Great Maro's strain in heavenly numbers flows,
The Nine inspire, and all the bosom glows.
Oh! could I rival thine and Virgil's page,
Or claim the Muses with the Mantuan sage;
Soon the same beauties should my mind adorn,
And the same ardors in my soul should burn:
Then should my song in bolder notes arise,
And all my numbers pleasingly surprise:
But here I sit and mourn, a grovelling mind
That fain would mount and ride upon the wind.
Not you, my friend, these plaintive strains become;
Not you, whose bosom is the Muses' home.
When they from towering Helicon retire,
They fan in you the bright, immortal fire;
But I, less happy, cannot raise the song;
The faltering music dies upon my tongue.
The happier Terence[1] all the choir inspired,
His soul replenished, and his bosom fired:
But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace
To one alone of Afric's sable race;
From age to age transmitting thus his name,
With the first glory in the realms of fame?
Thy virtues, great Maecenas! shall be sung
In praise of him from whom those virtues sprung;
While blooming wreaths around thy temples spread,
I'll snatch a laurel from thine honored head,
- ↑ He was an African by birth.
