Page:Odes and Carmen Saeculare.djvu/155

By Punic sacrilege and spoil,
Beheld at length their gods replaced.
Then the false Libyan own'd his doom:—
"Weak deer, the wolves' predestined prey,
Blindly we rush on foes, from whom
'Twere triumph won to steal away.
That race which, strong from Ilion's fires,
Its gods, on Tuscan waters tost,
Its sons, its venerable sires,
Bore to Ausonia's citied coast;
That race, like oak by axes shorn
On Algidus with dark leaves rife,
Laughs carnage, havoc, all to scorn,
And draws new spirit from the knife.
Hot the lopp'd Hydra task'd so sore
Alcides, chafing at the foil:
No pest so fell was born of yore
From Colchian or from Theban soil.
Plunged in the deep, it mounts to sight
More splendid: grappled, it will quell
Unbroken powers, and fight a fight
Whose story widow'd wives shall tell.
No heralds shall my deeds proclaim
To Carthage now: lost, lost is all:
A nation's hope, a nation's name,
They died with dying Hasdrubal."
What will not Claudian hands achieve?
Jove's favour is their guiding star,
And watchful potencies unweave
For them the tangled paths of war.