Odes 4.2 (Gladstone): Pindarum Quisquis

Who boasts to sing, as Pindar sings,
He soars by art on waxen wings:
His name shall for some glassy sea
A title be.

Like mountain stream, by rainfall fed,
That bursts beyond its daily bed,
So from deep chest, disdaining bounds,
This minstrel sounds.

Apollo's bay he needs must win,
When his bold dithyrambs begin
To vent new words, and measures pour
Unheard before.

Or of the gods, and god-born kings,
Who quenched Chimaera's flame, he sings;
Who smothered in the blood they spilt
The Centaurs' guilt.

So Elian winners gain their place
In heaven, and, great in fight or race,
Possessed of worthier honours live
Than sculptors give.

Or some slain warrior's bride in tears,
With praise of all his gifts, he cheers;
Strength, spirit, virtues lifted high,
Forbids to die.

It needs a swelling gale, to bear
The Theban swan in that high air.
By Tibur's dewy bank and grove
I, Julus, rove,

And as a Matine bee deflowers
The fragrant thyme, laborious hours
I while away, and, large in care,
My songs prepare.

Touch thou a bolder lyre, what time
Caesar the sacred slope shall climb,
With laurelled brow, and, fierce in vain,
Sicambrian train.

Than whom kind Fate and gods in Heaven
No better, greater boon have given,
Nor shall, though Time's great womb unfold
An age of gold.

Sing those glad days of public sports,
The end of strife, the emptied courts,
Our Caesar once again at home
Through prayer of Rome.

If I may speak what men will hear,
My voice, its best, shall swell the cheer,
'O happy day ': and loud proclaim
Our Caesar's name.

'Io triumphe' all the town
Not once, nor twice, will cry, and crown
Thy march, and bounteous gods invoke
While altars smoke.

Ten bulls, ten kine, shall thee acquit;
My means a calf new-weaned permit,
Whose early days now sportive pass
In fattening grass.

As shows the moon but three days born,
Such horns his budding front adorn:
One spot of snow doth lustre shed,
The rest is red.