The Julian Edicts who shall break?
Not they, who in the Danube slake
Their thirst, nor Serican, nor Gete,
Nor Persian, practised in deceit,
Nor all the ruthless tribes, beside
The Danube's darkly-rolling tide.

And we, on working days and all
Our days of feast and festival,
Shall with our wives and children there,
Approaching first the gods in pray'r,
Whilst jovial Bacchus' gifts we pour,
Sing, as our fathers sang of yore,
To Lybian flutes, which answer round,
Of chiefs for mighty worth renown'd,
Of Troy, Anchises, and the line
Of Venus evermore benign!

THE EPODES.

EPODE I.

TO MECENAS.

Ir thou in thy Liburnians go
Amid the bulwark'd galleys of the foe,
Resolved, my friend Mæcenas, there
All Cæsar's dangers as thine own to share,
What shall we do, whose life is gay

Whilst thou art here, but sad with thee away
Obedient to thy will, shall we

?

Seek ease, not sweet, unless 't is shared by thee?
Or shall we with such spirit share

Thy toils, as men of gallant heart should bear?
Bear them we will; and Alpine peak
Scale by thy side, or Caucasus the bleak;
Or follow thee with dauntless breast
Into the farthest ocean of the West.

And shouldst thou ask, how I could aid
Thy task, unwarlike I, and feebly made?
Near thee my fears, I answer, would
Be less, than did I absent o'er them brood;
As of her young, if they were left,

The bird more dreads by snakes to be bereft,
Than if she brooded on her nest,

Although she could not thus their doom arrest.
Gladly, in hopes your grace to gain,

I'll share in this or any fresh campaign!