Page:Odes and Carmen Saeculare.djvu/141

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BOOK III.
97

The horses. I, for friendship's sake,
Watching each wing,
Ere to his haunt, the stagnant marsh,
The harbinger of tempest flies,
Will call the raven, croaking harsh,
From eastern skies.
Farewell!—and wheresoe'er you go,
My Galatea, think of me:
Let lefthand pie and roving crow
Still leave you free.
But mark with what a front of fear
Orion lowers. Ah! well I know
How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear
The west-winds blow.
Let foemen's wives and children feel
The gathering south-wind's angry roar,
The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal,
The quivering shore.
So to the bull Europa gave
Her beauteous form, and when she saw
The monstrous deep, the yawning grave,
Grew pale with awe.
That morn of meadow-flowers she thought,
Weaving a crown the nymphs to please:
That gloomy night she look'd on nought
But stars and seas.
Then, as in hundred-citied Crete
She landed,—"O my sire!" she said,
"O childly duty! passion's heat
Has struck thee dead.

H.