The rain, it rains not every day On the soak'd meads; the Caspian main Not always feels the unequal sway Of storms, nor on Armenia's plain, Dear Valgius, lies the cold dull snow Through all the year; nor northwinds keen Upon Garganian oakwoods blow, And strip the ashes of their green. You still with tearful tones pursue Your lost, lost Mystes; Hesper sees Your passion when he brings the dew, And when before the sun he flees. Yet not for loved Antilochus Grey Nestor wasted all his years In grief; nor o'er young Troilus His parents' and his sisters' tears For ever flow'd. At length have done With these soft sorrows; rather tell Of Caesar's trophies newly won, And hoar Niphates' icy fell, And Medus' flood, 'mid conquer'd tribes Rolling a less presumptuous tide, And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes, Henceforth o'er narrower steppes to ride.
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