ODE XXXV. TO FORTUNE.
He beseeches her to look to the preservation of Cæsar, then
on the point of going against the Britons.
O Goddess, whose indulgence sways
Fair Antium sounding with thy praise,
Whose influence can exalt the meanest slave,
Or turn triumphant pomps to sorrow and the grave.
Thee the poor farmer's anxious pray'r
Solicits, that his fields may bear;
Thee, mistress of the main, the sailor hails,
As his Bithynian bark o'er Cretan billows sails.
Thee the vague Scythians, Dacian rude,
And cities, nations unsubdu'd,
The Latian fierce for battle far and near,
Thee the barbaric queens and purple tyrants fear.
Let not your hurtful foot displace
The pillar standing on its base,
Nor let the thronging populace rebel,
And roaring out to arms, to arms the state-compel.
Necessity precedes thy band,
With nails and wedges in her hand,
Her brazen hand, nor is the hook, nor, hot
With execrable death, the melted lead forgot.
Thee hope, and faith, so scarce, revere,
And cloath'd in white are ever near,
And still themselves of your own train profess,
Howe'er you bilk the great, and change your seat and dress.
The faithless mob and courtezan
Behave upon another plan;
And all your friends, when they have drank you dry,
The burthen they should share, in base desertion fly.
Yet, yet propitiate Cæsar's scheme
On Britain, and the world's extreme,
And all our new recruits, that well might brave,
The eastern continent, and Erythrean wave.
O fie upon the barb'rous times,
Fraternal wounds, and civil crimes,
What has this iron-age refus'd to do!
What have we left untouch'd, that honest hearts shou'd rue!
Our youth, where have they been restrain'd:
What altars are there left unstain'd—
Yet 'gainst the Scythian and Arabian foe
May all our new-forg'd weapons by thy guidance go!
