The sacred
charm that rests upon him preserved him in the rout at Philippi, rescued
him from the Sabine wolf, saved him from death by the falling tree and
the waters of shipwreck. He will abide under its shadow wherever he may
go,--to his favorite haunts in Latium, to the far north where fierce
Britons offer up the stranger to their gods, to the far east and the
blazing sands of the Syrian desert, to rude Spain and the streams of
Scythia, to the treeless, naked fields of the frozen pole, to homeless
lands under the fiery car of the too-near sun. He will rise superior to
the envy of men. The pinions that bear him aloft through the clear ether
will be of no usual or flagging sort. For him there shall be no death,
no Stygian wave across which none returns:
F_orego the dirge; let no one raise the cry_,
O_r make unseemly show of grief and gloom_,
N_or think o'er me, who shall not really die_,
T_o rear the empty honor of the tomb_.
His real self will remain among men, ever springing afresh in their
words of praise:
N_ot lasting bronze nor pyramid upreared_
B_y princes shall outlive my powerful rhyme_.
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