FROM HORACE.

BOOK I. ODE 9.

See tall Soracte white with snow!
The forests groan beneath their load;
Th' imprison'd streams no longer flow,
Thro' crystal caverns working slow

Their hollow winding road.

Stern Winter's call, my friend, obey!

Pile high thy blazing hearth with wood! And, more to drive the cold away,

Let thy old Sabine cask to-day

Pour forth a nobler flood!

Be this thy care-to Heaven resign
What after days may have in store,
To Heaven that can the blasts confine,
When the tall ash and mountain-pine

Toss their proud heads no more.

Repress that fondly curious glance

Which fain would search the future hour; Improve each day's revolving chance, Nor shun the soul-enlivening dance,

Nor Love's enchanting power.

Be thine, while age yet spares to blight
The verdure of thy youthful bloom,
The chase by day, the ball by night,
And amorous whispers, warm and light,

Soft stealing through the gloom.

Oft shall her stifled laugh betray
The Girl too sportive long to hide;
The bracelet oft be snatch'd away,
Which, half in earnest, half in play,
Her struggling arm denied.

FROM HORACE.

BOOK II. ODE 3.

When dangers press, a mind sustain
Unshaken by the storms of Fate;
And when delight succeeds to pain,
With no glad insolence elate;
For Death will end the various toys
Of hopes, and fears, and cares, and joys.

Mortal alike, if sadly grave

You pass life's melancholy day,
Or, in some green retired cave
Wearing the idle hours away,
Give to the Muses all your soul,
And pledge them in the flowing bowl;

Where the broad pine, and poplar white
To join their hospitable shade
With intertwisted boughs delight;
And, o'er its pebbly bed convey'd,
Labours the winding stream to run,
Trembling, and glittering to the sun.

Thy gen'rous wine, and rich perfume,
And fragrant roses hither bring,
That with the early zephyrs bloom

And wither with declining Spring,

While joy and youth not yet have fled,
And Fate still holds th' uncertain thread,

You soon must leave your verdant bowers

And groves yourself had taught to grow, Your soft retreats from sultry hours Where Tiber's gentle waters flow, Soon leave; and all you call your own Be squander'd by an heir unknown.

Whether of wealth and lineage proud,
A high Patrician-name you bear,
Or pass ignoble in the croud

Unsheltered from the midnight air,

'Tis all alike; no age or state

Is spar'd by unrelenting Fate.

To the same port our barks are bound;
One final doom is fix'd for all:

The universal wheel goes round,

And, soon or late, each lot must fall,

When all together shall be sent

To one eternal banishment.

FROM HORACE.

BOOK II. ODE 14.

How soon, alas, how soon, my friend,
The winged seasons glide away;
Our life posts onward to its end,
No virtue can our wrinkles stay,
Nor restless Time one little hour delay!

Pile thy rich incense, let the fires

Ascend and altars stream with blood!

Alas, no sacrifice aspires

To soothe th' inexorable God

Who binds the ghosts to the Tartarean flood.

That dismal flood, at Fate's command,
All who have fed from Nature's store,

All who enjoy this smiling land,

In common crowds must venture o'er, The king's high spirit mix'd with baser poor.

Vainly with coward care we shun

The murd'rous field and 'whelming wave; Vainly, when Autumn's sickly sun

Puts us in memory of a grave,

Fly to the healthful bower and shelt'ring cave.