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ODE I.

IV*.

TO VENUS.

GAIN? new Tumults in my breast?

AGAIN?

Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me reft?

I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne. Ah found no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle fober Fifty with thy Charms. Mother too fierce of dear Defires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number five direct your Doves,

There spread round MURRAY all your blooming

Loves;

Noble and young, who ftrikes the heart

With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part;

Equal, the injur'd to defend,

To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend.

NOTES.

He,

*This and the unfinished imitation of the ninth Oce of the fourth book which follows, fhew as happy a vein for managing the Odes of Horace as the Epiftles.

W.

These imitations are furely far inferior to those of the Satires and Epiftles of Horace.

may

It be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precifely the fame that Ben Johnson used in a translation of this very Ode; in which translation, by the way, are fome lines smoother than our old bard's ufual ftrains. Folio, p. 268.

Et centum puer artium,

Late figna feret militiae tuae.

Et, quandoque potentior

Largis muneribus riferit aemuli,

Albanos prope te lacus

Ponet marmoream fub trabe citrea.

Illic plurima naribus

Duces thura; lyraque et Berecynthiae Delectabere tibia

Mixtis carminibus, non fine fiftula. Illic bis pueri die

Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum Laudantes, pede candido

In morem Salium ter quatient humum. Me nec femina, nec puer

Jam, nec fpes amini credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero,

Nec vincire novis tempora floribus. Sed cur, heu! Ligurine, cur

Manat rara meas lacryma per genas

Cur facunda parum decoro

Inter verba cadit lingua filentio ?

Nocturnis

He, with a hundred Arts refin'd,

Shall ftretch thy conquefts over half the kind: To him each Rival shall submit,

Make but his Riches equal to his Wit.

Then shall thy Form the Marble grace,

(Thy Grecian Form) and Chloe lend the Face: His Houfe, embofom'd in the Grove,

Sacred to focial life and focial love,

Shall glitter o'er the pendent green,

Where Thames reflects the vifionary scene: Thither, the filver-founding lyres

Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Defires; There, ev'ry Grace and Mufe fhall throng,

Exalt the dance, or animate the fong; There Youths and Nymphs, in confort gay, Shall hail the rifing, close the parting day. With me, alas! thofe joys are o'er;

For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more. Adieu! fond hope of mutual fire,

The still-believing, ftill-renew'd defire;

Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind Deceivers of the foul!

But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!

Steals down my cheek th' involuntary Tear?

Why words fo flowing, thoughts fo free,

Stop, or turn nonfenfe, at one glance of thee?

Thee, drest in Fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through th' extended Dream;

Nocturnis te ego fomniis

Jam captum teneo, jam volucrem fequor Te per gramina Martii

Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubiles.

Now, now I feize, I clafp thy charms,

And now you burft (ah cruel!) from my arms; And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or foftly glide by the Canal,

Now shown by Cynthia's filver ray,

And now, on rolling waters fnatch'd away.

I HAVE often wondered that our author fhould have chosen one of the most exceptionable odes in Horace for his imitation. Every reader of the original is always disgufted with the object of it.