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Translated by C. A. Elton
IGILIUM’S woody heights my wonder raise, | |
| Nor shall my verse defraud it of its praise: | |
| The genius of the soil, or guardian power | |
| Of Rome’s high lord preserved in danger’s hour | |
| Its native thickets; and the foe withstood | 5 |
| With narrow frith, as with an ocean’s flood. | |
| And hither from the shattered city fled | |
| Rome’s refuged exiles, breathing from their dread. | |
| The Gothic horsemen in their naval might | |
| Had swept the seas, and waged unnatural fight; | 10 |
| One wondrous haven lent a sheltering home, | |
| Far from the conquering Goth, yet near to Rome. | |
| We touch on Umbro, no ignoble tide; | |
| In whose safe mouth the storm-scared vessels ride: | |
| So smooth the channel spreads its easy plain, | 15 |
| When the fierce tempest rushes on the main. | |
| I sought to anchor in this tranquil bay, | |
| But that our eager crew forbade delay. | |
| Thus hastening on our course, at once the wind | |
| Fell to a calm, the parting light declined; | 20 |
| Nor could we stretch before the onward gale, | |
| Nor yet returning bend the backward sail. | |
| By night, we quarter on the sandy shore, | |
| And myrtle groves for evening homes explore. | |
| With oars up-propped on oars we rear a shed, | 25 |
| The pole, transversely, roofs it overhead. | |
| With dawn we rowed along the calmy tide, | |
| Yet felt no motion, though the oars we plied. | |
| Gazing the deep, the vessel seemed to stand; | |
| Her course was seen from the receding land. | 30 |
| Ilva appears, for mines of steel renowned, | |
| No richer metal lurks in Noric ground, | |
| From Biturix’ capacious furnace flows, | |
| Or massive in Sardonian caverns grows. | |
| Better the soil that teems with iron ore, | 35 |
| Than yellow sand on Tagus’ gravelly shore; | |
| For deadly gold of vice the basis lays; | |
| The lust of gold to every crime betrays. * * * * * | |
| Our loosened course the near Falernia ends, | |
| Though scarce the sun the middle sky ascends. | 40 |
| There, as it chanced, the village streets among, | |
| Did sacred sports unbend the rustic throng. | |
| Osiris’ renovated form again | |
| With joyful harvests crowned the teeming plain. | |
| We leave the village, hoist the sail, and glide | 45 |
| O’er slimy sands, a mere’s delicious tide. | |
| The waves, enclosed, with free expansion stray, | |
| In the wide pool the wanton fishes play: | |
| But ill repaid the pleasant station’s ease; | |
| Its keeper churlish as Antiphates. * * * * * | 50 |
| Adverse the north-wind rises; but, as day | |
| Hides the pale stars, we sweep the watery way | |
| With bending oars; till Populonia yields | |
| Its natural bay, that winds into the fields. | |
| No watch-tower there, on deep foundations raised, | 55 |
| High-seen in air, with nightly splendor blazed; | |
| But age had worn the solid rocks away, | |
| And insulated one with slow decay: | |
| One rock, a natural beacon, spiring stood, | |
| And overtopped the subjugated flood. | 60 |
| A twofold use the castled cliff supplied,— | |
| An inland fortress, and an ocean guide. | |
| Sunk are the monuments of ages past, | |
| Time’s eating canker has consumed the last: | |
| Of walls long raised faint vestiges are found, | 65 |
| And roofs inearthed with ruins heave the ground. | |
| If human dissolution prompt the sigh, | |
| Lo! cities, e’en as men, are doomed to die. | |
| When shifts the North, we hoist the sail with speed, | |
| While shines the dawn-star on his rosy steed. | 70 |
| Next its dim mountains Corsica displayed, | |
| Their cloud-capt heads were blended into shade; | |
| As fades the dubious moon with crescent light, | |
| And veiled in gloom eludes the straining sight. | |
| Capraria rises, as our course we run; | 75 |
| The foul isle swarms with men who fly the sun: | |
| Self-called the Grecian name of Monks they own, | |
| Who choose to live unwitnessed and alone. | |
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