BOOK III.—ODE XXIX.
I.
Sprung from the Etrurian kingly line
Mecænas, thee my choicest wine
Stored in a cask ne’er broach’d, my best
Of unguents for thy hair exprest,
With roses fresh, invite to stay;
Come, snatch thyself from dull delay.
View not for aye moist Tibur’s glade,
With Æsula’s inclining side,
And rocks where erst his refuge made
Telegonus, the parricide.
II.
Leave loathed plenty, and retire
From piles which to the clouds aspire;
Leave wealthy Rome for humbler joys,
Its smoke, its riches, and its noise.
Vicissitudes delight the great
Well pleased sometimes to quit their state:
Beneath the poor man’s humble roof,
A frugal supper neatly dress’d
Oft smooths the brow, keeps care aloof,
Though there no purple couch be prest.
III.
Above, Andromeda’s fierce sire
Glows in the skies with splendid fire;
Now Procyon rages, and the star
Of the mad Lion seen afar;
The sun brings back the time of drought,
The wearied hind his flocks hath brought
Languid with heat to shade and stream
There; where secure in tangled brake
The rough Sylvanus shuns day’s gleam,
And winds the silent bank forsake.
IV.
Thy task it is to guide the state,
Solicitous the city’s fate
To learn, what eastern hordes design,
What Bactra, ruled by Cyrus’ line,
Or China; or why discord reigns
Where Tanais flows through sandy plains.
God knows, alone, what is to be,
Prudent, the future veils in night,
And laughs when ills blind mortals see
Foreboded, with extreme affright.
V.
Use what the present moment brings;
Like to some stream are future things,
Which in mid channel calmly glides,
To mix in the Etrurian tides:
Anon, adown its waters borne
Trees, cattle, houses, stones half worn
Together roll, whilst loud is heard
The clamour in the mountain caves
Of neighbouring woods; and tempest-stirr’d,
The calmest rivers swell with waves.
VI.
That man is blest who thus can say
Lord of himself, “I’ve lived to day;
To-morrow let the gods obscure
The sky with clouds, or sunshine pure
Pour forth, come brightness, or come gloom,
The past is acted, and its doom
Pronounced; and to revoke the past,
Annul the joys I have possess’d,
Darken the light past hours have cast,
Is not in fate: I have been blest.”
VII.
Fortune still plies her savage trade,
Laughs at the bankrupts she hath made;
And insolent enjoys the game
As shuffling honours, wealth, and fame,
To others, now to me, she’ll deal
The prizes of her fickle wheel.
Mine she’s adored: her gifts resign’d
Soon as her rapid pinions sound,
Meek dow’rless poverty, more kind,
I woo, whilst virtue wraps me round.
VIII.
’Tis not for me, when, strain’d and weak,
The labouring mast is heard to creak,
To fall to wretched trading prayers,
Lest Cyprian or lest Tyrian wares
With rarest spoils, unwonted gain,
Enrich the avaricious main.
Me favour’d by a gentle breeze,
And safe within my light bireme,
Shall light along the Ægean seas
Leda’s fair twins, my constant theme.