_Me_, let tawny olives feed! _Me_, lenient mallows from the simple mead! Son of Latona, grant the blessing, That, a cloudless mind possessing, And not infirm of frame, in soft decay, Cheer'd by the breathing lyre, my life may pass away! 1: _Liris_--a beautiful river of remarkably placid current. It rises near Sora, a city of Latium, which it divides from Campania. 2: The Poet deems it a peculiar mark of the favor of the Deities when the Merchant is enabled safely to make repeated voyages in one year through hazardous seas. TO HIS ATTENDANT. BOOK THE FIRST, ODE THE THIRTY-EIGHTH. Boy, not in these Autumnal bowers Shalt thou the Persian Vest dispose, Of artful fold, and rich brocade; Nor tie in gaudy knots the sprays and flowers. Ah! search not where the latest rose Yet lingers in the sunny glade; Plain be the vest, and simple be the braid! I charge thee with the myrtle wreath Not one resplendent bloom entwine; We both become that modest band, As stretch'd my vineyard's ample shade beneath, Jocund I quaff the rosy wine; While near me thou shalt smiling stand, And fill the sparkling cup with ready hand. TO SALLUST. BOOK THE SECOND, ODE THE SECOND. Dark in the Miser's chest, in hoarded heaps, Can Gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow, Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps, Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow? Ah! _then_ it shines attractive on the thought, Rises, with such resistless influence fraught As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold, Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than Gold. Rome, of this power aware, thy honor'd name O Proculeius! ardently adores, Since thou didst bid thy ruin'd Brothers claim A filial right in all thy well-earn'd stores.-- To make the _good_ deed deathless as the _great_, Yet fearing for her plumes [1]Icarian fate, This Record, Fame, of precious trust aware, Shall long, on cautious wing, solicitously bear. And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway, Restraining the insatiate lust of gain, Than should'st thou join, by Conquest's proud essay, Iberian hills to Libya's sandy plain; Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts, With that which smiles on Europe's lovelier coasts, Before the Roman arms, led on by thee, Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee. See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire As the parch'd lip the frequent draught obtains; Indulgence feeds the never-quench'd desire, That loaths the viand, and the goblet drains. Nor could exhausted floods the thirst subdue Till that dire Cause, which spreads the livid hue O'er the pale Form, with watry languor swell'd, From the polluted veins, by medicine, be expell'd.