Odes 1.1 (Gladstone): Maecenas Atavis

Maecenas, born of ancient kings,
From whom my strength, mine honour springs,
Some reckon for the crown of life
The dust in the Olympian strife,
The goal well shunned, the palm that, given,
Lifts lords of earth to lords of heaven.

One, if to him the Roman crowd
Its threefold honours have allowed:
One, if his private granary stores
A mass, to match with Libyan floors.
One hoes paternal fields, content,
On hardest terms. Will he consent,
A trembling mariner, to brave,
In Cyprian bark, Myrtoan wave?

Icarian floods, south-western gale,
These, battling, turn the trader pale:
He lauds his town, his fields, his ease;
But soon refits, and roams the seas;
For want with commerce ill agrees.

And some old Massic wine desire,
Hours stolen from the day's entire,
With shade of arbutus for bed,
By hallowed water's tranquil head.

But more affect the camp, the war,
That mothers with its din abhor
Of trump and horn. The sportsman dares
The cold, and home and wife forbears,
When Marsian boar hath broke the snares,
Too slim, or when his trusty pack
The hind have scented on her track.

But ivy, prize of culture's brow,
With gods above us mates me now:
Me the cool grove, the bounding choir
Of Nymphs, with Satyrs grouped, inspire,
Far off the vulgar; if the lyre
Of Polyhymnia be not mute,
And if Euterpe grants the flute.

Count me for lyric minstrel thou,
The stars to kiss my head will bow.