Odes 2.14 (Gladstone): Eheu, Fugaces

Ah! Postumus! Devotion fails
The lapse of gliding years to stay,
With wrinkled age it nought avails
Nor conjures conquering Death away.

Think not with daily hecatomb
To alter iron Pluto's mind,
Him, that with rivers wrapt in gloom,
Can Geryon huge, and Tityus, bind.

Not one that crops the fruits of earth,
King, starveling boor who cleaves the soil,
Whatever state, whatever birth,
Can from the fateful flood recoil.

In vain from gory war we shrink,
And Adria's hoarse and tortured wave,
Nor breath of sickly Auster drink,
Through autumn, catering for the grave;

Visit we must the sluggish course
Of black Cocytus, and the cask
That faithless Danaids fill perforce,
And Sisyphus, his endless task.

Earth, home, and winsome wife, thy fate
Will have thee leave; and not one tree
Of all, save cypress that we hate,
O transient lord, shall follow thee.

A worthier heir thy wine will drain,
Behind a hundred padlocks cased,
And Caecuban the pavement stain,
More meet for pontiff's guests to taste.