Odes 2.18 (Gladstone): Non Ebur

No ceilings, wrought in ivory or gold,
Within my house behold,
No beams Hymettian here, on columns pressed
In farthest Afric dressed.

No Attalus chose me his home to own
As heir, albeit unknown;
No well-born maidens, my poor doors within,
Laconian purples spin.

My wits abound, mine honour I support,
Me poor the rich men court.
I dun not heav'n for more, my craving ends,
Nor worry I my friends

Though potent, for new gifts, content to own
My Sabine farm alone.
To-morrow treads upon to-day; the moon,
New now, will dwindle soon.

New contracts for new marbles thou dost make,
But thou art near thy wake.
Thou build'st afresh, unheeding of the tomb;
Throw' st back, for wider room,

Those rippled banks by the soft Baian sea,
Not wide enough for thee.
And how is this? Thou edgest on thy bounds,
Thy farm usurps the grounds,

O greed! that were thy tenant's! Exiled, they
Plod, man and wife, their way,
And on the breast their fathers' gods, their care,
And squalid children bear.

And yet what home more certain, than the gates
Of greedy Orcus, waits
In Doom's recess this landlord, and the gold
He can no longer hold?

Just Earth to monarch's child and to the poor
Opens alike her door.
Astute Prometheus could not bend his guard,
Hell's turnkey, for reward;

He grips the sire of Pelops, and his line,
But freely will resign,
Called or uncalled, the pauper, who shall close
His labours in repose.