Beauty and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power, Have their short flourishing hour;

And love to see themselves, and smile, And joy in their preeminence awhile:

Ev'n so in the same land,

Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers, together stand;
Alas! death mows down all with an impartial hand:
And all ye men, whom greatness does so please,
Ye feast, I fear, like Damocles:

If ye your eyes could upwards move,
(But ye, I fear, think nothing is above,)
Ye would perceive by what a little thread
The sword still hangs over your head:
No tide of wine would drown your cares;
No mirth or music over-noise your fears:
The fear of death would you so watchful keep,
As not 't admit the image of it, Sleep.

Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces,
And yet so humble too, as not to scorn

The meanest country cottages:
His poppy grows among the corn.
The halcyon Sleep will never build his nest
In any stormy breast.

'Tis not enough that he does find
Clouds and darkness in their mind;
Darkness but half his work will do:

'Tis not enough; he must find quiet too. The man, who in all wishes he does make Does only Nature's counsel take,

That wise and happy man will never fear
The evil aspect of the year;

Nor tremble, though two comets should appear;
He does not look in almanacs, to see

Whether he fortunate shall be:

Let Mars and Saturn in the heavens conjoin,
And what they please against the world design,
So Jupiter within him shine.

If of your pleasures and desires no end be found,
God to your cares and fears will set no bound.

What would content you? who can tell?

Ye fear so much to lose what ye

As if ye liked it well:

have got,

Ye strive for more, as if ye liked it not.

Go, level hills, and fill up seas,

Spare nought that may your wanton fancy please:
But, trust me, when you have done all this,

Much will be missing still, and much will be amiss.

TO LICINIUS

(ODES, II, 10)

(Abraham Cowley)

RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach;

So shalt thou live beyond the reach

Of adverse Fortune's power;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treacherous shore.

He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
Embittering all his state.

The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.

The well-inform'd philosopher
Rejoices with a wholesome fear,
And hopes, in spite of pain;

If winter bellow from the north,
Soon the sweet spring comes dancing forth,
And Nature laughs again.

What if thine heaven be overcast?
The dark appearance will not last;
Expect a brighter sky.

The god, that strings the silver bow,
Awakes sometimes the Muses too,
And lays his arrows by.

If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,

And let thy strength be seen;

But oh! if Fortune fill thy sail,

With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvas in.

PERSIAN FOPPERIES

(Odes, I, 38)

(William Cowper)

Boy, I hate their empty shows,
Persian garlands I detest,
Bring not me the late-blown rose

Lingering after all the rest:

Plainer myrtle pleases me

Thus outstretched beneath my vine,

Myrtle more becoming thee,

Waiting with thy master's wine.

TO VENUS

(ODES, IV, 1)

VENUS, again thou mov'st a war

Long intermitted, pray thee,

I am not such, as in the reign

pray

Of the good Cynara I was; refrain Sour mother of sweet Loves, forbear

To bend a man, now at his fiftieth

(William Cowper)

thee spare!

year.

Too stubborn for commands so slack:

Go where youth's soft entreaties call thee back. More timely hie thee to the house

(With thy bright swans) of Paulus Maximus: There jest and feast, make him thine host

If a fit liver thou dost seek to toast. For he's both noble, lovely, young,

And for the troubled client fills his tongue: Child of a hundred arts, and far

Will he display the ensigns of thy war. And when he, smiling, finds his grace

With thee 'bove all his rivals' gifts take place,

He'll thee a marble statue make,

Beneath a sweet-wood roof, near Alba lake; There shall thy dainty nostril take

In many a gum, and for thy soft ear's sake Shall verse be set to harp and lute,

And Phrygian hau'boy, not without the flute. There twice a day in sacred lays,

The youths and tender maids shall sing thy praise!

And in the Salian manner meet

Thrice 'bout thy altar, with their ivory feet.

Me now, nor girl, nor wanton boy

Delights, nor credulous hope of mutual joy;

Nor care I now healths to propound

Or with fresh flowers to girt my temples round. But why, or why, my Ligurine,

Flow my

thin tears down these pale cheeks of mine? Or why my well-graced words among, With an uncomely silence, fails my tongue? Hard-hearted, I dream every night

I hold thee fast! but fled hence with the light, Whether in Mars his field thou be,

Or Tiber's winding streams, I follow thee.

(Ben Jonson)

TO PYRRHA

(Odes, I, 5)

WHAT slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odors,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind'st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,

Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
Of faith and changed gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!

Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who, always vacant, always amiable
Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they

To whom thou untried seem'st fair. Me, in my vow'd
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung

My dank and dropping weeds

To the stern god of sea.

(John Milton)

TO SALLY

(ODES, I, 22)

THE man in righteousness arrayed,
pure and blameless liver,

A

Needs not the keen Toledo blade,

Nor venom-freighted quiver.

What though he wind his toilsome way

O'er regions wild and weary

Through Zara's burning desert stray,

Or Asia's jungles dreary:

What though he plow the billowy deep

By lunar light, or solar,

Meet the resistless Simoom's sweep,

Or iceberg circumpolar!