In the verses of Horace we are perpetually reminded that our life is compassed round with darkness, but he will not suffer this darkness to overshadow his cheerfulness. On the contrary, the beautiful world, and the delights it offers, are made to stand out, as it were, in brighter relief against the gloom of Orcus. Thus, for example, this very gloom is made the background in the following Ode (I. 4) for the brilliant pictures which crowd on the poet's fancy with the first burst of Spring. Here, he says, oh Sestius, all is fresh and joyous, luxuriant and lovely! Be happy, drink in "at every pore the spirit of the season," while the roses are fresh within your hair, and the wine-cup flashes ruby in your hand. Yonder lies Pluto's meagrely-appointed mansion, and filmy shadows of the dead are waiting for you there, to swell their joyless ranks. To that unlovely region you must go, alas! too soon; but the golden present is yours, so drain it of its sweets. "As biting Winter flies, lo! Spring with sunny skies, And balmy airs; and barks long dry put out again from shore; Now the ox forsakes his byre, and the husbandman his fire, And daisy-dappled meadows bloom where winter frosts lay hoar. "By Cytherea led, while the moon shines overhead, The Nymphs and Graces, hand-in-hand, with alternating feet Shake the ground, while swinking Vulcan strikes the sparkles fierce and red From the forges of the Cyclops, with reiterated beat. "'Tis the time with myrtle green to bind our glistening locks, Or with flowers, wherein the loosened earth herself hath newly dressed, And to sacrifice to Faunus in some glade amidst the rocks A yearling lamb, or else a kid, if such delight him best. "Death comes alike to all--to the monarch's lordly hall, Or the hovel of the beggar, and his summons none shall stay. Oh, Sestius, happy Sestius! use the moments as they pass; Far-reaching hopes are not for us, the creatures of a day. "Thee soon shall night enshroud; and the Manes' phantom crowd, And the starveling house unbeautiful of Pluto shut thee in; And thou shalt not banish care by the ruddy wine-cup there, Nor woo the gentle Lycidas, whom all are mad to win." A modern would no more think of using such images as those of the last two verses to stimulate the festivity of his friends than he would of placing, like the old Egyptians, a skull upon his dinner-table, or of decorating his ball-room with Holbein's "Dance of Death." We rebuke our pride or keep our vanities in check by the thought of death, and our poets use it to remind us that "The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things."