Lovely mother's lovelier daughter,
Those sharp verses, edged with blame,
Hurl into the Adrian water,
Cancel, if thou wilt, with flame,
Rhea from her mountain-hollow,
Liber at his royal feasts,
From his Delphian shrine Apollo,
Shake the spirit of their priests.
Hark, the votaries loud and often
Shrilly clanging cymbals ring —
These are savage, but may soften —
Anger is a sterner thing.
Not the ship-destroying ocean,
Noric steel, or flaming fire,
Not the storm-god's mighty motion
Fright it from its purpose dire.
When Prometheus first transmuted
Atoms culled for human clay,
Deep the lion's rage he rooted
In our breast, as legends say.
Anger with a grievous ruin
Smote Thyestes and his line;
This, the fount of sheer undoing,
Left of cities scarce a sign,
When among the sworded nations,
Armies flusht with pride and spoil
Ploughed up many a State's foundations
Planted in imperial soil.
Curb thy soul with juster measures —
Me youth's sweetness, prone to wrong,
Heated into quick displeasures,
And an ill-directed song.
Now my bitterness would mellow;
I annul the trenchant strain;
Be once more my true love-fellow;
Take me to thy heart again.