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Utrumque sacro digna silentio
Mirantur Umbræ dicere: sed magis
Pugnas et exactos tyrannos

Densum humeris bibit aure vulgus.

Quid mirum, ubi illis carminibus stupens
Demittit atras bellua centiceps

Aures, et intorti capillis

Eumenidum recreantur angues?

Quin et Prometheus et Pelopis parens
Dulci laborum decipitur sono:
Nec curat Orion leones,

Aut timidos agitare lyncas.

OBSERVATIONS (continued).

mind the dark realm of Proserpine and the shadowy forms. which people those gloomy groves, among which he particularly specifies Sappho and Alcæus, those models of lyric song, from whom he drew his own inspirations.

This transition from the execrations with which he loads the ill-omened tree in the opening stanzas is most artfully and beautifully managed, and is worthy of all admiration. The phrase in this Ode,

"Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in horas,"

recurs to one's recollection every day.

Feb. 1842.

ODE XIV.

TO POSTUMUS.

Он, Postumus! how speedily
The winged years successive fly;
Nor for a single day

The wrinkles of advancing age,

And Death's indomitable rage,
Can Piety delay.

Not if whole hecatombs we bring
To th' shrine of that relentless king
Whose arm hath power to bind
Gigantic Geryon's triple frame,
And Tityos scorched with lightning's flame
By hell's dark wave confined.

That wave which all must navigate,
Whether on earth a monarch's state
And titles proud they bear;
Or whether, doomed to till the soil
In rustic penury and toil,

A labourer's lot they share.

ODE XIV.

AD POSTUMUM.

EHEU! fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni; nec pietas moram

Rugis et instanti senectæ

Afferet, indomitæque morti.

Non, si trecenis, quotquot eunt dies,
Amice, places illacrimabilem

Plutona tauris; qui ter amplum

Geryonen Tityonque tristi

Compescit unda, scilicet omnibus,
Quicunque terræ munere vescimur,
Enaviganda, sive reges

Sive inopes erimus coloni.

D D

In vain from bloody Mars we run,
In vain the broken billows shun

Of Hadria's roaring seas;
And vainly timorous seek to shroud
Our bodies from th' autumnal cloud
And pestilential breeze.

Cocytus, in his mazy bed,
Must soon or late be visited,

And Lethe's languid waters;
And Sisyphus despairing still
To mount th' insuperable hill,
And Danaus' guilty daughters.

Thy lands, and home, and pleasing wife,
Must all be left with parting life;

And save the bough abhorred
Of monumental cypress, none
Of all the trees thy care hath grown
Follow their short-lived lord.

A worthier heir shall grasp thy keys,
And all thy hoarded vintage seize
From bolts and bars released;
And stain thy floor with nobler wine
Than ever flowed at holy shrine,
Or pontificial feast.

Jan. 1833.

Frustra cruento Marte carebimus,
Fractisque rauci fluctibus Adriæ;
Frustra per auctumnos nocentem
Corporibus metuemus Austrum:

Visendus ater flumine languido
Cocytos errans, et Danai genus
Infame, damnatusque longi
Sisyphus Æolides laboris.

Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens
Uxor; neque harum, quas colis, arborum
Te, præter invisas cupressos,

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.

Absumet hæres Cæcuba dignior

Servata centum clavibus; et mero
Tinguet pavimentum superbo
Pontificum potiore cœnis.

OBSERVATIONS.

In this favourite Ode the poet seems to continue the same train of thought as that with which he concluded the last. Here he moralises upon the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the loss of all sublunary enjoyments. Having, alas! no hope to offer beyond the grave, he can but conduct you to Sisyphus and Cocytus, and predicate the waste of your substance by your heir and successor.

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