LGIUS.

BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE NINTH.

Not ceaseless falls the heavy shower
That drenches deep the furrow'd lea;
Nor do continual tempests pour
On the vex'd [2]Caspian's billowy sea;
Nor yet the ice, in silent horror, stands
Thro' _all_ the passing months on pale [3]Armenia's Lands.

Fierce storms do not for _ever_ bend
The Mountain's vast and labouring oak,
Nor from the ash its foliage rend,
With ruthless whirl, and widowing stroke;
But, Valgius, thou, with grief's eternal lays
Mournest thy vanish'd joys in MYSTES' shorten'd days.

When [4]Vesper trembles in the west,
Or flies before the orient sun,
Rise the lone sorrows of thy breast.--
Not thus did aged Nestor shun
Consoling strains, nor always sought the tomb,
Where sunk his [5]filial Hopes, in life and glory's bloom.

Not thus, the lovely Troilus slain,
His Parents wept the Princely Boy;
Nor thus his Sisters mourn'd, in vain,
The blasted Flower of sinking Troy;
Cease, then, thy fond complaints!--Augustus' fame,
The new Cesarian wreaths, let thy lov'd voice proclaim!

So shall the listening World be told
[6]Medus, and cold Niphates guide,
With all their mighty Realms controul'd,
Their late proud waves in narrower tide;
That in scant space their steeds the [7]Scythians rein,
Nor dare transgress the bounds our Victor Arms ordain.

1: This Ode is addressed to his Friend, an illustrious Roman, who had
lost a beloved Son. The poetic literature of Titus Valgius is
ascertained by the honourable mention made of him by Horace, in his
Tenth Satire, Book the First. Valgius, like Sir Brooke Boothby, in
these days, had poured forth a train of elegiac Sorrows over the
blight of his filial hopes. Horace does not severely reprove these
woes, he only wishes they may not be eternal, and that he will, at
least, suspend them and share the public joy; for this Ode was
composed while the splendid victories, which Augustus had obtained in
the East, were recent.

2: The _Caspian_ is a stormy and harbourless Sea--Yet the
Poet observes that not even the _Caspian_ is _always_
tempestuous--insinuating, that inevitable as his grief must be for
such a loss, it yet ought not to be incessant.

3: The coldness of _Armenia_ is well known, surrounded as it is by
the high mountains of _Niphates_, _Taurus_, _Pariades_, _Antiaurus_,
and _Ararat_, which are always covered with snow.

4: VESPER--alike