ODE III. TO DELLIUS.
Either fortune is to be borne with moderation, since the same
condition of mortality equally impends on all.
O Dellius, that art born to die,
On equanimity rely,
As well in adverse days your spirits buoy,
As keep the hour of wealth from light presumptuous joy.
Whether you lead a life of woes—
Or in your distant mead repose,
And bless the festal days in rural state,
With right Falernian wine of more interior date,
Where the tall pine, and pop'lar white,
To form a social bow'r delight
With blending boughs, and diligent to glide,
The riv'let urges haste against its winding side.
To wine and unguents here exhort,
And roses of a bliss too short,
While circumstance and age allow their leave,
And those black threads of death the fatal sisters weave.
You must from purchas'd park and seat,
Which yellow Tiber laves, retreat—
You must retreat, and your appointed heir
Shall soon possess the heaps you pil'd with so much care.
If rich and of Inachian race,
Or, poor and from a lineage base,
You daily in th'inclement skies remain,
It matters not, you must remorseless death sustain.
To one point we are all compell'd—
The universal urn is held,
From whence, or soon or late, the lot is cast,
And Charon's boat transports the convicts at the last.
