Page:Address on the opening of the Free Public Library of Ballarat East, on Friday, 1st. January, 1869.djvu/34

 28  Quid tango carmine plura Commemorem? Virtute Nihil prœstantius ipsa, Splendidius Nihil est; Nihil est Jove denique majus. Sed tempus finem argutis imponere nugis: Ne tibi si multa laudem mea carmina charta, De Nihilo, Nihili pariant fastidia versus. 

[TRANSLATION OF THE FOREGOING]  Janus is come, his festive Calends ask A boon from me, unequal to the task; No gift is mine, no tribute can I pay Which suits the season, or the festive day; Do then Castalian streams, my veins forsake, Refuse my thirst of Poesy to slake? And say shall He behold me giftless here He who unlocks the portals of the year? And all my other labors past and o'er— Unsung, unhonored, shall he pass my door? But now the well known beaten path I change, And through untrodden fields at large I range.

Lo! while my Muse to ev'ry side doth turn She finds; do not the off'ring spurn Nothing more precious than the costly gem, And gold that glitter in a Diadem, Here lend your thoughts, here shed your looks benign, The theme is novel, and the subject mine— The Greek and Roman sages tun'd their lyres, To other lays, and glowed with loftier fires. Yet while through Greece and Rome their verses rung These ancient worthies left unsung.

Wherever Ceres, thron'd above the skies, Upon her laughing kingdoms casts her eyes, Or where Oceanus, whose watry arms Clasp with a sire's embrace Earth's varied charms, His glances darts, he views midst small and great Nothing annihilate or uncreate; Nothing, immortal; but above the rest Nothing, with happiness supremely blast Then if such Majesty and power divine Centre in this and thro' this object shine What adoration should not we bestow, 