Nec si quot placidis ignea noctibus Scintillant tacito sydera culmine, Nec si quot tepidum flante Favonio Ver suffundit humo rosas, Tot sint ora mihi... Was it strange that the youth who could say this felt himself a poet? or who, together with his friend, could sing of spring in a Meliboean song of fifty distichs?

A few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol uttered these words: "All will be well." Some person gave the following interpretation of this prodigy: Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix. "Est bene," non potuit dicere; dixit, "Erit." Late croaked a raven from Tarpeia's height, "All is not yet, but shall be, right."

Thus did I remain, solacing myself, breathing the cool air, and remarking the evening tints of the mountains. Neither the paintings of Count this, nor the antiquities of the Marquis t'other, could tempt me from my aerial situation; I refused hunting out the famous Paolos scattered over the town, and sat like the owl in the Georgics, "Solis et occasom servans de culmine summo."