Leave to the Gods all else. When they
Have once bid rest the winds that war
Over the passionate seas, no more
Grey ash and cypress rock and sway.
Ask not what future suns shall bring,
Count to-day gain, whate’er it chance
To be: nor, young man, scorn the dance,
Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing,
Ere Time thy April youth hath changed
To sourness. Park and public walk
Attract thee now, and whispered talk
At twilight meetings pre-arranged;
Hear now the pretty laugh that tells
In what dim corner lurks thy love;
And snatch a bracelet or a glove
From wrist or hand that scarce rebels.
TO LEUCONÖE.
Od. i. 11.
Seek not, for thou shalt not find it, what my end, what thine shall be;
Ask not of Chaldæa’s science what God wills, Leuconöe:
Better far, what comes, to bear it. Haply many a wintry blast
Waits thee still; and this, it may be, Jove ordains to be thy last,
Which flings now the flagging sea-wave on the obstinate sandstone-reef.
Be thou wise: fill up the wine-cup; shortening, since the time is brief,
Hopes that reach into the future. While I speak, hath stol’n away
Jealous Time. Mistrust To-morrow, catch the blossom of To-day.
JUNO’S SPEECH.
Od. iii. 3.
The just man’s single-purposed mind
Not furious mobs that prompt to ill
May move, nor kings’ frowns shake his will
Which is as rock; not warrior-winds
That keep the seas in wild unrest;
Nor bolt by Jove’s own finger hurled:
The fragments of a shivered world
Would crash round him still self-possest.
Jove’s wandering son reached, thus endowed,
The fiery bastions of the skies;
Thus Pollux; with them Cæsar lies
Beside his nectar, radiant-browed.