Lalagé by Horace

 Lalagé

If whole in life and free from sin,

Man needs no Moorish bow, nor dart,

Nor quiver, carrying death within

By poison's art.

Though frowning Caucasus he treads,

And boiling Syrtes hath defied,

Been, Fuscus, where Hydaspes spreads

His mythic tide.

In Sabine woods, and fancy-free,

A wolf observed my wandering tread;

Unarmed, I sang of Lalage;

He saw, and fled.

Such portent in the oaken grove,

Hath martial Daunia never known;

Nor Juba's land, where lions rove

The thirsty zone.

Place me, where desert wastes forbid

One tree to breathe the summer wind,

Where fogs the land and seas have hid,

With Jove unkind;

Or, where the sun so near would be,

That none to build or dwell may dare;

Thy voice, thy smile, my Lalagé,

I '11 love them there.