ODE III.[1]
Reading edition
ODE III.[1]
Listen to the Muse's lyre, Master of the pencil's fire! Sketched in painting's bold display, Many a city first portray; Many a city, revelling free, Full of loose festivity. Picture then a rosy train, Bacchants straying o'er the plain; Piping, as they roam along, Roundelay or shepherd-song. Paint me next, if painting may Such a theme as this portray, All the earthly heaven of love These delighted mortals prove.
[1] La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by considerable interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably necessary to the completion of the description.