Epistle XX. — The Father to his Son, when in the days of Usurpation he himself remained at Treves and his Son set out for his native place

Already o'er the sluggish surface of chill Moselle the bark had borne thee forward, O my son, and from the kisses and embraces of thy weeping sire the envious stream had parted thee. Alone! though compassed with a throng of friends, I was alone and offered yearning prayers for that fleeting craft; alone, though still I saw you, my child, and grudged the hasty speed of the swift oarage plying against the stream. What day was that. No longer is that year which Attic Meton worked out with such patient skill. Forlorn I pace the empty, lonely shores. Now I strike down the sprouting willow-shoots, now I crush beds of turf and o'er green sedge I poise my slippery footsteps on the pebbles strewn beneath. So the first day passed away, so the second reached its bourne, so the two nights which wheeled revolving after each, so others: and the whole year for me will so pass by until thy destiny gives back me, thy sire, to thee. With this condition I may bargain even for death, that thou, my son, payest thy father the last tributes, surviving him.