Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/79

below and above, here silences his swollen rage and foamy din, as if afraid to disturb the Pierian days and music-haunted slumbers of tranquil Vopiscus. On either shore is home, and that most gentle river parts thee not in twain. Stately buildings guard either bank, and complain not that they are strange to each other, or that the stream bars approach. Now let Fame boast of the Sestian gulf, and the bold youth who swam the sea and outstripped the dolphins!^[1] Here is eternal quiet, storms have here no power, waters ne'er grow angry. Here can one see and talk, ay all but join hands across the stream. Thus do the ebbing waves repel Chalcis, thus the eurve of Bruttian Shore that the deep has sundered regards Sicanian Pelorus.

What shall be my first, what my middle theme, whereon shall I conclude ? Shall I marvel at the gilded beams, the Moorish lintels^[2] on every side, patterned veins of glittering marbles, the water-nymphs that hie them through every bed-chamber? This way my eyes, that way my mind would see me. Shall I tell of the forest’s venerable age? Of the courtyard which sees the river’s lower reaches, or of that other which looks back towards the mute woodland, where it hath quiet unbroken and the silence of night unmarred by any storm, and murmuring sounds that invite to gentle slumber? Or of the smoking baths upraised on the grassy bank and the fire kindled upon the icy flood? Or where the river, chained to the vaporous furnace, laughs at the nymphs that gasp in its stream hard by?

Works of art I saw and masterpieces of the ancients