Page:Vida's Art of Poetry.djvu/69

With them the nymphs that haunt their native woods,
And the long orders of the sylvan gods.

With gay descriptions sprinkle here and there,
Some grave instructive sentences with care,
That touch on life, some moral good pursue,
And give us virtue in a transient view;
Rules, which the future sire may make his own,
And point the golden precepts to his son.

Sometimes on little images to fall,
And thus illustrate mighty things by small;
And that with due success the poet dares,
When to the ^[1] ants the Phrygians he compares,
Who leaving Carthage gather to the seas;
Or the laborious Tyrians to the ^[2] bees.
But swarms of ^[3] flies; offensive animals,
That buzz incessant o'er the smoking pails,
Are images too low, to paint the hosts,
That roll, and blacken o'er Ausonia's coasts.
The lofty muse who sung the Latian war,
Would think such trivial things beneath her care;

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1. Æ. L. 9. v. 402.
2. Ib. Lib. 1. v. 434.
3. Il. L. 2. v. 469.

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