Classic Poem

O God, whose wrath for Niobe's boasting vain
Her children felt, whose vengeance Tityos lewd,
And he who Troy's high town had all but ta'en,
Phthiot Achilles rued;

Victorious o'er all else, for thee no peer,
Though he, of sea-nymph Thetis born, could make,
Wielding in battle his terrific spear,
The Dardan turrets quake.

He like a pine struck by sharp axe's blade,
Or cypress by the force of stormy gust,
Fell forward with huge limbs outspread, and laid
His neck in Teucrian dust.

Not one was he in Pallas' horse to hide,
Feigning false rites to cheat the folk of Troy
At ill-timed feast and Priam's halls thrown wide
For dance and songs of joy;

But one who openly would fight, and wreak
On captives deeds of horror stark and stern,
Who in Greek fires babes yet too young to speak,
E'en babes unborn, would burn;

But by thy voice and gentle Venus filled
With ruth, heaven's sire was won to oppose his bar
And grant Aeneas leave new walls to build
Beneath a happier star.

Phoebus, that taught'st Thalia skill of chord
And voice, in Xanthus wont thy locks to lave,
The Daunian Muse, Agyieus, beardless lord,
From stain of failure save.

Phoebus inspired me, with the art of song
Phoebus endowed, and with the poet's name.
O ye, our girlhood's flower, boys who belong
To houses high in fame,

Wards of the Delian archer goddess, who
Stays with her bow fleet deer and lynxes, come,
Render the Lesbian strain in measure true
To time beat by my thumb.

Duly to praise Latona's boy begin,
And her whose crescent lamp illumines night,
Who ripens fruit, and makes the months to spin
Onward in rapid flight.

A wedded bride some day the tale you'll tell:
‘I, when time's course the Secular Feast had brought,
Sang the gods' hymn, the notes remembering well
By poet Horace taught.’