ODE VI.

Agrippa! seek a loftier bard; nor ask
Horace to twine in songs
The double wreath, due to a victor's casque
From land and ocean: such Homeric task
To Varius belongs.

Our lowly lyre no fitting music hath,
And in despair dismisses
The epic splendours of “Achilles wrath,”
Or the “dread line of Pelops,” or the “path
Of billow-borne Ulysses.”

The record of the deeds at Actium wrought
So far transcends our talent—
Vain were the wish! wild the presumptuous thought!
To sing how Cæsar, how Agrippa, fought—
Both foremost 'mid the gallant!

The God of War in adamantine mail;
Merion, gaunt and grim;
Pallas in aid; while Troy's battalions quail,
Scared by the lance of Diomed … must fail
To figure in our hymn.

Ours is the banquet-song's light-hearted strain,
Roses our only laurel,
The progress of a love-suit our campaign,
Our only scars the gashes that remain
When romping lovers quarrel.