Odes 1.4 (Gladstone): Solvitur Acris Hiems

Hard winter breaks, O happy turn
to Zephyr and to Spring!
Dry keels the rollers seaward bring;
For neither flocks now keep the stall,
nor fire the ploughman heeds;
Nor whiten with hoar frost the meads.

Now Venus from Cythera hies,
the moonlit dance to twine;
The Graces and the Nymphs combine
With rhythmic feet the ground to smite,
while Vulcan sweats to raise
Huge Cyclop forges to a blaze.

With flowers, from soil hard bound no more,
to gird the gleaming brow
'T is meet, or with green myrtle now;
For offering now to Faunus bring,
beneath the shadowed grove,
Or lamb, or kid, if kid he love.

O Sextius, Fortune's favourite,
the kingly tower alike
And pauper's hut pale Death will strike.
Life's narrow space forbids to frame
large hopes. Thee too the night
Will vex, thee many a fabled sprite,

Thee Pluto's cribbing cell: and thou,
arriving there at last,
No more shalt rule the feast, by cast
Of dice, no more wilt gaze on forms
whose tender beauties move
At once to wonder and to love.