Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/106

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your influence? Into what groves, into what recesses am I driven, actuated with uncommon spirit? In what caverns, meditating the immortal honor of illustrious Cæsar, shall I be heard enrolling him among the stars and the council of Jove? I will utter something extraordinary, new, hitherto unsung by any other voice. Thus the sleepless Bacchanal is struck with enthusiasm, casting her eyes upon Hebrus, and Thrace bleached with snow, and Rhodope traversed by the feet of barbarians. How am I delighted in my rambles, to admire the rocks and the desert grove! O lord of the Naiads and the Bacchanalian women, who are able with their hands to overthrow lofty ash-trees; nothing little, nothing low, nothing mortal will I sing. Charming is the hazard, O Bacchus, to accompany the god, who binds his temples with the verdant vine-leaf.


ODE XXVI.

TO VENUS.

I lately lived a proper person for girls, and campaigned it not without honor; but now this wall, which guards the left side of [the statue] of sea-born Venus, shall have my arms