ODE XXIX.

TO MECENAS.

SCION of Tuscan kings, in store
I've laid a cask of mellow wine,
That never has been broach'd before.
I've roses, too, for wreaths to twine,
And Nubian nut, that for thy hair
An oil shall yield of fragrance rare.

Then linger not, but hither wend!
Nor always from afar survey
Dank Tibur's leafy heights, my friend,
The sloping lawns of Esula,

And mountain peaks of Circe's son,
The parricidal Telegon.

The plenty quit, that only palls,

And, turning from the cloud-capp'd pile,

That towers above thy palace halls,
Forget to worship for a while

The privileges Rome enjoys,

Her smoke, her splendour, and her noise.

It is the rich who relish best

To dwell at times from state aloof, And simple suppers, neatly dress'd, Beneath a poor man's humble roof, With neither pall nor purple there, Have smoothed ere now the brow of care.

See, now Andromeda's bright sire
Reveals his erewhile hidden rays,
Now Procyon flames with fiercest fire,
Mad Leo's star is all ablaze,

For the revolving sun has brought
The season round of parching drought.

Now with his spent and languid flocks The wearied shepherd seeks the shade, The river cool, the shaggy rocks,

That overhang the tangled glade, And by the stream no breeze's gush Disturbs the universal hush.

Thou dost devise with sleepless zeal

What course may best the state beseem, And, fearful for the City's weal,

Weigh'st anxiously each hostile scheme,
That may be hatching far away
In Scythia, India, or Cathay.

Most wisely Jove in thickest night
The issues of the future veils,
And laughs at the self-torturing wight,
Who with imagined terrors quails.

The present only is thine own,
Then use it well, ere it has flown.

All else which may by time be bred
Is like a river of the plain,
Now gliding gently o'er its bed
Along to the Etruscan main,
Now whirling onwards, fierce and fast,
Uprooted trees, and boulders vast,

And flocks, and houses, all in drear
Confusion toss'd from shore to shore,
While mountains far, and forests near
Reverberate the rising roar,

When lashing rains among the hills
To fury wake the quiet rills.

Lord of himself that man will be,
And happy in his life alway,
Who still at eve can say with free
Contented soul, "I've lived to-day!
Let Jove. to-morrow, if he will,
With blackest clouds the welkin fill,

Or flood it all with sunlight pure,
Yet from the past he cannot take
Its influence, for that is sure,

Nor can he mar, or bootless make
Whate'er of rapture and delight
The hours have borne us in their flight."

Fortune, who with malicious glee
Her merciless vocation plies,
Benignly smiling now on me,

Now on another, bids him rise,
And in mere wantonness of whim
Her favours shifts from me to him.

I laud her, whilst by me she holds,
But if she spread her pinions swift,
I wrap me in my virtue's folds,

And yielding back her every gift,
Take refuge in the life so free
Of bare but honest poverty.

You will not find me, when the mast

Groans 'neath the stress of southern gales,

To wretched pray'rs rush off, nor cast
Vows to the great gods, lest my bales

From Tyre or Cyprus sink, to be
Fresh booty for the hungry sea.

When others then in wild despair

To save their cumbrous wealth essay, I to the vessel's skiff repair,

And, whilst the Twin Stars light my way, Safely the breeze my little craft

Shall o'er the Egean billows waft.

ODE XXX.

TO MELPOMENE.

I'VE reared a monument, my own,
More durable than brass,
Yea, kingly pyramids of stone

In height it doth surpass.

Rain shall not sap, nor driving blast
Disturb its settled base,
Nor countless ages rolling past
Its symmetry deface.

I shall not wholly die. Some part,
Nor that a little, shall
Escape the dark destroyer's dart,
And his grim festival.

For long as with his Vestals mute
Rome's Pontifex shall climb
The Capitol, my fame shall shoot
Fresh buds through future time.

Where brawls loud Aufidus, and caine
Parch'd Daunus erst, a horde

Of rustic boors to sway my name
Shall be a household word;