Son of Latona, grant the blessing, That, a cloudless mind possessing, And not infirm of frame, in soft decay, Cheer'd by the breathing lyre, my life may pass away! TO HIS ATTENDANT. BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE THIRTY-EIGHTH. Boy, not in these Autumnal bowers Shalt thou the Persian vest dispose, Nor tie in gaudy knots the sprays and flowers. Yet lingers in the sunny glade; Plain be the vest, and simple be the braid! I charge thee, with the myrtle wreath As stretch'd my vineyard's ample shade beneath, While near me thou shalt smiling stand, And fill the sparkling cup with ready hand. ΤΟ SALLUST. BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE SECOND. DARK in the Miser's chest in hoarded heaps, Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow? Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than Rome, of this power aware, thy honour'd name Since thou did❜st bid thy ruin'd brothers claim A filial right in all thy well-earn'd stores.— To make the good deed deathless as the great, 1. 15. Icarian fate-Penna metuentę solvi must surely be allusive to the dissolving pinions of Icarus-and mean, that deeds This record, Fame, of precious trust aware, And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway, Restraining the insatiate lust of gain, Than should'st thou join, by Conquest's proud essay, Iberia's hills to Libya's sandy plain; Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts, With that which smiles on Europe's lovelier coasts, Before the Roman arms, led on by thee, Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee. See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire Virtue, whate'er the dazzled vulgar dream, of private generosity are apt to melt from the recollection of mankind; while those of what is called heroic exertion go down to Posterity. For this idea of the passage the translator was indebted to a learned friend. |