Must needs be trodden once, howe'er we pause.
The Furies some to Mars' grim sport consign,
The hungry waves devour

The shipman, young and old drop hour by hour, No single head is spared by ruthless Proserpine.

Me, too, the headlong gust,

That dogs Orion, 'neath the billows thrust.
But, prithee, seaman, shed

On my unburied head

And limbs with gentle hand some grains of drifting dust!

So may the storm that threats the western deep
Turn all its wrath away,

To smite the forests of Venusia,

And thou thy course secure o'er the mild ocean keep!

So may from every hand

Wealth rain on thee by righteous Jove's command! And Neptune, who doth bear

Tarentum in his care,

Bring thy rich-laden argosy to land!
Deny me this, the common tribute due,
And races to be born

Of thy son's sons in after years forlorn, Though guiltless of thy crime, thy heartless scorn shall rue!

Nor shall thyself go free,

For Fate's vicissitudes shall follow thee,
Its laws, that slight for slight,

And good for good requite!

Not unavenged my bootless pray'r shall be;
Nor victim ever expiate thy guilt.

O, then, though speed thou must

It asks brief tarrying

thrice with kindly dust

Bestrew my corpse, and then press onward as thou

wilt!

ODE XXIX.

TO ICCIUS.

So, Iccius, thou hast hankerings

For swart Arabia's golden treasures, And for her still unconquer'd kings

Art marshalling war's deadly measures, And forging fetters meant to tame

The insulting Mede that is our terror and our shame ?

Say, what barbarian virgin fair

Shall wait on thee, that slew her lover, What princely boy, with perfumed hair,

Thy cup-bearer, shall round thee hover, School'd by his sire, with fatal craft

To wing, all vainly now, the unerring Seric shaft?

Up mountains steep may glide the brooks,
And Tiber to its sources roam,
When thou canst change thy noble books
Cull'd far and near, and learned home,

For armour dipp'd in Ebro's wave,

Thou who to all our hopes far nobler promise gave!

ODE XXX.

TO VENUS.

O VENUS, queen of Gnidos Paphos fair,
Leave thy beloved Cyprus for a while,
And shrine thee in that bower of beauty, where
With incense large woos Glycera thy smile!

come, and with thee bring thy glowing boy, The Graces all, with kirtles floating free, Youth, that without thee knows but little joy, The jocund Nymphs, and blithesome Mercury!

ODE XXXI.

THE POET'S PRAYER.

WHAT asks the poet, who adores
Apollo's virgin shrine,

What asks he, as he freely pours
The consecrating wine?

Not the rich grain, that waves along
Sardinia's fertile land,

Nor the unnumber'd herds, that throng
Calabria's sultry strand;

Not gold, nor ivory's snowy gleam,
The spoil of far Cathay,

Nor fields, which Liris, quiet stream,
Gnaws silently away.

Let fortune's favour'd sons the vine
Of fair Campania hold;

The merchant quaff the rarest wine
From cups of gleaming gold;

For to the gods the man is dear
Who scathelessly can brave,
Three times or more in every year,
The wild Atlantic wave.

Let olives, endive, mallows light Be all my fare; and health Give thou, Latoë, so I might Enjoy my present wealth!

Give me but these, I ask no more, These, and a mind entire

And old age, not unhonour'd, nor Unsolaced by the lyre!