Odes 3.28 (Gladstone): Festo Quid Potius

To Neptune's festal day
What honour shall we pay?
Up, Lyde; that fine juice,
Old Caecuban, produce;
Thy proper tasks perform,
And take our wits by storm.

Thou seest the day descend,
Yet think'st it will not end:
Or why withhold from us
That wine of Bibulus,
Still lingering in its binn
My cellar's nook within?

Of Neptune be my song,
And all the Nereid throng
With tresses green; then fire
Thou, next, thy curved lyre,
With great Latona's praise,
And Cynthia's arrowy rays.

Venus, the swan-borne, she
Our crowning song shall be,
Whom glittering Cyclades,
Cnidos, and Paphos, please:
Then, when the hours grow dim,
Old Night shall have her hymn.