Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens fair,Who with pared nails encounter youths in fight;Be Fancy free or caught in Cupid's snare,Her temper still is light.

Let others Rhodes or Mytilene sing,Or Ephesus, or Corinth, set betweenTwo seas, or Thebes, or Delphi, for its kingEach famous, or Thessalian Tempe green;There are who make chaste Pallas' virgin towerThe daily burden of unending song,And search for wreaths the olive's rifled bower:The praise of Juno sounds from many a tongue,Telling of Argos' steeds, Mycenae's gold.For me stern Sparta forges no such spell,No, nor Larissa's plain of richest mould,As bright Albunea echoing from her cell.