(“ HIS FRIENDS ” TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS .)

F LACCUS , you write us charming songs:
 No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
 To brief and bright addresses;

No man can say that Life is short
 With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
 In phrases less regretful;

Or touch, with more serene distress,
 On Fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
 From Alp to Adriatic:

All this is well, no doubt, and tends
 Barbarian minds to soften;
But, H ORACE —we, we are your friends—
 Why tell us this so often?

Why feign to spread a cheerful feast,
 And then thrust in our faces
These barren scraps (to say the least)
 Of Stoic common-places?

Recount, and welcome, your pursuits:
 Sing Lydë's lyre and hair;
Sing drums and Berecynthian flutes;
 Sing parsley-wreaths; but spare,—

O, spare to sing, what none deny,
 That things we love decay;—
That Time and Gold have wings to fly;—
 That all must Fate obey!

Or bid us dine—on this day week—
 And pour us, if you can,
As soft and sleek as girlish cheek,
 Your inmost Cæcuban;—

Of that we fear not overplus;
 But your didactic ‘tap’—
Forgive us!—grows monotonous;
 Nunc vale! Verbum sap.