I. ROMAN Virgil, thou that singest | |
| Ilion’s lofty temples robed in fire, | |
| Ilion falling, Rome arising, | |
| wars, and filial faith, and Dido’s pyre; | |
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II. Landscape-lover, lord of language | 5 |
| more than he that sang the Works and Days, | |
| All the chosen coin of fancy | |
| flashing out from many a golden phrase; | |
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III. Thou that singest wheat and woodland, | |
| tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; | 10 |
| All the charm of all the Muses | |
| often flowering in a lonely word; | |
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IV. Poet of the happy Tityrus | |
| piping underneath his beechen bowers; | |
| Poet of the poet-satyr whom | 15 |
| the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; | |
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V. Chanter of the Pollio, glorying | |
| in the blissful years again to be, | |
| Summers of the snakeless meadow, | |
| unlaborious earth and oarless sea; | 20 |
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VI. Thou that seëst Universal | |
| Nature moved by Universal Mind; | |
| Thou majestic in thy sadness | |
| at the doubtful doom of human kind; | |
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VII. Light among the vanish’d ages; | 25 |
| star that gildest yet this phantom shore; | |
| Golden branch amid the shadows, | |
| kings and realms that pass to rise no more; | |
| |
VIII. Now thy Forum roars no longer, | |
| fallen every purple Cæsar’s dome— | 30 |
| Tho’ thine ocean-roll of rhythm | |
| sound for ever of Imperial Rome— | |
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IX. Now the Rome of slaves hath perished, | |
| and the Rome of freemen holds her place, | |
| I, from out the Northern Island | 35 |
| sundered once from all the human race, | |
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X. I salute thee, Mantovano, | |
| I that loved thee since my day began, | |
| Wielder of the stateliest measure | |
| ever moulded by the lips of man. | 40 |
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