Our wives and children share our joy,
With Bacchus' jovial blessings gay;
Thus we the festal hours employ,

Thus grateful hail the busy day;

But first with solemn rites the gods adore, And, like our sires, their sacred aid implore;

Then vocal, with harmonious lays

To Lydian flutes, of cheerful sound, Attemper'd sweetly, we shall raise

The valiant deeds of chiefs renown'd, Old Troy, Anchises, and the godlike race Of Venus, blooming with immortal grace.

ODES.

BOOK V.

ODE I.

TO MECENAS.

HILE you, Mæcenas, dearest friend,

WHI

Would Cæsar's person with your own defend;

And Antony's high-towered fleet

With light Liburnian galleys fearless meet,

What shall forsaken Horace do,

Whose every joy of live depends on you?
With thee, 'tis happiness to live,

And life, without thee, can no pleasure give.
Shall I th' unkind command obey,

And idly waste my joyless hours away?

Or, as becomes. the brave, embrace

The glorious toil, and spurn the thoughts of peace? I will; and over Alpine snow,

Or savage Caucasus, intrepid go;

Or follow, with undaunted breast,

Thy dreadful warfare to the furthest West.
You ask, what aid I can afford,

A puny warrior; novice to the sword.
Absence, my lord, increases fear;

The danger lessens when the friend is near:

Thus, if the mother-bird forsake

Her unfledg'd young, she dreads the gliding snake With deeper agonies afraid,

Not that her presence could afford them aid.

With cheerful heart will I sustain,

To purchase your esteem, this dread campaign:
Not that my ploughs, with heavier toil,
Or with a larger team, may turn my soil;

Not that my flocks, when Sirius reigns,
May browse the verdure of Lucania's plains;
Not that my villa shall extend

To where the walls of Tusculum ascend.
Thy bounty largely hath supplied,
Even with a lavish hand, my utmost pride;
Nor will I meanly wish for more,

Tasteless in earth to hide the sordid store,
Like an old miser in the play,

Or like a spendthrift squander it away.

L'

ODE II.

THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

IKE the first mortals blest is he,

From debts, and usury, and business free,
With his own team who ploughs the soil,
Which grateful once confess'd his father's toil.
The sounds of war nor break his sleep,
Nor the rough storm, that harrows up the deep;
He shuns the courtier's haughty doors,
And the loud science of the bar abjures.
Sometimes his marriagable vines

Around the lofty bridegroom elm he twines;
Or lops the vagrant boughs away,
Ingrafting better as the old decay;
Or in the vale with joy surveys

His lowing herd safe-wandering as they graze;
Or careful stores the flowing gold

Prest from the hive, or sheers his tender fold;
Or when, with various fruits o'erspread,
The mellow Autumn lifts his beauteous head,
His grafted pears or grapes, that vie
With the rich purple of the Tyrian dye,
Grateful he gathers, and repays

His guardian gods upon their festal days;
Sometimes beneath an ancient shade,
Or on the matted grass supinely laid,
Where pours the mountain stream along,
And feather'd warblers chant the soothing song;
Or where the lucid fountain flows,

And with its murmurs courts him to repose.
But when the rain and snows appear,
And wintry Jove loud thunders o'er the year,
With hounds he drives into the toils
The foaming boar, and triumphs in his spoils;
Or for the greedy thrush he lays

His nets, and with delusive baits betrays;

Artful he sets the springing snare,

To catch the stranger crane, or timorous hare.
Thus happy, who would stoop to prove
The pains, the wrongs, and injuries of love?
But if a chaste and virtuous wife
Assist him in the tender cares of life;

Of sun-burnt charms, but honest fame,
(Such as the Sabine, or Apulian dame);
Fatigu'd when homeward he returns,
The sacred fire with cheerful lustre burns;
Or if she milk her swelling kine,

Or in their folds his happy flocks confine;
While unbought dainties crown the feast,
And luscious wines from this year's vintage prest;
No more shall curious oysters please;

Or fish, the luxury of foreign seas

(If eastern tempests, thundering o'er

The wintry wave, shall drive them to our shore); Or wild-fowl of delicious taste,

From distant climates brought to crown the feast, "
Shall e'er so grateful prove to me,

As olives gather'd from their unctuous tree,
And herbs that love the flowery field,

And cheerful health with pure digestion yield;
Or fatling, on the festal day,

Or kid just rescued from some beast of prey.
Amid the feast how joys he to behold

His well-fed flocks home hasting to their fold!
Or see his labour'd oxen bow

Their languid necks, and drag th' inverted plough,
At night his numerous slaves to view
Round his domestic gods their mirth pursue!
The usurer spoke: determin'd to begin
A country-life, he calls his money in,
But, ere the moon was in her wane,
The wretch had put it out to use again.