To suffer hardness with good cheer, In sternest school of warfare bred, Our youth should learn; let steed and spear Make him one day the Parthian's dread; Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life. Methinks I see from rampired town Some battling tyrant's matron wife, Some maiden, look in terror down,-- "Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war! O tempt not the infuriate mood Of that fell lion! see! from far He plunges through a tide of blood!" What joy, for fatherland to die! Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake, Nor spare a recreant chivalry, A back that cowers, or loins that quake. True Virtue never knows defeat: HER robes she keeps unsullied still, Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat To please a people's veering will. True Virtue opens heaven to worth: She makes the way she does not find: The vulgar crowd, the humid earth, Her soaring pinion leaves behind. Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come: Who drags Eleusis' rite to day, That man shall never share my home, Or join my voyage: roofs give way And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves Neglected Justice oft confounds: Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves The wretch whose flying steps she hounds. III. JUSTUM ET TENACEM. The man of firm and righteous will, No rabble, clamorous for the wrong, No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, Can shake the strength that makes him strong: Not winds, that chafe the sea they sway, Nor Jove's right hand, with lightning red: Should Nature's pillar'd frame give way, That wreck would strike one fearless head. Pollux and roving Hercules Thus won their way to Heaven's proud steep, 'Mid whom Augustus, couch'd at ease, Dyes his red lips with nectar deep. For this, great Bacchus, tigers drew Thy glorious car, untaught to slave In harness: thus Quirinus flew On Mars' wing'd steeds from Acheron's wave, When Juno spoke with Heaven's assent: "O Ilium, Ilium, wretched town! The judge accurst, incontinent, And stranger dame have dragg'd thee down. Pallas and I, since Priam's sire Denied the gods his pledged reward, Had doom'd them all to sword and fire, The people and their perjured lord. No more the adulterous guest can charm The Spartan queen: the house forsworn No more repels by Hector's arm My warriors, baffled and outworn: Hush'd is the war our strife made long: I welcome now, my hatred o'er, A grandson in the child of wrong, Him whom the Trojan priestess bore. Receive him, Mars! the gates of flame May open: let him taste forgiven The nectar, and enrol his name Among the peaceful ranks of Heaven. Let the wide waters sever still