Horatian Ode On The Tercentenary Of “Don Quixote”
(Published at Madrid, by Francisco de Robles, January 1605)
“Para mí sola nació don Quixote, y yo para él.”—CERVANTES.
Advents we greet of great and small;
Much we extol that may not live;
Yet to the new-born Type we give
No care at all!
This year,35—three centuries past,—by age
More maimed than by LEPANTO’S fight,—
This year CERVANTES gave to light
His matchless page,
Whence first outrode th’ immortal Pair,—
The half-crazed Hero and his hind,—
To make sad laughter for mankind;
And whence they fare
Throughout all Fiction still, where chance
Allies Life’s dulness with its dreams—
Allies what is, with what but seems,—
Fact and Romance:—
O Knight of fire and Squire of earth!—
O changing give-and-take between
The aim too high, the aim too mean,
I hail your birth,—
Three centuries past,—in sunburned SPAIN,
And hang, on Time’s PANTHEON wall,
My votive tablet to recall
That lasting gain!
Notes
35 I.e. January 1905.