English

ODE 5

J OVE we call King, whose bolts rive heaven:
Then a god's presence shall be felt
In Caesar, with whose power the Celt
And Parthian stout in vain have striven.

Could Crassus' men wed alien wives,
And greet, as sons-in-law, the foe?
In the foes' land (oh Romans, oh
Lost honour!) end, in shame, their lives,

'Neath the Mede's sway? They, Marsians and

ODE 4

Come , Music's Queen, from yonder sphere:
Bid thy harp speak: sing high and higher —
Or take Apollo's lute and lyre,
And play, and cease not. Did ye hear?

Or is some sweet Delusion mine?
I seem to hear, to stray beside
Groves that are holy; whither glide
Fair brooks, where breezes are benign.

Me, on mount Vultur once — a lad,

ODE 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,

ODE 2

Friend ! with a poor man's straits to fight
Let warfare teach thy stalwart boy:
Let him the Parthian's front annoy
With lance in rest, a dreaded knight:

Live in the field, inure his eye
To danger. From the foeman's wall
May the armed tyrant's dame, with all
Her damsels, gaze on him, and sigh,

" Dare not, in war unschooled, to rouse

Tread back--and back, the lewd and lay!--
Grace guard your tongues!--what never ear
Heard yet, the Muses' man, today
I bid the boys and maidens hear.

Kings herd it on their subject droves
But Jove's the herd that keeps the kings--
Jove of the Giants: simple Jove's
Mere eyebrow rocks this round of things.

Say man than man may more enclose
In ranked vineyards; one with claim
Of blood to our green hustings goes;
One with more conscience, cleaner frame;

One better backed comes crowding by:--

BOOK III

ODE 1

I SCORN and shun the rabble's norse.
Abstain from idle talk. A thing
That ear hath not yet heard, I sing,
The Muses' priest, to maids and boys.

To Jove the flocks which great kings sway,
To Jove great kings allegiance owe.
Praise him: he laid the giants low:
All things that are, his nod obey.

Hence, ye profane! I hate you all;
Both the great vulgar, and the small.
To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,
Nor yet discolored with the love of gold,
That jaundice of the soul,
(Which makes it look so gilded and so foul,)
To you, ye very few, these truths I tell;
The Muse inspires my song; hark, and observe it well.
We look on men, and wonder at such odds
Twixt things that were the same by birth;
We look on kings, as giants of the earth,

Hence, ye profane! I hate you all;
Both the great vulgar, and the small.
To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold,
Nor yet discolored with the love of gold,
That jaundice of the soul,
(Which makes it look so gilded and so foul,)
To you, ye very few, these truths I tell;
The Muse inspires my song; hark, and observe it well.
We look on men, and wonder at such odds
Twixt things that were the same by birth;
We look on kings, as giants of the earth,

[1]

Shame of thy mother soyle! ill-nurtur'd tree!
Sett to the mischeife of posteritie!
That hand, (what e're it were) that was thy nurse,
Was sacrilegious, (sure) or somewhat worse.
Black, as the day was dismall, in whose sight
Thy rising topp first staind the bashfull light.

[2]

That man (I thinke) wrested the feeble life
From his old father. that mans barbarous knife
Conspir'd with darknes 'gainst the strangers throate;
(Whereof the blushing walles tooke bloody note)

If we, my Lord, with easy Strife,
Would pass this fickle Tide of Life;
We must not always rashly fail
With ev'ry light, inconstant Gale;
Nor yet, at ev'ry Surge that roars,
Too tim'rous seek the craggy Shores.
The Man who keeps the Golden Mean ,
Where raging Storms are seldom seen,
Avoids the dang'rous Rocks and Pools,
That fright the Wife, and swallow Fools:
He's ne'er despis'd among the Crowd,
Nor envy'd in the Court;
But steers between the Base and Proud,