Odes 2.2 (Gladstone): Nullus Argento

No charm of silver comes to birth,
My Sallust, in the niggard earth;
Thou lov'st not what the mines produce,
Until it shine with ordered use.

Long, long may Proculeius live
And father's love to brothers give,
Borne up, by fame that shall endure,
On wings from melting ray secure.

Thou may'st a nobler realm control
By purging greed from out thy soul,
Than if thou stretch a Punic reign
O'er Libyan coasts, and coasts of Spain.

For the grim dropsy grows with food,
Uncured till, driven from the blood,
The cause hath fled, and water swims
No longer through the blanching limbs.

The people, when Phraates mounts
The throne that Cyrus held, accounts
Him happy; but the wise deny,
And bid them cease the idle cry.

The crown and kingdom safe alone
They deem, the laurels all his own
Of him, that gold though heaped on high
Can pass with unreverting eye.