Odes 3.29 (Gladstone): Tyrrhena Regum

O child of Tuscan royalty,
A cask ne'er stirred of mellow wine?
Rose flowers, and oil for hair, with me
Have long been stored, but marked as thine.

Quick! Neither slopes of Aesulae,
Nor dripping Tibur always view,
Nor summits where by fate's decree
Telegonus his father slew.

Redundance makes the taste too nice;
Quit tow'rs that mount so near the clouds:
Let not the City thee entice,
Her wealth, her smoke, her din of crowds.

'T is change that rich men mostly love;
The lowly roof, and simple fare
But clean, no purple draped above,
Full oft have smoothed the brow of care.

The heavens are hot, with Procyon's ray,
And Lion's fire; now blazes out
The sire of fair Andromeda:
The sun has scorched the land with drought.

The swain to brooks and shadowing trees
Guides drowsy sheep, and to the brakes
Silvanus haunts; the inconstant breeze
The still and silent shore forsakes.

A statesman, how to guide the helm,
And what to fear thou studiest
From Seres, and the Bactrian realm
Of Cyrus, and the Don's unrest.

Of purpose, God all future doom
Wraps in a darkness thick as night,
And smiles in scorn, if man presume
Beyond the boundary lines of right.

Hold fast the present. All beside
Shifts, as a shifting stream will now
Tow'rd Tuscan waters gently glide,
Then hurl from off some craggy brow

Boulders and trees, and flocks and sheds,
With woods' and mountains' echoing sound;
As the wild deluge fills the beds
And bursts the margins all around.

Self-ruled, light-hearted shall he be,
Who daily 'I have lived,' can say,
Dark tempests let the Sire decree,
Or brightness, for the coming day.

Yet cannot he the bygone days
Unmake, or hold the past undone,
Nor can with utmost might erase
The work of hours whose glass is run.

Unpitying Fortune still resolves
Her wanton pastime to pursue,
Her honours here or there devolves,
Now favouring me, now helping you.

She bides, 'tis well. But if she stirs
One feather, I her gifts resign;
I don my Virtue's robe, not hers,
And claim undowered Worth for mine.

If groans the mast, when rude South- West
Blows hard, not I with paltry prayers
Will truckle; or will bargain, lest
My Cyprian and my Tyrian wares

Add riches to the greedy deep.
For me through worst Aegean swell
Shall Leda's twins their vigil keep,
And my small skiff shall guard me well.