The cause unnerves or nerves the soldier's might,
And shame disarms who strikes not for the right.
Now is the hour-join battle; I to-day

Will lead and crown the Julian prows with bay."
He spoke, and spends his quiver's freight, when lo!
Our Caesar's lance nigh rivals Phoebus' bow.
By Phoebus Rome prevails: the strumpet wheels,
And o'er the Ionian float her shattered keels.

Proud Caesar shouts from his Idalian star,
"The god is proved by god-like deeds in war."
Old Triton cheers, and all the Nereids raise
Around the flag of freedom songs of praise.
Borne in swift bark, the harlot seeks the Nile:
Her all that's left-to linger on awhile.
'Tis well poor triumph that one woman tread
The streets through which Jugurtha once was led.
Hence rose this shrine to Actian Phoebus' name,
Whose every shaft ten hostile ships o'ercame.

Enough victorious Phoebus claims his lyre,
And doffs his arms to join the peaceful choir.
To the soft grove, ye white-robed priests, now go;
Adown my neck let dainty rose-wreaths flow.
Unstinted pour Falernian rich and rare,
Thrice with Cilician saffron drench my hair.
Let wine inspire each genial poet's dream:
To Phoebus Bacchus lends his gladdest beam.
Let one the damp Sicambrian's conquest trace,
One Cephean Meröe's with its swarthy race,
Another sing of Parthia late o'erthrown :
"Restore our standards: soon thou'lt yield thine own.
If Caesar aught to quivered Orient spare ;

'Tis but a trophy for his sons to share.

Joy, Crassus, if thou canst, 'mid sandy gloom :
Now o'er Euphrates we may seek thy tomb."

Thus wine and song will cheer the night, till day Upon my revel sheds it rosy ray.

VII.

CYNTHIA'S GHOST.

Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit.

I ween.

YES; there are ghosts: death ends not all,
The lurid shade escapes the pile's rent thrall;
For o'er my couch I saw my Cynthia lean,

Late laid where Anio's wayside murmurs fall.

Dreams of the dead disturbed my sleep; my lone Cold couch I mourned when I beheld her glideSame hair, same eyes as in the days agone,

Her half-scorched vesture clinging to her side.

Her finger bore her ring and beryl still,

Half-burnt; her lips were wet from Lethe's lake: She breathed as when in life, but rattled shrill Her frail and bony fingers as she spake.

"Faithless," she said, "and faithless still to be, Canst thou already sink in slumber sweet?

Hast thou forgot thy stolen trysts with me,

Held nightly in Suburra's wakeful street?

"Hast thou forgot my window worn more wide
By cunning nightly wiles, and how I'd go
And swing me through it by a rope, and slide
Hand under hand on to your neck below?

"Oft on the stones we lay in loving guise,

And sought the lonely nooks to lovers dear; Alas our secret bond! whose honeyed lies

Were borne on wandering winds that would not hear!

"When closed my eyes, no piercing voice 'gan plead; I'd gained one day hadst thou but called the while : For me no watch blew shrill the cloven reed;

My head lay gashed upon a broken tile.

"Who saw thee at my burial bow thee low?

Or scald thy sable vestments with a tear? If thou didst grudge beyond the gates to go,

Thou mightst have bid them slowlier bear my bier.

"By thee no winds to fan my pyre were prayed;

No spikenard fed my flame; ingrate! o'er me Cheap hyacinths thou mightst have strewn, and laid

My ghost with cask new-broached-this grudged by thee!

"For Lygdamus let now the iron glow;

I felt the cup was drugged-heat red the brand;

Let Nomas, hag, her spittle-spells forego

The burning tile will show her guilty hand.

"The trull, who lately prowled the streets o' nights, Now sails along in gold-embroidered gown,

And with a double task of wool requites

The maid who lauds my charms or old renown.

N

"Poor Petalè must bear the clog and chain, Because with garlands to my tomb she came, And by the hair my Lalagè is ta'en,

Swung up and slapped for suing in my name.

"Thou lett'st her melt my golden image down, And from my burning pyre a dowry gain; But yet for all, my own, I do not frown:

Long in thy verse, and glorious, was my reign.

"O, by the irrevoluble song of doom!—

So moan the triple hound in gentle tones—
I still was true: if not, athwart my tomb
Let vipers hiss, and nestle on my bones.

"O'er the dark wave two homes of old were made,
And all must seek at last the fatal shore;.

To one is borne foul Clytemnestra's shade,
And the mad mother of the Minotaur.

"Yon flower-crowned bark for happier realms is bound,
Elysian rose-bowers by soft breezes fanned,
Where the stringed lyre and the round cymbals sound,
And Lydian lutes delight the mitred band.

"Andromeda and Hypermnestra there

Wives leal in love-their famous story tell; One wails her tender arms all bruised and bare, Doomed by a mother's pride to shackles fell—

"And blameless hands that might have well been spared
The terrors of the frozen rocks they prest:
The other tells the crime her sisters dared,
And the strong weakness of her wifely breast.

"Thus o'er life's loves death drops the healing tear :
Thy faults were many, but I hide them all;
Yet list my latest wish if still thou'lt hear,
Nor Chloris' magic holds thee all in thrall.

"Let not my nurse Parthenia want when old-
Her house was open and her fee was light—
Nor darling Latris, named from service, hold
The mirror up to some new favourite.

"Burn every lay thou'st written in my praise;
Why keep them now I am no longer thine?
My tomb of ivy strip, whose struggling sprays
And wattled locks my tender bones entwine.

"Where Anio foams 'mid groves of apple-trees,
And the white sheen of ivory's ever clear
By favour of Tiburtine Hercules,

A pillar with a meet inscription rear,

"But brief, and such as may arrest the eyes Of traveller as he hurries from the town;

'In Tibur's land here golden Cynthia lies:

Hence hath thy bank, O Anio! reaped renown.'

"Spurn not the dreams that leave the gates of horn;
For, coming thence, affection's dreams are true:
Night frees the imprisoned shades, and, earthward borne,
By night we reappear to mortal view.

"Then roams the hound beyond the awful bourn, Loosed from the chain that bars the infernal gate;

Till morn to Lethe's mere bids all return,

When the weird boatman counts his shadowy freight.