Robinson Ellis - Catullus (Part IV) lyrics

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 pa** it; oary-wing'd alike5 To fleet beyond them, or to scud beneath a sail. 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 A leafy shaw she budded; oft Cytorus' height With her did inly whisper airy colloquy. Amastris, you by Pontus, you, the box-clad hill Of high Cytorus, all, the pinnace owns, to both15 Was ever, is familiar; in the primal years 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 right20 The breeze of invitation, or precisely set 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 gla**y quiet here. But all the past is over; indolently now She rusts, a life in autumn, and her age devotes To Castor and with him ador'd, the twin divine.