Odes 2.6 (Gladstone): Septimi, Gades

Septimius! wilt thou come with me
Where unsubdued the Spaniard breathes?
Or where, off Moorish coasts, the sea
Apulian Syrtes ever seethes?

Grant rather for my rest in age
Tibur, th' Argeian founder's boast.
Some solace should my toils assuage
By sea, by land, in warfare most.

If crooked Fate this prayer hath banned,
Then would I seek the flocks skin-clad
By fair Galesus, and the land
That Sparta-born Phalanthus had.

It smiles for me, that nook of earth:
Its honey yields to Hybla not;
With green Venafrum's crop for worth
Its olive vies, that happy spot.

There spring is long and winter soft;
Jove gives them; and, so Bacchus wills,
Mount Aulon rears its vines aloft,
And envies not Falernian hills.

Let those fair towers us both content;
They call, we come. There thou shalt spend
Thy willing teardrops, to lament
O'er my warm ash, thy bard and friend.