Now hath Jove plagued the world enough with showers
Of snow and ominous hail, and with red arm
Hurling his bolts against our sacred towers
Hath roused alarm

In city and nations all, lest Pyrrha's age
Might come again with strange unwelcome sights,
When Proteus drove his herd to pasturage
On mountain heights,

When all fish-kind perched on the topmost bough
Of elm erewhile to doves well-known abode,
And frightened deer swam in the sea that now
High over flowed.

Ourselves have seen, flung back from Tuscan shore
How tawny Tiber rose upheaved amain,
And Numa's monument in ruin bore,
And Vesta's fane,

While, moved by Ilia's vehement appeals,
In Jove's despite his championship avows,
And leaping bank to left free passage steals
Her river spouse.

Of arms that Persian foemen might have sped
Whetted for citizens met in battle shock
Our sons will hear, in dwindled numbers bred
Of crime-thinned stock.

What god invoke to stay the empire's fall?
Say, with what prayer may Vesta's maidens plead,
Dinning her ear with chants, who to them all
Pays little heed?

Whom will Jove charge to cleanse our guilt away?
Come, augur god, Apollo, to our aid,
Thy shoulders radiant with amice gray
Of cloud o'erlaid;

Or thou, blithe Venus, choose our cause to grace,
Whom Mirth and Love in circling flight attend;
Or glance of pity on thy neglected race,
Great parent, bend,

Glutted with sport, too long alas! our woe,
Lord in whom battle-cry and helmets' sheen
And Moor's fierce gaze fixed on his bleeding foe
Breed pleasure keen;

Or stay, 'tis thou, in form of earthly prime
Disguised, that deign'st, sweet Maia's winged son,
Avenger to be called of that foul crime
On Caesar done.

Long in glad converse mix, thy heavenward flight
Delaying, with Quirinus' folk, nor e'er
Thee at our sins incensed from mortal sight
Let whirlwind bear.

Here triumphs high affect, here titles claim
Of Father, Chief of Men, nor leave the field
To Median horsemen, while our arms and name
Thou, Caesar, wield.