C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Horrida Tempestas

Translation of Sir Stephen E. de Vere

THROUGH narrowed skies the tempest rages loud:

A vault low-hung and roofed with cloud

Bursts forth in rain and snow. The woods, the sea,

Echo the storm from Thracian Rhodope.

Snatch we, my friends, the fitting moment—now:

While strong our knees, make smooth the wrinkled brow;

Bring forth the wine of ancient date

Pressed in Torquatus’s consulate;

Of toil and danger speak no more:

Some god may yet our shattered state restore!

Perfume your hair with Achæmenian balm,

And bid Cyllene’s lyre your troubled spirits calm.

’Twas thus the noble Centaur sung:—

“Unconquered youth, from Thetis sprung,

Thyself a mortal! The Dardanian land,

And cool Scamander rippling through the sand,

And gliding Simois, call thee to their side;

Nor shall thy mother o’er her azure tide

Lead thee in triumph to thy Phthian home:

Such the weird Fate’s inexorable doom.

Grieve not, my son: in song and wassail find

A soothing converse and a solace kind.”