Virgil. a. U. C. 684—735

Hush'd be each ruder breath, and clamorous tongue! Apollo listens to the Mantuan's song. You chief, who own bright inspiration's flame, With mighty Homer's palm divide his claim. Favourite with me of all the harmonious quire, A child I felt him, and a man admire: If grief or care my anxious mind engage, Secure of ease, I search great Maro's page; For deep and rankling, sure, must be the wounds, That find no balm in his enchanting sounds. As Jesse's son Saul's frenzy could compose, The madness sinking, as the musick rose; As oil, diffus'd with philosophick skill, At once the agitated wave can still; His tuneful magick o'er my senses glides, The charm prevails, and all my pain subsides. In the wild conflict of Eliza's breast, Ill-fated fair, what wond'rous skill's express'd! For thee, Sidonian queen, ensnar'd, betray'd,— Like thy fond Anna, mourns each gentle maid; Turns with disdain from Jove's profan'd abodes, The obdurate Trojan, and conspiring gods. A royal wretch, by love, by shame pursued! Censure, by milder pity sinks subdued: Her woman's frame in such a whirlwind tost, The venial frailty in the feeling's lost: We join the tempest of her frantick tongue, And cry—Rocks, storms, and juster gods, revenge the wrong! Poets, who meditate the lofty theme,— To win the crouded theatre's esteem, At this perennial fount the secret seek, To bid the passions, not the fancy, speak: No languid apathy, in pomp of phrase, Here lulls the anguish tragick woe should raise; His clew the mazy labour can control, And wind through all the labyrinth of the soul. In other strains than his, who could endure The rugged plough describ'd, the field's manure; The humbler duties of the shepherd's toil, And the coarse cares that tame a stubborn soil? As hardest blocks the Phidian chissels choose, The rudest subjects charm by Maro's muse: He, like the lord of all th'extended land, Superior, and unstain'd, alone can stand. Beneath the master's eye the wain moves on, The hinds appear to sweat, the steer to groan; Brisk Dryades, light fawns, and satyrs lead, While swarthy Pan inspires the jocund reed; Abundant Ceres smiles, the vales rejoice, And every rural god obeys his voice. While not unseen the playful heifer feeds On the green herbage of the flowery meads, Then nature's sting the lordly bull constrains To drive his bellowing rival o'er the plains: The green-ey'd monster brutal breasts can move, To rage, like Shakspeare's Moor, with jealous love. Hark! how the neighbouring caves are heard to moan With the deep thunder of his smother'd groan! Behold his spurning heel, his chest's broad size, Like stars with blood bedimm'd, his glowing eyes! We share the sturdy combat from afar, And own the terrours of the horny war. With dewlaps gor'd, and lacerated sides, Remote, his shame the vanquish'd champion hides; Yet one last look, indignant casts around, To view the mistress lost, and hateful ground; Then, stern receding from the hard-fought plain, Threatens fierce strife, with mightier force again. Or, when the mute prone creatures of the soil, By plagues subdued, resign their useful toil, His plaintive lays their secret woes reveal, And what they cannot speak, our breasts must feel. Majestick bard! as golden skies bestow A mellow tinge on humble vales below, Warm'd by thy lyre, where'er its rays descend, Richness and radiance on the themes attend: From Tityrus, beneath the beech reclin'd, To Turnus shrinking from the death design'd, Some kindred muse breathes in each tuneful line, And the verse glows with all the assisting nine. Now, near two thousand years since Virgil's birth, The sun, grown older, has illumin'd earth, And brightly his inspiring beams has shed O'er genius living, and th' illustrious dead, Yet still supreme, unequall'd, and alone, Sits the threat Mantuan on the epick throne.