O golden day that shall at last restore My lost love to my arms! O blest indeed, And worthy to be hallowed evermore! May some kind god my long petition heed! No! not dominion, nor Pactolian stream, Nor all the riches the wide world can give! These other men may ask. 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. Now had the Night upon her ebon wain Passed o'er the upper sky, and dipped a wheel In the blue sea: but Sleep, the friend of pain, Refused my sense to seal. Sleep stands defeated at the house of care: And only when from purpled orient skies Peered Phoebus forth, did tardy slumber bear Down on my weary eyes. Then seemed a youth with holy laurel crowned To fill my door: a wight so wondrous rare Was not in all the vanished ages found. No marble half so fair! Adown his neck, with myrtle-buds inwove And Syrian dews, his unshorn tresses flow: White is he as the moon in heaven above, But rose is blent with snow. Like that soft blush on face of virgin fair Led to her husband; or as maidens twine Lilies in amaranth; or Autumn's air Tinges the apples fine. A long, loose mantle to his ankles played,-- Such vesture did his lucent shape enfold: His left hand bore the vocal lyre, all made Of gleaming shell and gold. He smote its strings with ivory instrument, And words auspicious tuned his heavenly tongue; Then, while his hands and voice concording blent, These sad, sweet words he sung: "Hail, blest of Heaven! For a poet divine Phoebus and Bacchus and the Muses bless. But Bacchus and the skilful Sisters nine No prophecies possess. "But of what Fate ordains for times to be Jove gave me vision. Therefore, minstrel dear! Receive what my unerring lips decree! The Cynthian wisdom hear!