TO APOLLO AND DIANA .
Phaebus, and thou, Diana, sylvan Power!
Blest pair — revered, and still to be revered —
Bright gems of ether! grant the suit preferred
At this fixed hour
Of hallowed joy, when (as the Sibyl's lays
Ordained) chaste Youths and Virgins to the Powers
That guard the city and her seven-hilled towers
Pour songs of praise!
Thou genial Sun! whose orb in heaven's high dome
Reveals and shrouds the day — still rising new
And still the same — may nothing meet thy view,
Greater than Rome!
And thou, Lucina! lenient to disclose
The ripened birth — whatever name best please
Thine ear — Natalis! Ilithyia! — ease
Our matron's throes!
Grant large increase, and speed the Senate's cause,
Who strengthen (studious of their country's good)
Pure wedlock's bands, and to recruit her brood
Stamp nuptial laws:
That oft as years, to decades full eleven
Revolving, shall renew with solemn rite
This Jubilee, glad anthems day and night
May rise to heaven.
And you, whose verdict, once declared, stands fast,
Linked in Necessity's eternal chain,
Ye Destinies! with future blessings deign
To crown the past!
May Earth, boon parent, rich in flocks and fruit,
Grace Ceres with a wreath of golden ears
While the soft shower and gale salubrious rears
VEach budding shoot!
Placid and mild, thy shafts of vengeance sheathed,
Hear thou the Youths, majestic Lord of light!
Hear thou the prayer, bicorned Queen of night,
By Virgins breathed!
Blest twain! if Rome from you derived her birth; —
If hither, led by you, the Trojan bands
Urged a safe course, what time for distant lands
They changed their hearth;
To whom, unscathed, through Ilium wrapt in flame,
The brave survivor of the land he lost
Oped a free path, to found on Latium's coast
A nobler name;
Grant to our docile youth each virtuous grace!
To weary veterans grant serene repose!
Grant health, wealth, issue, all that Heaven bestows
To Rome's whole race!
And may the Prince, who at your shrine bids flow
The milk-white heifer's blood, Anchises' heir,
Long rule, to crush the rebel and to spare
The prostrate foe!
The Mede, now quelled by land as on the wave,
Has to our arms and Alban Axes bowed;
The Scythian hordes, and Indian (late so proud)
Our mercy crave.
Truth, Honour, generous Shame (repelled with scorn),
Mild Peace, and Virtue that to heaven had flown,
Dare to return, and Plenty hastes to crown
Her brimming Horn.
Be sure, the golden-quivered God, who sees
Fate's awful mysteries, whom the warbling Nine
Hail as their leader, and whose arts benign
Assuage disease,
Will, if he smile on his own sacred towers,
Prolong the Roman weal and Latium's bliss
From age to age, and still improve from this
To happier hours:
Nor less will She, so long on Aventine
And Algidus enshrined, her votaries now
Propitious heed, and to our youthful vow
Kind ears incline.
We, then, the band who jointly tune their praise,
Bear home a sure and cheering hope, that Jove
Lists and approves, with all the Host above,
These choral lays.
Phaebus, and thou, Diana, sylvan Power!
Blest pair — revered, and still to be revered —
Bright gems of ether! grant the suit preferred
At this fixed hour
Of hallowed joy, when (as the Sibyl's lays
Ordained) chaste Youths and Virgins to the Powers
That guard the city and her seven-hilled towers
Pour songs of praise!
Thou genial Sun! whose orb in heaven's high dome
Reveals and shrouds the day — still rising new
And still the same — may nothing meet thy view,
Greater than Rome!
And thou, Lucina! lenient to disclose
The ripened birth — whatever name best please
Thine ear — Natalis! Ilithyia! — ease
Our matron's throes!
Grant large increase, and speed the Senate's cause,
Who strengthen (studious of their country's good)
Pure wedlock's bands, and to recruit her brood
Stamp nuptial laws:
That oft as years, to decades full eleven
Revolving, shall renew with solemn rite
This Jubilee, glad anthems day and night
May rise to heaven.
And you, whose verdict, once declared, stands fast,
Linked in Necessity's eternal chain,
Ye Destinies! with future blessings deign
To crown the past!
May Earth, boon parent, rich in flocks and fruit,
Grace Ceres with a wreath of golden ears
While the soft shower and gale salubrious rears
VEach budding shoot!
Placid and mild, thy shafts of vengeance sheathed,
Hear thou the Youths, majestic Lord of light!
Hear thou the prayer, bicorned Queen of night,
By Virgins breathed!
Blest twain! if Rome from you derived her birth; —
If hither, led by you, the Trojan bands
Urged a safe course, what time for distant lands
They changed their hearth;
To whom, unscathed, through Ilium wrapt in flame,
The brave survivor of the land he lost
Oped a free path, to found on Latium's coast
A nobler name;
Grant to our docile youth each virtuous grace!
To weary veterans grant serene repose!
Grant health, wealth, issue, all that Heaven bestows
To Rome's whole race!
And may the Prince, who at your shrine bids flow
The milk-white heifer's blood, Anchises' heir,
Long rule, to crush the rebel and to spare
The prostrate foe!
The Mede, now quelled by land as on the wave,
Has to our arms and Alban Axes bowed;
The Scythian hordes, and Indian (late so proud)
Our mercy crave.
Truth, Honour, generous Shame (repelled with scorn),
Mild Peace, and Virtue that to heaven had flown,
Dare to return, and Plenty hastes to crown
Her brimming Horn.
Be sure, the golden-quivered God, who sees
Fate's awful mysteries, whom the warbling Nine
Hail as their leader, and whose arts benign
Assuage disease,
Will, if he smile on his own sacred towers,
Prolong the Roman weal and Latium's bliss
From age to age, and still improve from this
To happier hours:
Nor less will She, so long on Aventine
And Algidus enshrined, her votaries now
Propitious heed, and to our youthful vow
Kind ears incline.
We, then, the band who jointly tune their praise,
Bear home a sure and cheering hope, that Jove
Lists and approves, with all the Host above,
These choral lays.