waves rebel:
With a deep mouth, and an immortal soul,
The son of Jove, beyond weak man's control,
Pindar all likeness scorns, and reigns a Poet whole.

His brow is shaded with the sacred leaf,
Which binds the temples of the Muses' Chief:
Lo, without art, and trusting Nature's force,
He sits upon his chair, and urges on the course
Of his divine bold dithyrambics, proud
To sing his words, yet never heard, aloud;
And pour his lawless measures forth, and dazzle the weak crowd.

And sometimes Gods, and sometimes too he sings
Great heaven-descended Kings:
They, by whose force the guilty Centaurs fell;
And rash Chimæra, breathing flames of hell:

The horsy people, and the triple beast,
In the full Bacchus of their flowing feast ,
And flowery Lycian mountain, they from life releas'd .

And sometimes those, whom Pisa's palm brings home,
With heavenly pleasure, from Alpheus' flood;
Wrestler, or horseman, even Gods become,
Or surely of the nectar-drinking brood:
Their acts now sparkle in his glorious lays;
More than a thousand statues shines his praise;
The vanquish'd without envy hear, and gaze
Upon their lovely victors' looks, and vow them lengthen'd days.

Or to the tearful, and betrothed maid
The ravish'd, youthful husband he deplores;
And, all her soul into his strings convey'd,
The beauteous dowry of his life restores;

His strength, his courage, and the golden light
Of his chaste manners to the stars he lifts;
And envies Orcus, and eternal night:
The maid, assuaged by those sacred gifts
Of aye-harmonious music, to contentment shifts.

A bounteous air lifts up the Theban Swan,
When to the foot of Jove he would be gone:
An air, Antonius, that must needs be great,
To bear his swelling plumage, and his glorious state
Quite through the sea of clouds, and up to Heaven's gate.

But, as a Matine bee,
With slender flight and song,
The flower of thyme-plant gathers free,
With art and labour long,
Murmuring o'er the grove, and bank
Of the yellow Tiber dank,
Like the bee, laborious, I,
My little music try.

Thou shalt soar with rapid wing,
And with a deeper plectrum strike the string:
Thou shalt exalt great Cæsar's fame on high,
Then, when the fierce Sicambri he shall draw,
Grim o'er the Sacred Hill, and frowning savagely,
The fierce Sicambri, that disdain'd all law;
Thou shalt exalt him in thy deathless verse,
And all the harvest of his wars rehearse.

Nothing yet more good, or great,
To the Gods we owe, and Fate;
Nothing more great, or good, shall ever owe:
Not, 'though renewing our elapsed date,
Into their ancient gold the Seasons flow.

Thou shalt sing the happy days,
And the festal city's blaze,
The' illumin'd temples, and life-acting plays;
All, that the natural heart of Rome can give,
For Cæsar, riding on our sacred ways:
Concordant in the forum we shall live.

Then of my voice, if aught of mine
May swell the music of thy song divine,
Then of my voice shall an exceeding part
Declare the language of the heart:
And, O fair Sun, and ever to be prais'd,
To whom all hands, to whom all hearts, are rais'd,
O Sun, for ever happy, thee I sing,
That dost to Rome immortal Cæsar bring!

Not once, O Cæsar, on thy sacred way,
Io triumphe! shall thy people say;
Not once, but always will they shout, and sing,
All the whole City, and sweet incense bring
To every laughing God, and Heaven's eternal King.

Ten bulls, ten cows, Antonius, shalt thou slay;
I but a tender bull upon this beauteous day:
See, from his mother's side, he feeds,
Charm'd with his rising youth, amid' the flowery meads.

On his front the dazzling horns,
Like the pale moon's curved fires,
On the third night rising fair;
And his brow a star adorns,
Emblem of his chaste desires—
All the rest is golden hair.

The Centaurs were slain by Theseus, and Pirithous, at the nuptials of Hippodamia.

Chimæra haunted a mountain of Lycia.