English

ODE X. BOOK IV .

C HLOE , my most tender care,
Always coy, and always fair,
Should unwish'd-for languor spread
O'er that beauteous white and red;
Should these locks that sweetly play
Down these shoulders, fall away,
And that lovely bloom, that glows
Fairer than the fairest rose,
Should it fade — and leave thy face
Spoil'd of every killing grace;
Should your glass the charge betray,
Thus, my fair, you'd weeping say —
" Cruel gods! does beauty fade?

O Lingurinus:
Still cruel,
still proud,
still powerful,
When flaunting your gifts from Venus —
You'll learn despair when your beard begins to grow.
That hair,
rippling over your shoulders
will fall out.
Your skin,
the fairest flower in a bed of roses,
will fade.
You'll see your altered face and say:
" This mind I have now,
why did I not train it as a boy?
How can I return

The Snows are thaw'd, now grass new cloaths the earth,
And Trees new hair thrust forth.
The Season's chang'd, and Brooks late swoln with rain,
Their proper bankes contain.
Nymphs with the Graces (linkt) dare dance around
Naked upon the ground.
That thou must dye, the year andhowers say
Which draw the winged day .
First Spring , then Summer that away doth chace,
And must it self give place
To Apple-bearing Autumne , and that past
Dull Winter comes at last.

WRITTEN AT OXFORD MDCCXXV

I.

As the wing'd minister of thund'ring Jove,
To whom he gave his dreadful bolts to bear,
Faithful assistant of his master;s love,
King of the wand'ring nations of the air,

II.

When balmy breezes fann'd the vernal sky
On doubtful pinions left his parent nest,
In slight essays his growing force to try,
While inborn courage fir'd his gen'rous breast;

III.

Then darting with impetuous fury down
The flocks he slaughter'd, an unpractis'd foe,

To VENUS .

Once more the Queen of Love invades my Breast,
Late, with long Ease, and peaceful Pleasures blest;
Spare, spare the Wretch, that still has been thy Slave,
And let my former Service have
The Merit to protect me to the Grave.
Much am I chang'd from what I once have been,
When under C YNERA the good and fair,
With Joy I did thy Fetters wear,
Bless'd in the gentle Sway of an indulgent Queen.
Stiff and unequal to the Labor now,

AD MELPOMENEN

Look you, the monument I have erected
High as the pyramids, royal, sublime,
During as brass — it shall not be affected
E'en by the elements coupled with Time.

Part of me, most of me never shall perish;
I shall be free from Oblivion's curse;
Mine is a name that the future will cherish —
I shall be known by my excellent verse.

I shall be famous all over this nation

12 Saturday, 16 December 1752

Magnum pauperies opprobrium jubet
Quidvis aut facere aut pati.
Hor. [Od. III xxiv 42 3]

He whom the dread of want ensnares,
With baseness acts, with meanness bears.

28 Saturday, 10 February 1753

Caelo supinas si tuleris manus
Nascente Lunâ, rustica Phidyle;
Nec pestilentem sentiet Africum
Faecunda vitis —
Hor. [Od. III xxiii 1 2, 5 6]

If rustic Phidyle her prayer renews,
Her artless prayer, when sacred hours return,
Her vines shall droop beneath no blighting dews,
Nor southern storms her yellow harvests burn.

( HOR III ., 23.)

Incense , and flesh of swine, and this year's grain,
At the new moon, with suppliant hands, bestow,
O rustic Phidyle! So naught shall know
Thy crops of blight, thy vine of Afric bane,
And hale the nurslings of thy flock remain
Through the sick apple-tide. Fit victims grow
'Twixt holm and oak upon the Algid snow,
Or Alban grass, that with their necks must stain
The Pontiff's axe: to thee can scarce avail
Thy modest gods with much slain to assail,

To his Cask .

I.

H AIL , gentle Cask , whose venerable Head
With hoary Down and ancient Dust o'er-spread,
Proclaims, that since the Vine first brought Thee forth
Old age has added to thy Worth.
Whether the sprightly Juice thou dost contain,
Thy Vot'ries will to Wit and Love,
Or senseless Noise and Lewdness move,
Or Sleep, the Cure of these and ev'ry other Pain.

II.