When Horace made those sound remarks.

Showing—in spite of Jove's decree—

How mortals rode in impious arks

Transilient o'er the sacred sea,

How there was not beneath the sun

A task so tough but what he'd back us

Somehow to go and see it done

(Such was the flair of Flaccus);

Little he guessed how wind and tide

Should be the sport of human skill;