Odes 4.7 (Martin): Diffugere Nives

The snows have fled, and to the meadows now
Returns their grass, their foliage to the trees;
Earth dons another garb, and dwindling low
Between their wonted banks the rivers seek the seas.

The Graces with the Nymphs their dances twine,
Unzoned, and heedless of the amorous air;
Read in the shifting year, my friend, a sign,
That change and death attend all human hope and care.

Winter dissolves beneath the breath of Spring,
Spring yields to Summer, which shall be no more,
When Autumn spreads her fruits thick-clustering,
And then comes Winter back, — bleak, icy-dead, and hoar.

But moons revolve, and all again is bright:
We, when we fall, as fell the good and just
Aeneas, wealthy Tullus, Ancus wight.
Are but a nameless shade, and some poor grains of dust.

Who knows, if they who all our Fates control,
Will add a morrow -to thy brief to-day?
Then think of this, — What to a friendly soul
Thy hand doth give shall 'scape thine heir's rapacious sway.

When thou, Torquatus, once hast vanish'd hence,
And o'er thee Minos' great decree is writ,
Nor ancestry, nor fire-lipp'd eloquence,
Nor all thy store of wealth to give thee back were fit.

For even Diana from the Stygian gloom
Her chaste Hippolytus no more may gain,
And dear Pirithous must bide his doom,
For Theseus' arm is frail to rend dark Lethe's chain.