ODE 2

Friend ! with a poor man's straits to fight
Let warfare teach thy stalwart boy:
Let him the Parthian's front annoy
With lance in rest, a dreaded knight:

Live in the field, inure his eye
To danger. From the foeman's wall
May the armed tyrant's dame, with all
Her damsels, gaze on him, and sigh,

" Dare not, in war unschooled, to rouse
Yon Lion — whom to touch is death,
To whom red Anger ever saith,
" Slay and slay on " — O prince, my spouse! "

— Honoured and blest the patriot dies
From death the recreant may not flee:
Death shall not spare the faltering knee
And coward back of him that flies.

Valour — unbeat, unsullied still —
Shines with pure lustre: all too great
To seize or drop the sword of state,
Swayed by a people's veering will.

Valour — to souls too great for death
Heav'n op'ning — treads the untrodden way:
And this dull world, this damp cold clay,
On wings of scorn, abandoneth.

— Let too the sealed lip honoured be
The babbler, who'd the secrets tell
Of holy Ceres, shall not dwell
Where I dwell; shall not launch with me.

A shallop. Heaven full many a time
Hath with the unclean slain the just:
And halting-footed Vengeance must
O'ertake at last the steps of crime.