Odes 1.1 (Martin): Maecenas Atavis

Maecenas, sprung from monarchs old,
Who dost my fortunes still uphold,
My heart's best friend, some men there are,
Who joy to gather with the car
Olympic dust; and whom the goal
By hot wheels clear'd, that round it roll,
And noble palm, can elevate
To gods, the lords of earth's estate.

One feels his breast with rapture throb,
If the Quiritians' fickle mob
Raise him, 'mid brawl and civic roar,
To honours doubled o'er and o'er;
Another if he store, and fill
His private granaries, until
Their teeming area contains
The harvests of all Lybia's plains.

Him that delights afield to moil,
Tilling his old paternal soil,
You ne'er could tempt, by all the pelf
Of golden Attains himself,
With Cyprian keel in fear to sweep
The stormy-vext Myrtoan deep.

The merchant, with affright aghast,
When Africus with furious blast
Lashes the Icarian waves to foam.
Extols his quiet inland home;
But, safe in harbour, straight equips
Anew his tempest-batter'd ships,
By no disasters to be taught
Contentment with a lowly lot.

And there be some, we know, are fain
Full cups of Massic old to drain,
Nor scorn from the unbroken day
To snatch an hour, their limbs to lay
'Neath leafy arbutus, or dream
Beside some lulling fountain's stream.

The camp makes many a heart beat high.
The trumpet's call, the clarion's cry,
And all the grim array of war,
Which mothers' fearful hearts abhor.

Regardless of the wife, that weeps
At home for him, the huntsman keeps
Abroad through cold and tempest drear,
If his staunch hounds have track'd the deer,
Or by the meshes rent is seen,
Where savage Marsian boar hath been.

Me doth the ivy's wreathed bough,
Meet guerdon of the scholar's brow.
The compeer make of gods supreme!
Me the dim grove, the murmuring stream,
And Nymphs that trip with Fauns along.
Dissever from the vulgar throng;
If nor Euterpe hush her strain,
Nor Polyhymnia disdain
To strike for me her Lesbian lyre,
And fill me with a poet's fire.
Give me but these, and rank me 'mong
The sacred bards of lyric song,
I'll soar beyond the lists of time,
And strike the stars with head sublime.