W_hat slender youth, bedew’d with liquid odours_,
  C_ourts thee on roses in some pleasant cave_,
      P_yrrha?  For whom bind’st thou_
      I_n wreaths thy golden hair_,
  P_lain in thy neatness?  O how oft shall he_
  O_n faith and changed gods complain, and seas_
      R_ough with black winds and storms_
      U_nwonted shall admire_! 
  W_ho now enjoys thee credulous, all gold_,
  W_ho, always vacant, always amiable_
      H_opes thee, of flattering gales_
      U_nmindful!  Hapless they_
  T_o whom thou untried seem’st fair!  Me in my vowed_
  P_icture, the sacred wall declares to have hung_
      M_y dank and dropping weeds_
      T_o the stern God of Sea_.

But let the attempt be made to avoid the ponderous movement and excessive sobriety of Milton, and to communicate the Horatian airiness, and there is a loss in conciseness and reserve: 

  W_hat scented youth now pays you court_,
    P_yrrha, in shady rose-strewn spot_
  D_allying in love’s sweet sport_? 
    F_or whom that innocent-seeming knot_
  I_n which your golden strands you dress_
  W_ith all the art of artlessness?_

  D_eluded lad!  How oft he’ll weep_
    O_’er changed gods!  How oft, when dark_
  T_he billows roughen on the deep_,
    S_torm-tossed he’ll see his wretched bark_! 
  U_nused to Cupid’s quick mutations_,
  I_n store for him what tribulations!_

  B_ut now his joy is all in you_;
    H_e thinks your heart is purest gold_;
  E_xpects you’ll always be love-true_,
    A_nd never, never, will grow cold_. 
  P_oor mariner on summer seas_,
  U_ntaught to fear the treacherous breeze!_

  A_h, wretched whom your Siren call_
    D_eludes and brings to watery woes_! 
  F_or me—­yon plaque on Neptune’s wall_
    S_hows I’ve endured the seaman’s throes_. 
  M_y drenched garments hang there, too_: 
  H_enceforth I shun the enticing blue._

It is not improbable that the struggle of the centuries with the difficulties of rendering Horace has been a chief influence in the development of our present exacting ideal of translation; so exacting indeed that it has defeated its purpose.  By emphasis upon the impossibility of rendering accurately the content of poetry in the form of poetry, scholastic discussion of the theory of translation has led first to despair, and next from despair to the scientific and unaesthetic principle of rendering into exact prose all forms of literature alike.  The twentieth century has thus opened again and settled in opposite manner the old dispute of the French D’Alembert and the Italian Salvini in the seventeen-hundreds, which was resolved by actual results in favor of D’Alembert and fidelity to spirit as opposed to Salvini and fidelity to letter.