"Oh, then return, the pledge redeem, Thou gav'st the Senate, and once more Its light to all the land restore; For when thy face, like spring-tide's gleam, "Its brightness on the people sheds, Then glides the day more sweetly by, A brighter blue pervades the sky, The sun a richer radiance spreads! "As on her boy the mother calls, Her boy, whom envious tempests keep Beyond the vexed Carpathian deep, From his dear home, till winter falls, "And still with vow and prayer she cries, Still gazes on the winding shore, So yearns the country evermore For Caesar, with fond, wistful eyes. "For safe the herds range field and fen, Full-headed stand the shocks of grain, Our sailors sweep the peaceful main, And man can trust his fellow-men. "No more adulterers stain our beds, Laws, morals, both that taint efface, The husband in the child we trace, And close on crime sure vengeance treads. "The Parthian, under Caesar's reign, Or icy Scythian, who can dread, Or all the tribes barbarian bred By Germany, or ruthless Spain? "Now each man, basking on his slopes, Weds to his widowed trees the vine, Then, as he gaily quaffs his wine, Salutes thee god of all his hopes; "And prayers to thee devoutly sends, With deep libations; and, as Greece Ranks Castor and great Hercules, Thy godship with his Lares blends. "Oh, may'st thou on Hesperia shine, Her chief, her joy, for many a day! Thus, dry-lipped, thus at morn we pray, Thus pray at eve, when flushed with wine." "It was perhaps the policy of Augustus," says Macleane, "to make his absence felt; and we may believe that the language of Horace, which bears much more the impress of real feeling than of flattery, represented the sentiments of great numbers at Rome, who felt the want of that presiding genius which had brought the city through its long troubles, and given it comparative peace. There could not be a more comprehensive picture of security and rest obtained through the influence of one mind than is represented in this Ode, if we except that with which no merely mortal language can compare (Isaiah, xi. and lxv.; Micah, iv.)"