Odes 3.4 (Gladstone): Descende Caelo

Descend from Heaven, and on thy flute
Be ample, Queen Calliope;
Or shouldst thou vocal strains acute,
Or great Apollo's lyre, decree.

Hark! for I hear, if madness sweet
Deceive not: yes, to stray I seem
Through glade and grove, a hallowed seat,
Refreshed by genial breeze and stream.

Beyond my nurse Apulia's bound
In legend famous, me, a lad
Weary with sport, and slumbering found,
The doves with fresh-pulled foliage clad

On Vultur's hill; a marvel, blest
By all, the Bantian glades that know
Or Acherontia's mountain nest,
Or till Forentum's mould, below.

Secure from viper's tooth I lay,
And bears: wrapped, not by mortal hand,
In myrtle and in hallowed bay:
A charmed life, by heaven's command.

Yours, Muses, yours, on Sabine hill
Or cool Praeneste to abide,
Or Tibur's slope, or where ye will,
Transparent Baian waves beside.

Your springs, your choirs: me, sworn to these,
Philippi's rout and conquering foe,
Nor damned trunk, nor Sikel seas
And Palinure, have laid me low.

My shallop shall, with you at hand,
The wild Symplegades explore,
My feet shall tread the burning sand
That lies along th' Assyrian shore.

Ye Britons at the stranger chafe,
Ye Spaniards drink of horses' blood:
I'll visit all both sound and safe,
Gelonian bowmen, Scythian flood.

Great Caesar, when he flies from toil —
The home his wearied warriors crave
Once given them on Italian soil —
Seeks rest in your Pierian cave.

Your counsels calm you give, and given
Repent not. One there lives, we know,
Who, from the skies with lightning riven,
The Titans and their host laid low.

Who the dull earth and tossing main
Alone directs with even sway;
Whom cities here, and realms of pain,
Whom gods and tribes of men obey.

E'en Jove a mighty terror knew
When, strong of arm, those Titans met,
Exulting, with the brethren who
Would Pelion on Olympus set.

Porphyrion in stature vast,
Typhoeus, and strong Mimas, failed;
Enceladus, so bold to cast
Huge trunks, and Rhoetus, nought availed

For Pallas came, her aegis rung;
Came Vulcan, Juno's queenly might,
And on Apollo's shoulders hung
His shafts, and bow for ever bright.

The Delian and Patarean king
Who laves in fresh Castalian dew
His locks, and holds, with sheltering wing,
Those Lycian brakes his childhood knew.

Brute might may rush in headlong course,
But tempered strength the gods make strong
And stronger, while they hate the force
That madly stirs to deeds of wrong.

Let hundred-handed Gyas bear
Me witness; let Orion, who
To force Diana's self would dare,
But whom the virgin's arrow slew.

Earth, on her monster children cast,
Their doom in lurid hell deplores;
Despite that inner fiery blast,
Huge Aetna's mass unbroken soars.

The vulture tortures still the lust
Of Tityus with devouring pains,
And for his sin Pirithous must
Still hopeless bear three hundred chains.