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Muses of Sicily! on nobler themes

I now will sing. Not all of us admire

Dense woods and groves; if sylvan joys we sing

Let them be fit for a great Consul's ear.

Now dawns the last age of Cumæan song!

Once more the circling centuries beg inbegin [sic]—

The Virgin reappears and Saturn reigns:

From heav'n descends a novel progeny;

Now to this child in whom the iron race

Throughout the world shall cease and turn to gold,

Extend thy aid, Lucina, chaste and kind,

For thy Apollo reigns. This glorious age,

Pollio, will dignify thy consulate;

Then shall great months their wondrous course commence

Under thy rule what trace may yet remain

With us of guilt, shall vanish from the earth

Leaving it free for ever from alarm.

He will accept his life as of the gods

With whom the heroes mingle; seen by them

The whole world will he rule, now set at peace

By his great father's power: to him shall bring