I first transferred to Rome Sicilian strains; Nor blushed the Doric Muse to dwell on Mantuan plains. But when I tried her tender voice, too young, And fighting kings and bloody battles sung, Apollo checked my pride, and bade me feed My fattening flocks, nor dare beyond the reed. Admonished thus, while every pen prepares To write thy praises, Varus, and thy wars, My pastoral Muse her humble tribute brings, And yet not wholly uninspired she sings; For all who read, and, reading, not disdain These rural poems, and their lowly strain, The name of Varus oft inscribed shall see } In every grove, and every vocal tree, } And all the sylvan reign shall sing of thee: } Thy name, to Phoebus and the Muses known, } Shall in the front of every page be shown; } For he, who sings thy praise, secures his own. } Proceed, my Muse!--Two Satyrs, on the ground, Stretched at his ease, their sire Silenus found. Dozed with his fumes, and heavy with his load, } They found him snoring in his dark abode, } And seized with youthful arms the drunken god. } His rosy wreath was dropt not long before, Borne by the tide of wine, and floating on the floor. His empty can, with ears half worn away, Was hung on high, to boast the triumph of the day. Invaded thus, for want of better bands, His garland they unstring, and bind his hands; For, by the fraudful god deluded long, They now resolve to have their promised song. Ægle came in, to make their party good-- The fairest Naïs of the neighbouring flood-- And, while he stares around with stupid eyes, His brows with berries, and his temples, dyes. He finds the fraud, and, with a smile, demands, On what design the boys had bound his hands. "Loose me," he cried, "'twas impudence to find A sleeping god; 'tis sacrilege to bind. To you the promised poem I will pay; The nymph shall be rewarded in her way." He raised his voice; and soon a numerous throng Of tripping Satyrs crowded to the song; And sylvan Fauns, and savage beasts, advanced; And nodding forests to the numbers danced. Not by Hæmonian hills the Thracian bard, } Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard } With deeper silence, or with more regard. } He sung the secret seeds of Nature's frame; How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame, Fell through the mighty void, and, in their fall, Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball. The tender soil then, stiffening by degrees, Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas. Then earth and ocean various forms disclose,