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Translated by Charles Abraham Elton
I BLAME my impious silence, that delays, | |
| Midst chiefest cities, to record thy praise, | |
| My birthplace! rivers, vineyards, men, thy fame; | |
| Genius, and manners, and a senate’s name. | |
| Was it, that, conscious of a slender town, | 5 |
| I feared to give thee undeserved renown? | |
| Not so I blush; not Rhine’s barbaric shore, | |
| Or Hæmus’ icy top Ausonius bore: | |
| Burdigala the soil that gave me birth; | |
| Where mild the sky, and rich the watered earth: | 10 |
| Long springs, brief winters, reign; hills wooded rise; | |
| The foaming stream with tides of ocean vies. | |
| Quadrangular the walls; the turrets bear | |
| Their battlements amidst the clouds of air. | |
| Within, the parted streets may wonder raise, | 15 |
| The range of dwellings, and the widening ways. | |
| The gates that front where crossing spaces spread, | |
| And river rushing from its fountain-head; | |
| While, as old Ocean heaves his flowing tide, | |
| The buoyant fleets upon its bosom ride. | 20 |
| Why name the fount, with Parian stone o’erlaid, | |
| Like Euripus’ pent frith, with foaming motion swayed? | |
| How dark the shade of depth! how swoln the surge! | |
| With what a rush, within its margent verge, | |
| Poured through twelve mouths the headlong waters burst, | 25 |
| And, unexhausted, quench a people’s thirst! | |
| This, Median king! thy numerous camp had blest, | |
| When the deep course of rivers sank deprest: | |
| This wave thy train through cities might have borne, | |
| And left Choaspes’ native stream in scorn. | 30 |
| Hail, secret fount! blest, bounteous, flowing still, | |
| Dark, azure, glassy, deep, and clear, and shrill: | |
| Hail, genius of the place! the patient sips | |
| Thy panacean draughts with languid lips: | |
| The name of Divona the Gauls assign, | 35 |
| O heavenly fountain, and indeed divine! | |
| With less salubrious draught in tepid gush | |
| From Aponus the bubbling waters rush; | |
| Less pure with crystal light Nemausus gleams, | |
| Less full Timavus rolls his sea-swoln streams. | 40 |
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