From infancy he has been set apart as the child of the Muses. At birth Melpomene marked him for her own. The doves of ancient story covered him over with the green leaves of the Apulian wood as, lost and overcome by weariness, he lay in peaceful slumber, and kept him safe from creeping and four-footed things, a babe secure in the favor of heaven. 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_. T_he monument I build, to men endeared_, N_ot biting rain, nor raging wind, nor time_, E_ndlessly flowing through the countless years_, S_hall e'er destroy. I shall not wholly die_; T_he grave shall have of me but what appears_; F_or me fresh praise shall ever multiply_. A_s long as priest and silent Vestal wind_ T_he Capitolian steep, tongues shall tell o'er_ H_ow humble Horace rose above his kind_ W_here Aufidus's rushing waters roar_ I_n the parched land where rustic Daunus reigned_, A_nd first taught Grecian numbers how to run_ I_n Latin measure. Muse! the honor gained_ I_s thine, for I am thine till time is done_. G_racious Melpomene, O hear me now_, A_nd with the Delphic bay gird round my brow_. Yet Horace does not always refer to his poetry in this serious vein; if indeed we are to call serious a manner of literary prophecy which has always been more or less conventional. His frequent disclaimers of the higher inspiration are well known. The Muse forbids him to attempt the epic strain or the praise of Augustus and Agrippa. In the face of grand themes like these, his genius is slight. He will not essay even the strain of Simonides in the lament for an Empire stained by land and sea with the blood of fratricidal war. His themes shall be rather the feast and the mimic battles of revelling youths and maidens, the making of love in the grots of Venus. His lyre shall be jocose, his plectrum of the lighter sort.