Odes 1.16 (Gladstone): O Matre Pulchra

Fairer than thy mother fair,
Quash at will my scurril song:
Burn it, on thy hearthstone there;
Drown it, Adria's waves among.

Pythian priests their frenzy lash;
Dindymene, Bacchus, call;
Corybantine cymbals clash;
Moody wrath outdoes them all.

Who can tame it? Raging fire,
Seas that shatter ships and drown,
Noric sword, nor Jove in ire,
Clad with thunder sweeping down?

Once Prometheus, as they say,
Fusing this and that began;
Mixed it up with primal clay,
Lion's might with spleen of man.

Mark, by wrath Thyestes falls:
Wrath, the cause of when and how
Towering cities sank, whose walls
Yielded to the foeman's plough.

Curb thyself. In olden time
Fever heat within me burned,
Tempted, and my youthful prime
To those hot iambics turned.

Gentle ways bewitch me now,
Nothing charms that stirs to strife;
Libels all I disavow;
Prithee love me, give me life.