Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/58

40 affairs, you shall resume your great work in the tragic style of Athens, O Pollio, thou excellent succor to sorrowing defendants and a consulting senate; [Pollio,] to whom the laurel produced immortal honors in the Dalmatian triumph. Even now you stun our ears with the threatening murmur of horns: now the clarions sound; now the glitter of arms affrights the flying steeds, and dazzles the sight of the riders. Now I seem to hear of great commanders besmeared with, glorious dust, and the whole earth subdued, except the stubborn soul of Cato. Juno, and every other god propitious to the Africans, impotently went off, leaving that land unrevenged; but soon offered the descendants of the conquerors, as sacrifices to the manes of Jugurtha. What plain, enriched by Latin blood, bears not record, by its numerous sepulchres, of our impious battles, and of the sound of the downfall of Italy, heard even by the Medes? What pool, what rivers, are unconscious of our deplorable war? What sea have not the Daunian slaughters discolored? What shore is unstained by our blood? Do not, however, rash muse, neglecting your jocose strains, resume the task of Cæan plaintive song, but rather with me seek measures of a lighter style beneath some love-sequestered grotto.