My fondest dream
Is, poor but free, with my true wife to live.
Saturnian Juno, to all nuptials kind,
Receive with grace my ever-anxious vow!
Come, Venus, wafted by the Cyprian wind,
And from thy car of shell smile on me now!
But if the mournful sisters, by whose hands
Our threads of life are spun, refuse me all--
May Pluto bid me to his dreary lands,
Where those wide rivers through the darkness fall!
ELEGY THE FOURTH
A DREAM FROM PHOEBUS
Be kinder, gods! Let not the dreams come true
Which last night's cruel slumber bade believe!
Begone! your vain, delusive spells undo,
Nor ask me to receive!
The gods tell truth. With truth the Tuscan seer
In entrails dark a book of fate may find;
But dreams are folly and with fruitless fear
Address the trembling mind.
Although mankind, against night's dark surprise
With sprinkled meal or salt ward off the ill,
And often turn deaf ear to prophets wise,
While dreams deceive them still;--
May bright Lucina my foreboding mind
From such vain terrors of the night redeem,
For in my soul no deed of guilt I find,
Nor do my lips blaspheme.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78