IV.

1.

The puny pinnace yonder you, my friends, discern, Of every ship professes agilest to be. Nor yet a timber o'er the waves alertly flew She might not aim to pass it; oary-wing'd alike To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail. 5

Nor here presumes denial any stormy coast Of Adriatic or the Cyclad orbed isles, A Rhodos immemorial, or that icy Thrace, Propontis, or the gusty Pontic ocean-arm,

Whereon, a pinnace after, in the days of yore 10 A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus' height With her did inly whisper airy colloquy.

2.

Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years 15 She stood upon your hoary top, a baby tree, Within your haven early dipt a virgin oar:

To carry thence a master o'er the surly seas, A world of angry water, hail'd to left, to right The breeze of invitation, or precisely set 20 The sheets together op'd to catch a kindly Jove.

Nor yet of any power whom the coasts adore Was heard a vow to soothe them, all the weary way From outer ocean unto glassy quiet here.

But all the past is over; indolently now 25 She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.