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.