The odes, epodes and Carmen Seculare of Horace (1719)

Bold is your Muse, to sing in lofty Strain
The Terrors of a Civil War;
How far it rag'd, and whence it first began:
What various Turns distinguish'd every Year:
To what a height the Factious Senate ran:
What Streams of Blood were split, whose Vengeance yet we fear.

Hard is the Task, yet worthy such a Pen:
You tread on Quick-sands, pass through Fires;
Defer awhile the bloody Tragick Scene,
To guard the State, the State thy Aid requires:
Then take th' Athenian Buskin once again,
And finish the great Work thy Godlike Muse inspires.

In thee the Injur'd a sure Patron find:
Thy Voice the awful Senate sways;
Dalmatia's Conquest did thy Temples bind
With never-fading Green and deathless Praise.
Such is thy Genius, such thy Warlike Mind,
No Art to nobler Heights the pompous tail can raise.

Methinks I hear the horrid Dinn of Arms:
Bright gleaming Armour paints the Field:
The ratling Trumpet pours its dread Alarms:
The Brave lye low in Dust, the Valiant yield:
Revenge and Honour the stern Warrior warms,
And ev'ry Breast but Cato's is with Horror fill'd.

Juno, or some revengeful angry Pow'r,
That lately guarded Lybia's Coast,
Unable to protect her Fav'rite Shore,
Repays at last whatever Africk lost;
Satiates her thirsty Rage with Roman Gore,
And with our slaughter'd Sons attones Jugurtha's Ghost.

Each Latian Province, ev'ry Field and Plain,
The Marks of Civil Fury show;
What Coast, what Countrey wants that bloody Stain?
Whilst the proud Persian triumphs in our Woe.
The blushing Rivers, and discolour'd Main,
With Roman Slaughter dy'd, in Sanguine Surges flow.

Intestine Broils, and bloody Camps and Fights
But ill become the wanton Muse:
In Sports and Am'rous Pleasures she delights,
Nor farther the Heroick Strain pursues,
But droops her Wings, and near the Shades alights,
And for the gentle Lyre a softer Theme shall chuse.

University of Virginia Library

ODE I. To Asinius Pollio.