His mother's charms a master's prize survey'd, Owed to the son of Danaë, on that day, Their mournful fate, when, safe through mightier aid, He bore Medusa's features fair away. 2.1. To him they owed it, sprung from Love But when his foe the Goddess, from above, Drink in their sweetness, lasting laws she makes 2.2. Soft as the skilful breath is born Through well-wrought brass, and slender reeds, That near the city * of the Graces, torn From their old haunts, the beauteous meads And woods, Cephisus laving moves along, * Orchomenus, a city of Bœotia, sacred to the Graces. + He had gained the victory, as the Scholiast says, after breaking his instrument. TRANSLATION OF A LATIN ODE BY GRAY. O DOOM'D the barbarous seats with me To visit, where disturb'd we see Strife's restless look, and hear his sound, And the gownmen bustle round; Say, how much better, in the shade For oft I chase the thoughts away And in each hill, where'er I go, Parnassus seems his woods to shew Outstretch'd; and in each fountain clear Aganippe cool appear. Spring and the sportive Nymphs have smiled Scenting the violets, that there As, thrown at random on the grass, Thus, when the Season's earliest flowers Nor yet I leave the fields and ease; Nor Phœbus more would Clitie please. (Though now the winds are cold and rude, And the summer changing view'd.) For when on rural labours gay, Wistful I mark his wondrous course; * Till by degrees his lustre grown * This poetical idea is in a rejected stanza of the Elegy. "Him have we seen " With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun." |