Odes 1.12 (Gladstone): Quem Virum Aut Heroa

What chief, what hero, wilt thou use
Shrill pipe or lyre to chant, O muse?
What god? what name shall echoes wake,
What answer make?

In shady tracts of Helicon,
On Pindus, icy Haemus on,
Where Minstrel Orpheus by his skill
Moved woods at will.

His mother's art he deftly learned,
Quick winds and arrowy rivers turned,
And from his lyre melodious strokes
Gave ears to oaks.

First comes the Parent's classic praise,
Who seas, and earth, and seasons sways,
And the vast All, with sovereign ken
O'er gods and men.

From him than his no higher worth,
Nor like, nor second, issues forth;
Yet great Minerva nearest mounts,
And honours counts.

Thou, Liber, bold to strike the blow;
Thou, maid, of savage beasts the foe:
Thou, Phoebus, of th' unerring dart,
Shalt bear thy part.

Alcides too; and Leda's twain
For horse and fist their praise shall gain.
Soon as those silver stars have shone
On sailors lone,

See, trickling from the crags, the spray;
The winds are hushed, clouds melt away,
And, such their will, the billow's crest
Sinks down to rest.

And then? Shall Romulus be first,
Or Numa's peace, or Tarquin's burst
Of pride; shall Cato be my theme,
In death supreme?

The Scauri, Paulus, of his life
So lavish in the Punic strife,
Fabricius, Regulus, prolong
My grateful song.

The ancestral farm, the modest Lar,
Stern thrift; these gave us lords of war,
Camillus and our Curius bare,
With tangled hair.

In fame Marcellus like the trees
Grows, noiseless: and, outshining these,
The Caesar-star, a moon at nights
'Mid lesser lights.

To thee, Sire, Guardian of mankind,
The charge of Caesar Is consigned
By fate, Saturnian Jove! and he
Rules next to thee.

He drove the Parthian threatening Rome,
With crushing triumph to his home;
From Indian, Serian war released
The farthest East.

His realm, this earth, from thee he takes;
Thy weighty car Olympus shakes,
And bolts of thine reduce to dust
The groves of lust.