No More Learning

But these are not my riches: your desire
Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
Not public gravings on a marble base,
Whence comes a second life to men of might
E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,
Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,
Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,
In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,
Who from crush'd Afric took away--a name,
Than rude Calabria's tributary lays.
Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought.
Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power
Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,
Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.
Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,
By grace of poets and their silver tongue,
Henceforth to live the happy isles among.
No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,
And lifts him to the gods. So Hercules,
His labours o'er, sits at the board of Jove:
So Tyndareus' offspring shine as stars above,
Saving lorn vessels from the yawning seas:
So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,
Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.




IX.

NE FORTE CREDAS.


Think not those strains can e'er expire,
Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar
Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre
I sing with arts unknown before.
Though Homer fill the foremost throne,
Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,
And fierce Alcaeus holds his own,
With Pindar and Simonides.
The songs of Teos are not mute,
And Sappho's love is breathing still:
She told her secret to the lute,
And yet its chords with passion thrill.
Not Sparta's queen alone was fired
By broider'd robe and braided tress,
And all the splendours that attired
Her lover's guilty loveliness:
Not only Teucer to the field
His arrows brought, nor Ilion
Beneath a single conqueror reel'd:
Not Crete's majestic lord alone,
Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:
Not Hector first for child and wife,
Or brave Deiphobus, laid down
The burden of a manly life.
Before Atrides men were brave:
But ah!
oblivion, dark and long,
Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,
For lack of consecrating song.
'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,
What difference? YOU shall ne'er be dumb,
While strains of mine have voice and breath:
The dull neglect of days to come
Those hard-won honours shall not blight:
No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,
Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright
When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:
To greed and rapine still severe,
Spurning the gain men find so sweet:
A consul, not of one brief year,
But oft as on the judgment-seat
You bend the expedient to the right,
Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,
Or bear your banners through the fight,
Scattering the foeman's firm array.
The lord of boundless revenues,
Salute not him as happy: no,
Call him the happy, who can use
The bounty that the gods bestow,
Can bear the load of poverty,
And tremble not at death, but sin:
No recreant he when called to die
In cause of country or of kin.




XI.

EST MIHI NONUM.


Here is a cask of Alban, more
Than nine years old: here grows
Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store
Of ivy too
(Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know)
The plate shines bright: the altar, strewn
With vervain, hungers for the flow
Of lambkin's blood.
There's stir among the serving folk;
They bustle, bustle, boy and girl;
The flickering flames send up the smoke
In many a curl.
But why, you ask, this special cheer?
We celebrate the feast of Ides,
Which April's month, to Venus dear,
In twain divides.
O, 'tis a day for reverence,
E'en my own birthday scarce so dear,
For my Maecenas counts from thence
Each added year.
'Tis Telephus that you'd bewitch:
But he is of a high degree;
Bound to a lady fair and rich,
He is not free.
O think of Phaethon half burn'd,
And moderate your passion's greed:
Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd
By his wing'd steed.
So learn to look for partners meet,
Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims
Above your fortune. Come then, sweet,
My last of flames
(For never shall another fair
Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing
With that dear voice: to music care
Shall yield its sting.




XII.