OVID TO HIS WIFE. IMITATED FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF HIS TRISTIA. Jam mea cygneas imitantur tempora plumas, TRIST. Lib. iv. Eleg. 8. My aged head now stoops its honours low, The season now invites me to retire To the dear lares of my household fire; To homely scenes of calm domestic peace, A poet's leisure, and an old man's ease; To wear the remnant of uncertain life In the fond bosom of a faithful wife; In safe repose my last few hours to spend, Thus a safe port the wave-worn vessels gain, His joints unstrung, and feeds his household fires; And sees his stormy day serenely close. Not such my lot! Severer fates decree My shattered bark must plough an unknown sea. Forced from my native seats and sacred home, Friendless, alone, through Scythian wilds to roam; With trembling knees o'er unknown hills I go, Stiff with blue ice and heaped with drifted snow. Which faintly glance against the marble plain : Red Ister there, which madly lashed the shore, His idle urn sealed up, forgets to roar: Stern Winter in eternal triumph reigns, Shuts up the bounteous year and starves the plains. My failing eyes the weary waste explore, The savage mountains and the dreary shore, And vainly look for scenes of old delight;— No loved familiar objects meet my sight; In every scene some favourite spot to trace, To stretch my limbs upon my native soil, With long vacation from unquiet toil; Resign my breath where first that breath I drew, And sink into the spot from whence I grew. But if my feeble age is doomed to try Unusual seasons and a foreign sky, To some more genial clime let me repair, Yet storm and tempest are of ills the least Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse. A savage race my fearful steps surround, Practised in blood and disciplined to wound; Unknown alike to pity as to fear, Hard as their soil, and as their skies severe. Skilled in each mystery of direst art, They arm with double death the poisoned dart; The lurking dagger at their side hung low, Since Cæsar wills, and I a wretch must be, Let me be safe at least in misery! To my sad grave in calm oblivion steal, Nor add the woes of fear to all I feel! Ye tuneful maids! who once in happier days Beneath the myrtle grove inspired my lays, |