How calm, how beauteous, and how cool—
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.
But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the Night—
The dragons, lizards, serpents—all
The hideous brood that hate the Light;
Through poison fern and slimy weed,
And under ragged, jagged stones
They scuttle, or, in ghoulish greed,
They lap a dead man's bones.
And as, O pool, thou dost cajole
With seemings that beguile us well,
So doeth many a human soul
That teemeth with the lusts of hell.
HORACE I, 4.
'Tis spring! the boats bound to the sea;
The breezes, loitering kindly over
The fields, again bring herds and men
The grateful cheer of honeyed clover.
Now Venus hither leads her train,
The Nymphs and Graces join in orgies,
The moon is bright and by her light
Old Vulcan kindles up his forges.
Bind myrtle now about your brow,
And weave fair flowers in maiden tresses—
Appease God Pan, who, kind to man,
Our fleeting life with affluence blesses.
But let the changing seasons mind us
That Death's the certain doom of mortals—
Grim Death who waits at humble gat
And likewise stalks through kingly portals.
Soon, Sestius, shall Plutonian shades
Enfold you with their hideous seemings—
Then love and mirth and joys of earth
Shall fade away like fevered dreamings.