Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/204

To utter words stamped current by the mill
Has always been thought right and always will.
When forests shed their foliage at the fall,
The earliest born still drops the first of all:
So fades the elder race of words, and so
The younger generations bloom and grow.
Death claims humanity and human things,
Aye, e'en "imperial works and worthy kings:"
What though the ocean, girdled by the shore,
Gives shelter to the ships it tossed before?
What though the marsh, once waste and watery, now
Feeds neighbour towns, and groans beneath the plough?
What though the river, late the corn-field's dread,
Rolls fruit and blessing down its altered bed?
Man's works must perish: how should words evade
The general doom, and flourish undecayed?
Yes, words long faded may again revive,
And words may fade now blooming and alive,
If usage wills it so, to whom belongs
The rule, the law, the government of tongues.
For metres, Homer shows you how to write
Heroic deeds and incidents of fight.
Complaint was once the Elegiac's theme;
From thence 'twas used to sing of love's young dream:
But who that dainty measure first put out,
Grammarians differ, and 'tis still in doubt.
Archilochus, inspired by fiery rage,