Horace | Page 9

surrendering as a prey To the wild boar and the ravening wolf; [1] so we, in our dismay, Where'er our wandering steps may chance to carry us should go, Or wheresoe'er across the seas the fitful winds may blow. How think ye then? If better course none offer, why should we Not seize the happy auspices, and boldly put to sea? But let us swear this oath;--"Whene'er, if e'er shall come the time, Rocks upwards from the deep shall float, return shall not be crime; Nor we be loath to back our sails, the ports of home to seek, When the waters of the Po shall lave Matinum's rifted peak. Or skyey Apenninus down into the sea be rolled, Or wild unnatural desires such monstrous revel hold, That in the stag's endearments the tigress shall delight, And the turtle-dove adulterate with the falcon and the kite, That unsuspicious herds no more shall tawny lions fear, And the he-goat, smoothly sleek of skin, through the briny deep career!" This having sworn, and what beside may our returning stay, Straight let us all, this City's doomed inhabitants, away, Or those that rise above the herd, the few of nobler soul; The craven and the hopeless here on their ill-starred beds may loll. Ye who can feel and act like men, this woman's wail give o'er, And fly to regions far away beyond the Etruscan shore! The circling ocean waits us; then away, where nature smiles, To those fair lands, those blissful lands, the rich and happy Isles! Where Ceres year by year crowns all the untilled land with sheaves, And the vine with purple clusters droops, unpruned of all her leaves; Where the olive buds and burgeons, to its promise ne'er untrue, And the russet fig adorns the tree, that graffshoot never knew; Where honey from the hollow oaks doth ooze, and crystal rills Come dancing down with tinkling feet from the sky-dividing hills; There to the pails the she-goats come, without a master's word, And home with udders brimming broad returns the friendly herd. There round the fold no surly bear its midnight prowl doth make, Nor teems the rank and heaving soil with the adder and the snake; There no contagion smites the flocks, nor blight of any star With fury of remorseless heat the sweltering herds doth mar. Nor this the only bliss that waits us there, where drenching rains By watery Eurus swept along ne'er devastate the plains, Nor are the swelling seeds burnt up within the thirsty clods, So kindly blends the seasons there the King of all the Gods. That shore the Argonautic bark's stout rowers never gained, Nor the wily she of Colchis with step unchaste profaned; The sails of Sidon's galleys ne'er were wafted to that strand, Nor ever rested on its slopes Ulysses' toilworn band: For Jupiter, when he with brass the Golden Age alloyed, That blissful region set apart by the good to be enjoyed; With brass and then with iron he the ages seared, but ye, Good men and true, to that bright home arise and follow me!
[1] The story of the Phocaeans is told by Herodotus (Ch. 165). When their city was attacked by Harpagus, they retired in a body to make way for the Persians, who took possession of it. They subsequently returned, and put to the sword the Persian garrison which had been left in it by Harpagus. "Afterwards, when this was accomplished, they pronounced terrible imprecations on any who should desert the fleet; besides this, they sunk a mass of molten iron, and swore that they would never return to Phocaea until it should appear again."
This poem, Lord Lytton has truly said, "has the character of youth in its defects and its beauties. The redundance of its descriptive passages is in marked contrast to the terseness of description which Horace studies in his Odes; and there is something declamatory in its general tone which is at variance with the simpler utterance of lyrical art. On the other hand, it has all the warmth of genuine passion, and in sheer vigour of composition Horace has rarely excelled it."
The idea of the Happy Isles, referred to in the poem, was a familiar one with the Greek poets. They became in time confounded with the Elysian fields, in which the spirits of the departed good and great enjoyed perpetual rest. It is as such that Ulysses mentions them in Tennyson's noble monologue:--
"It may be that the gulfs shall wash us down, It may be we shall reach the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew."
These islands were supposed to be in the far west, and were probably the poetical amplification of some voyager's account of the Canaries or of Madeira. There has always been a region beyond