Classic Poem

Sicilian Muses, sing we greater things;
All are not pleas'd with shrubs and lowly springs;
More fitly to the consull, woods belong.
Now is fulfild Cumaean sibyl's song:
Long chaines of better times begin againe;
The Maide returnes, and brings backe Saturne's raigne;
New progenies from lofty Heav'n descend;
Thou chaste Lucina, be this Infant's friend,
Whose birth the days of ir'n shall quite deface,
And through the world the golden age shall place;
Thy brother Phoebus weares his potent crowne.
And thou—O Pollio—know thy high renowne—
Thy consulship this glorious change shall breed,
Great months shall then endeavour to proceed:
Thy rule the steps of threatening sinne shall cleare,
And free the Earth from that perpetuall feare.
He with the gods shall live, and shall behold,
With heavenly spirits noble souls enroll'd;
And, seene by them, shall guide this worldly frame,
Which to His hand His father's strength doth tame.
To Thee—sweet child—the Earth brings native dowres,
The wandring ivy, with faire bacchar's flowres,
And colocasia, sprung from Egypt's ground,
With smiling leaves of greene acanthus crown'd;
The goats their swelling udders home shall beare,
The droves no more shall mighty lions feare:
For Thee, Thy cradle, pleasing flowres shall bring;
Imperious Death shall blunt the serpent's sting;
No herbes shall with deceitfull poyson flow,
And sweet amomum ev'ry where shall grow.
But when Thou able art to reade the facts
Of worthies, and thy father's famous acts,
To know what glories Vertue's name adorne,
The fields to ripeness bring the tender corne;
Ripe grapes depend on carelesse brambles' tops,
Hard oakes sweat hony, form'd in dewy drops.
Yet some few steps of former fraudes remaine,
Which men to trie, the sea with ships constraine,
With strengthening walles their cities to defend,
And on the ground long furrows to extend;
A second Tiphys, and new Argo then,
Shall leade to brave exploits the best of men;
The war of Troy that town againe shall burne,
And great Achilles thither shall returne:
But when firm age a perfect man Thee makes,
The willing sayler straight the seas forsakes;
The pine no more the use of Trade retaines;
Each country breeds all fruits, the Earth disdaines
The harrowes weight, and vines the sickle's strokes;
Strong ploughmen let their bulls go free from yokes;
Wooll feares not to dissemble colours strange,
But rams their fleeces then in pastures change
To pleasing purple, or to saffron dye,
And lambes turn ruddy, as they feeding lie.
The Fates—whose wills in stedfast end agree,
Command their wheels to run such daies to see—
Attempt great honours, now the time attends;
Dear Childe of Gods, whose line from Jove descends.
See how the world with weight declining lies;
The Earth, the spacious seas, and arched skies:
Behold againe, how these their grief asswage
With expectation of the future age:
O that my life and breath so long would last
To tell Thy deeds! I should not be surpast
By Thracian Orpheus, nor if Linus sing,
Though they from Phœbus and the muses spring:
Should Pan—Arcadia judging—strive with me,
Pan by Arcadia's doome would conquer'd be.
Begin Thou, little Childe; by laughter owne
Thy mother, who ten months hath fully knowne
Of tedious houres: begin, Thou little Childe,
On Whom as yet thy parents never smil'd;
The God with meate hath not Thy hunger fed,
Nor goddesse laid thee in a little bed.