Oh, Fuscus, he whose life is pure and upright,
Wants not the Moorish javelin nor the bow,
Nor may he need the quiver, heavy laden
With arrows poisoned for the lurking foe.
Whether he is about to make a journey
To sultry Libya, or the unfriendly height
Of Caucasus, or to the distant places
That famed Hydaspes washes in his flight.
For lately me a wolf fled in the forest—
The Sabine forest, as my Lalage
I sang about,—beyond my boundaries wandering,
Care-free, unarmed—the creature fled from me.
Apulia, land of soldiers, never nourished
In her broad woods a monster of such girth,
Nor Mauritania, arid nurse of lions,
To such a one has ever given birth.
Ah, put me on those plains, remote and barren,
Where not a tree can feel the summer wind,
And grow again—a land of mist eternal—
Whereover Jupiter still broods, unkind;
Or place me in that land denied man's dwelling,
Too near the chariot of the sun above,—
Still my own Lalage so sweetly smiling,
My sweetly-speaking Lalage I'll love.