A New Translation of the Fifteenth Ode of Horace, or Prophecy of
Nerceus, from which (according to Count Algorotti and Dr. Johnson)
Gray took his beautiful Ode, _The Bard_.
[From _The Kentucky Gazette_ (October 27, 1806)]
What time the fair perfidious shepherd bore
The beauteous Helen back to Ilion's shore,
To sleep the howling waves were won
By Nerceus, Ocean's hoary son,
While round the liquid realms he sung,
From guilty love, what dire disasters sprung.
Thee, tainted Youth, what omens dire attend!
Thy neck and Ilion's soon to Greece shall bend.
To man and horse what sweat and blood,
What carnage float down Xanthus' flood!
What wrath on Troy shall Greece infuriate turn!
What glittering domes, and spires, and temples burn!
In vain you boast the Queen of beauty's smiles,
Her charms, her floating curls, her amourous wiles,
These, these alas! will nought avail
While Cretan arrows round you sail!
And, tho' the fates awhile such guilt may spare,
Vile dust at length shall smear that golden hair!
Trace back, vain Youth! sad Ilion's fate of old!
Ulysses' sons and Nestor's yet behold,
Teucer's and Diomede's more dread
Horrific war shall round you shed;
Then shall ye trembling fly like timid deer
When hungry wolves are howling in their rear.
By promise Vain of Universal Sway
Lur'd you from Greece the beauteous Queen away?
In less than ten revolving years
Achilles' dreadful fleet appears!
His bloody trains of Myrmidonians dire
Shall wrap proud Ilion's domes in Grecian fire!