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| MÆCENAS, you, beneath the myrtle shade, | |
| Read o’er what poets sung, and shepherds play’d. | |
| What felt those poets but you feel the same? | |
| Does not your soul possess the sacred flame? | |
| Their noble strains your equal genius shares | 5 |
| In softer language, and diviner airs. | |
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| While Homer paints lo! circumfus’d in air, | |
| Celestial Gods in mortal forms appear; | |
| Swift as they move hear each recess rebound, | |
| Heav’n quakes, earth trembles, and the shores resound. | 10 |
| Great Sire of verse, before my mortal eyes, | |
| The lightnings blaze across the vaulted skies, | |
| And, as the thunder shakes the heav’nly plains, | |
| A deep-felt horror thrills through all my veins. | |
| When gentler strains demand thy graceful song, | 15 |
| The length’ning line moves languishing along. | |
| When great Patroclus courts Achilles’ aid, | |
| The grateful tribute of my tears is paid; | |
| Prone on the shore he feels the pangs of love, | |
| And stern Pelides tend’rest passions move. | 20 |
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| Great Maro’s strain in heav’nly numbers flows, | |
| The Nine inspire, and all the bosom glows. | |
| O could I rival thine and Virgil’s page, | |
| Or claim the Muses with the Mantuan Sage; | |
| Soon the same beauties should my mind adorn, | 25 |
| And the same ardors in my soul should burn: | |
| Then should my song in bolder notes arise, | |
| And all my numbers pleasingly surprize; | |
| But here I sit, and mourn a grov’ling mind, | |
| That fain would mount, and ride upon the wind. | 30 |
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| Not you, my friend, these plaintive strains become, | |
| Not you, whose bosom is the Muses home; | |
| When they from tow’ring Helicon retire, | |
| They fan in you the bright immortal fire, | |
| But I less happy, cannot raise the song, | 35 |
| The fault’ring music dies upon my tongue. | |
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| The happier Terence 1 all the choir inspir’d, | |
| His soul replenish’d, and his bosom fir’d; | |
| But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace, | |
| To one alone of Afric’s sable race; | 40 |
| From age to age transmitting thus his name | |
| With the first glory in the rolls of fame? | |
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| Thy virtues, great Mæcenas! shall be sung | |
| In praise of him, from whom those virtues sprung: | |
| While blooming wreaths around thy temples spread, | 45 |
| I’ll snatch a laurel from thine honour’d head, | |
| While you indulgent smile upon the deed. | |
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| As long as Thames in streams majestic flows, | |
| Or Naiads in their oozy beds repose, | |
| While Phœbus reigns above the starry train, | 50 |
| While bright Aurora purples o’er the main, | |
| So long, great Sir, the muse thy praise shall sing, | |
| So long thy praise shall make Parnassus ring: | |
| Then grant, Mæcenas, thy paternal rays, | |
| Hear me propitious, and defend my lays. | 55 |
