No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied,Shall bear me through the liquid sky;A two-form'd bard, no more to bideWithin the range of envy's eye'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungracedBy gentle blood, I, whom you callYour friend, Maecenas, shall not tasteOf death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall.E'en now a rougher skin expandsAlong my legs: above I changeTo a white bird; and o'er my handsAnd shoulders grows a plumage strange:Fleeter than Icarus, see me floatO'er Bosporus, singing as I go,And o'er Gaetulian sands remote,And Hyperborean fields of snow;By Dacian horde, that masks its fearOf Marsic steel, shall I be known,And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hearMy warbling, and the banks of Rhone.