Kind Proculeius' deeds shall be
Immortal with posterity.

He showed a brother's love, and Fame
On her broad wings will waft his name.

He who his mind can sagely school
Will o'er more wide dominion rule,
Than if he joined to Afric Spain,
And either Carthage owned his reign.

Fell dropsy feeds itself and grows;
No end to thirst the sufferer knows.
Remove the cause to cure his pains,
And drive the water from his veins.

Virtue, aye differing from the rest,
Strikes from the number of the blest
Phraates, to his throne returned,

And shows the mob the truth they spurned.

The sceptre, and the diadem,

And laurel, she reserves for them

Who learn indifferent to behold

The sight of heaped-up piles of gold.

III.

TO Q. DELIUS.

In trouble's dark hour don't give way to despair,
For, Delius, our days are but brief;

And when you're in luck learn as wisely to bear
The good fortune of life as its grief.

However you live, whether sadly or not,
Or whether, reclined on the grass,

You quaff the best wine in a snug little spot,
And make the days jollily pass:

Where poplar and pine join their branches on high,
And form an acceptable shade,

Where, struggling the bend of the bank to flow by,
The murmuring brook is delayed.

So bring here your perfumes, your wines, and your flowers,
And roses whose bloom is soon fled:

While we've money and youth let's enjoy a few hours
Before the Fates spin out our thread.

You must leave your own groves and your houses, my friend,

And your villa beside the fair river;

And the wealth that you've gathered and never will spend,
Your heir will enjoy every stiver.

Are

you

rich and descended from Inachus old,

Or poor, living out in the air?

It matters not-off you must go when you're told;
No victim will Orcus e'er spare.

On the same gloomy voyage we're all of us bound
The urn must be shaken for all;

And sooner or later our lot will be found,

And he'll bear us away past recall.

1

IV.

TO XANTHIUS PHOCEUS.

Dear Xanthias, deem it no disgrace

To love a servant-maid;

Why long ago Briseis' face

The rude Achilles swayed.

And Ajax for a captive's charms-
Tecmessa-heaved his sighs;

Atrides raged 'mid war's alarms
To gain a beauteous prize.

What time the barbarous foe confest
Pelides' might too strong,

And Hector's death to Greeks brought rest,
And fall to Troy ere long.

For all you know, your fair-haired maid
Had parents of great honour;
Her birth was royal, sure she said,
Though Fate was hard upon her.

O never think your love could be
Born of a common race;
So constant, so content is she,
Her mother can't be base.

Her arms I praise, heart-whole and free,

Her ankles smooth, and brow;

O, scandal ne'er can point at me,

I'm just at forty now.

V.

OF LALAGE.

She's all too young to wed and bear

The duties of a wife;

Too soon to yoke her neck so fair
In partnership for life.

Like a young heifer thro' the meads

She wanders at her will,

Now sporting with the calves she speeds,

Now drinking from the rill.

Don't sigh for grapes before they're ripe, There's autumn full in view,

Will change them to a purple type

And dye their livid hue.

Time flies-the years he takes from you

He'll score to Lalage;

And all unblushing she shall woo

A husband presently.

Was never Chloris half so dear,

Nor wanton Pholoe;

Her snowy shoulders shine as clear

As moonbeams o'er the sea;

Nor Gyges, mixed with maids, his sex

Belied by flowing curl,

Who keen observers will perplex

To say if boy or girl.

VI.

TO SEPTIMIUS.

Dear friend, who would gladly, I know,
To Gades or anywhere else with me go,
To Syrtes, whose wave's ever boiling away,
Or where the Cantabrians mock at our sway.

May I spend my old age on the shore
Of Tibur, by colonists planted of yore ;
O there let me end all my wand'rings by sea,
My travels on land, and from warfare be free.

But, ah! should the Fates be unkind
And drive me away a fresh haven to find,
To the sheep-feeding streams of Galesus I'll stray,
And the realms that the will of Phalanthus obey.

No corner of earth is so dear,

Of all pleasant spots in my choice, far and near,
As that where the honey by all is confest
Hymettian, and olives contend with the best.

Where winter is genial and fair,

And springtime lasts long, thanks to Jupiter's care; Where Aulon, by Bacchus beloved, stands bestowing Such grapes that we envy no vine elsewhere growing.

'Tis there you and I shall be blest,

And far from all care find a harbour of rest;
'Tis there you'll accord me the meed of a tear,
When you see your poetical friend on his bier.