To the Fountain of Bandusia

Oh! worthy fragrant gifts of flowers and wine,
Bandusian fount, than crystal far more bright!
To-morrow shall a sportive kid be thine,
Whose forehead swells with horns of infant might:
Ev’n now of love and war he dreams in vain,
Doom’d with his blood thy gelid wave to stain.

Let the red dog-star burn!--his scorching beam
Fierce in resplendence shall molest not thee!
Still shelter’d from his rays, thy banks, fair stream!
To the wild flock around thee wandering free,
And the tired oxen from the furrow’d field,
The genial freshness of their breath shall yield.

And thou, bright fount! ennobled and renown’d
Shalt by thy poet’s votive song be made;
Thou and the oak with deathless verdure crown’d,
Whose boughs, a pendant canopy, o’ershade
Those hollow rocks, whence, murmuring many a tale,
Thy chiming waters pour upon the vale.