Odes 3.4 (Martin): Descende Caelo

O Queen Calliope, from heaven descend,
And on the fife prolong
Thy descant sweet and strong,
Or with the lyre, if more it like thee, blend
Thy thrilling voice in song!

Hark! Or is this but frenzy's pleasing dream?
Through groves I seem to stray
Of consecrated bay,
Where voices mingle with the babbling stream,
And whispering breezes play.

When I had stray'd a child on Vultur's steep.
Beyond Apulia's bound,
Which was my native ground,
Was I, fatigued with play, beneath a heap
Of fresh leaves sleeping found,

Strewn by the storied doves; and wonder fell
On all, their nest who keep
On Acherontia's steep,
Or in Forentum's low rich pastures dwell,
Or Bantine woodlands deep;

That safe from bears and adders in such place
I lay, and slumbering smiled,
O'erstrewn with myrtle wild
And laurel, by the gods' peculiar grace
No craven-hearted child.

Yours am I, O ye Muses, yours, whene'er
The Sabine peaks I scale;
Or cool Praeneste's vale,
Or Tibur's slopes, or Baiae's waters fair
With happy heart I hail.

Unto your roundels and your fountains vow'd,
Philippi's rout, the tree
Of doom o'erwhelm'd not me,
Nor Palinurus 'mid the breakers loud
Of the Sicilian sea.

Unshrinkingly, so you be only near,
The Bosphorus I'll brave,
Nor quail, howe'er it rave,
Assyria's burning sands I'll dare, nor fear
In them to find a grave.

Shielded by you, I'll visit Britain's shore
To strangers ruthless ever,
Front the Gelonian quiver,
The Concan, too, who joys in horses' gore,
And Scythia's icy river.

Unto great Caesar's self ye lend new life
In grot Pierian, when
He has disposed his men
Among the towns, to rest from battle-strife,
And yearns for peace again.

From you flow gentle counsels, and most dear
Such counsels are to you.
We know, how He o'erthrew
By His down-swooping bolts those monsters drear,
The impious Titan crew;

He who doth earth's unmoving mass control,
The tempest-shaken main,
Throng'd towns, the realms of pain
And gloom, and doth with even justice sole
O'er gods and mortals reign.

"When he beheld them first, these brothers stark,
Proud in their strength of arm,
Crowding in hideous swarm
To pile up Pelion on Olympus dark,
Jove shudder'd with alarm.

But what could stout Typhoeus, Mimas do?
Or what, for all his might,
Porphyrion's threatening height,
What Proetus, or Enceladus, that threw
Uprooted trees, in fight

Against great Pallas' ringing aegis dash'd,
What could they all essay?
Here, eager for the fray,
Stood Vulcan, there dame Juno unabash'd,
And he who ne'er doth lay

His bow aside, who laves his locks unshorn
In Castaly's pure dew.
Divine Apollo, who
Haunts Lycia's woodland glades, in Delos born,
In Patara worshipp'd too.

Unreasoning strength by its own weight must fall.
To strength with wisdom blent
Force by the gods is lent,
Who hold in scorn that strength, which is on all
That's impious intent.

See hundred-handed Gyges helpless lie,
To make my maxim good,
Orion too, that would
Lay ruffian hands on chaste Diana, by
Her virgin shafts subdued.

Upheaved above the monsters she begot,
Earth wails her children whirl'd
To Orcus' lurid world,
By vengeful bolts, and the swift fire hath not
Pierced Aetna o'er it hurl'd.

Nor does the vulture e'er, sin's warder grim,
Lewd Tityus' liver quit,
But o'er him still doth sit;
Pirithous, too, lies fetter'd, limb to limb
By chains three hundred knit.