Still the rich heir no hall awaits

More sure than Orcus' greedy gates:

Why then proceed? since gapes the earth

Alike for poor, and princely birth;

The infernal guard

unbrib'd by gold

Shall still the sly Prometheus hold,

Proud Tantalus, with royal line,

Despite their pride, shall still confine;

While, freed at length from toil and tears, Call'd, or uncall'd, the poor he hears.

ODE XIX.

TO BACCHUS.

BACCHUS I saw, in rocks remote,

Teaching the nymphs his tuneful note;

(Believe, posterity!) and near

Goat-footed satyrs stretch'd the ear.

Of wanton Thyads be my song,
And fountains pouring wine along ;
Of fruitful streams with milk that flow,
And trunks-whose honey drops below:

To sing thy blessed spouse be mine,
Now rais'd among the stars to shine;
The ruin dire of Pentheus' hall,
And-Thracian king-Lycurgus' fall.

Streams and barbarian oceans roll

Obedient still to thy control;

Thou bind'st in some lone mountain spot,

Bistonian curls in viper knot.

Thou, when the impious band, on high,
Of giants scal'd thy father's sky,

Hurl'dst Rhætus back, with lion's claws,

- With lion's grim, terrific jaws.

Thou then, though more inclin'd, they say,
For dances, sportive jests, and play,
Unfit for savage war's alarms

Foremost in peace wer't first in arms.

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Cerberus thy golden horn confess'd,
The monster's tail his joy express'd;

His triple tongue, on thy retreat,

Licking well pleas'd thy legs and feet.

ODE XX.

TO MÆCENAS.

No mean no common wing shall bear The two-form'd poet through the air; Nor longer doom'd on earth to stay, Will I 'mid envious towns delay.

Not I

not I-who, some proclaim,

From blood of pauper parents came, Shall, lov'd Mæcenas, breathe my last, Nor Stygian waves detain me fast.

Rough skin invades my legs below ;-
A snowy bird I upwards grow;
My shoulders and my hands assume
The down of cygnet's softest plume.

Swifter than Icarus shall I soar,

To visit Bosphorus' murmuring shore;
Gætulian Syrtes shall I gain,

And try the Hyperborean plain,

A bird of sweet melodious strain.

Colchians and Dacians, who conceal

From Marsian troops the fear they feel, With wild Geloni-far remote,

Alike by learned Spaniard known,
And him who drinks the rapid Rhone.
No dirge my empty tomb profane,

- Indecent grief, or mournful strain Suppress your funeral-cries, and save The needless honours of the grave.