“Bears, vipers, spared him as he lay,The sacred garland deck'd his hair,The myrtle blended with the bay:The child's inspired: the gods were there.”Your grace, sweet Muses, shields me stillOn Sabine heights, or lets me rangeWhere cool Praeneste, Tibur's hill,Or liquid Baiae proffers change.Me to your springs, your dances true,Philippi bore not to the ground,Nor the doom'd tree in falling slew,Nor billowy Palinurus drown'd.Grant me your presence, blithe and fainMad Bosporus shall my bark explore;My foot shall tread the sandy plainThat glows beside Assyria's shore;'Mid Briton tribes, the stranger's foe,And Spaniards, drunk with horses' blood,And quiver'd Scythians, will I goUnharm'd, and look on Tanais' flood.