ODE IX. To Valgius.
On the Death of his Son.
1
The Clouds not always pour forth Rain;
Nor always Storms deface the Plain,
And heave the Billows of the Caspian Flood;
Nor is the cold Armenian Coast
Bound up each Month by lazy Frost,
Nor Tempests always rock th'Apulian Wood.
2
But, Valgius, You your worthy Son,
Your blooming Mystes, still bemoan;
And ever fix'd your tender Grief remains:
When Hesper decks the purpling Skies,
And when before the Sun he flies,
You sooth your Woe with melancholy Strains.
3
Sage Nestor, for his Length of Years
Renown'd, not thus, with fruitless Tears,
Bedew'd his lov'd Antilochus's Urn;
Nor did his Parents, and the Train
Of Phrygian Sisters so complain,
And Troïlus with ceaseless Sorrow mourn.
4
Tune then no more the plaintive String,
But Cæsar's Conquests let us sing:
Euphrates, rolling with a narrower Stream;
The Tigris, to our Empire join'd,
And the Gelonian Horse, confin'd
To Bounds prescrib'd, be now the glorious Theme!
