When sparkling lamps their sputtering light advance,
And in the sockets oily bubbles dance.
Then, after showers, ’tis easy to descry
Returning suns, and a serener sky:
The stars shine smarter; and the moon adorns,
As with unborrowed beams, her sharpened horns.
The filmy gossamer now flits no more,
Nor Halcyons bask on the short sunny shore;
Their litter is not tossed by sows unclean;
But a blue droughty mist descends upon the plain;
And owls, that mark the setting sun, declare
A star-light evening, and a morning fair.
Towering aloft, avenging Nisus flies,
While, dared, below the guilty Scylla lies.
Wherever frighted Scylla flies away,
Swift Nisus follows and pursues his prey:
Where injured Nisus takes his airy course,
Thence trembling Scylla flies, and shuns his force:
This punishment pursues the unhappy maid,
And thus the purple hair is dearly paid.
Then, thrice the ravens rend the liquid air,
And croaking notes proclaim the settled fair.
Then, round their airy palaces they fly,
To greet the sun; and seized with secret joy,
When storms are overblown, with food repair
To their forsaken nests and callow care.
Not that I think their breasts with heavenly souls
Inspired, as man, who destiny controls:
But, with the changeful temper of the skies,
As rams condense, and sunshine rarefies,
So turn the species in their altered minds,
Composed by calms, and discomposed by winds.
From hence proceeds the birds’ harmonious voice;
From hence the cows exult, and frisking lambs rejoice.
Observe the daily circle of the sun,
And the short year of each revolving moon:
By them thou shalt foresee the following day,
Nor shall a starry night thy hopes betray.
When first the moon appears, if then she shrouds
Her silver crescent tipped with sable clouds,
Conclude she bodes a tempest on the main,
And brews for fields impetuous floods of rain.
Or, if her face with fiery flushing glow,
Expect the rattling winds aloft to blow.
But, four nights old (for that’s the surest sign),
With sharpened horns if glorious then she shine,
Next day, nor only that, but all the moon,
Till her revolving race be wholly run,
Are void of tempests, both by land and sea;
And sailors in the port their promised vow shall pay.
Above the rest, the sun, who never lies,
Foretells the change of weather in the skies:
For, if he rise unwilling to his race,
Clouds on his brows, and spots upon his face:
Or if through mists he shoots his sullen beams,
Frugal of light, in loose and straggling streams;
Suspect a drizzling day, with southern rain,
Fatal to fruits, and flocks, and promised grain.
Or if Aurora, with half-opened eyes,
And a pale sickly cheek, salute the skies;
How shall the vine, with tender leaves, defend
Her teeming clusters, when the storms descend,
When ridgy roofs and tiles can scarce avail
To bar the ruin of the rattling hail?
But, more than all, the setting sun survey,
When down the steep of heaven he drives the day:
For oft we find him finishing his race,
With various colours erring on his face.
If fiery red his glowing globe descends,
High winds and furious tempests he portends:
But, if his cheeks are swoln with livid blue,
He bodes wet weather by his watery hue:
If dusky spots are varied on his brow,
And, streaked with red, a troubled colour show;
That sullen mixture shall at once declare
Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war.
What desperate madman then would venture o’er
The frith, or haul his cables from the shore?
But, if with purple rays he brings the light,
And a pure heaven resigns to quiet night,
No rising winds, or falling storms are nigh;
But northern breezes through the forest fly,
And drive the rack, and purge the ruffled sky.
The unerring sun by certain signs declares,
What the late e’en, or early morn prepares,
And when the south projects a stormy day,
And when the clearing north will puff the clouds away.
The sun reveals the secrets of the sky;
And who dares give the source of light the lie?
The change of empires often he declares,
Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars.
He first the fate of Caesar did foretell,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell;
In iron clouds concealed the public light;
And impious mortals feared eternal night.
Nor was the fact foretold by him alone:
Nature her self stood forth, and seconded the sun.
Earth, air, and seas, with prodigies were signed;
And birds obscene, and howling dogs, divined.
What rocks did Aetna’s bellowing mouth expire
From her torn entrails! and what floods of fire!
What clanks were heard, in German skies afar.
Of arms, and armies, rushing to the war!
Dire earthquakes rent the solid Alps below,
And from their summits shook the eternal snow;
Pale spectres in the close of night were seen,
And voices heard, of more than mortal men,
In silent groves: dumb sheep and oxen spoke;
And streams ran backward, and their beds forsook;
The yawning earth disclosed the abyss of hell:
The weeping statues did the wars foretell;
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.
Then, rising in his might, the king of floods
Rushed through the forests, tore the lofty woods,
And, rolling onward, with a sweepy sway,
Bore houses, herds, and labouring hinds away.
Blood sprang from wells; wolves howled in towns by night.
And boding victims did the priests affright.
Such peals of thunder never poured from high,
Nor forky lightnings flashed from such a sullen sky.
Red meteors ran across the ethereal space;
Stars disappeared, and comets took their place.
For this, the Emathian plains once more were strewed
With Roman bodies, and just heaven thought good
To fatten twice those fields with Roman blood.
Then, after length of time, the labouring swains
Who turn the turfs of those unhappy plains,
Shall rusty piles from the ploughed furrows take,
And over empty helmets pass the rake—
Amazed at antique titles on the stones,
And mighty relics of gigantic bones.
Ye home-born deities, of mortal birth!
Thou father Romulus, and mother Earth,
Goddess unmoved! whose guardian arms extend
O’er Tuscan Tiber’s course, and Roman towers defend;
With youthful Caesar your joint powers engage,
Nor hinder him to save the sinking age.
O! let the blood, already spilt, atone
For the past crimes of cursed Laomedon!
Heaven wants thee there; and long the gods, we know,
Have grudged thee, Caesar, to the world below,
Where fraud and rapine right and wrong confound,
Where impious arms from every part resound,
And monstrous crimes in every shape are crowned.
The peaceful peasant to the wars is pressed;
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest;
The plain no pasture to the flock affords;
The crooked scythes are straightened into swords:
And there Euphrates her soft
