28
Quid tango carmine plura
Commemorem? Virtute Nihil prœstantius ipsa,
Splendidius Nihil est; Nihil est Jove denique majus.
Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis:
Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta,
De Nihilo, Nihili pariant fastidia versus.
[TRANSLATION OF THE FOREGOING]
Janus is come, his festive Calends ask
A boon from me, unequal to the task;
No gift is mine, no tribute can I pay
Which suits the season, or the festive day;
Do then Castalian streams, my veins forsake,
Refuse my thirst of Poesy to slake?
And say shall He behold me giftless here
He who unlocks the portals of the year?
And all my other labors past and o'er—
Unsung, unhonored, shall he pass my door?
But now the well known beaten path I change,
And through untrodden fields at large I range.
Lo! while my Muse to ev'ry side doth turn
She nothing finds; do not the off'ring spurn
Nothing more precious than the costly gem,
And gold that glitter in a Diadem,
Here lend your thoughts, here shed your looks benign,
The theme is novel, and the subject mine—
The Greek and Roman sages tun'd their lyres,
To other lays, and glowed with loftier fires.
Yet while through Greece and Rome their verses rung
These ancient worthies nothing left unsung.
Wherever Ceres, thron'd above the skies,
Upon her laughing kingdoms casts her eyes,
Or where Oceanus, whose watry arms
Clasp with a sire's embrace Earth's varied charms,
His glances darts, he views midst small and great
Nothing annihilate or uncreate;
Nothing, immortal; but above the rest
Nothing, with happiness supremely blast
Then if such Majesty and power divine
Centre in this and thro' this object shine
What adoration should not we bestow,
