Black day he chose for planting thee, Accurst he rear'd thee from the ground, The bane of children yet to be, The scandal of the village round. His father's throat the monster press'd Beside, and on his hearthstone spilt, I ween, the blood of midnight guest; Black Colchian drugs, whate'er of guilt Is hatch'd on earth, he dealt in all-- Who planted in my rural stead Thee, fatal wood, thee, sure to fall Upon thy blameless master's head. The dangers of the hour! no thought We give them; Punic seaman's fear Is all of Bosporus, nor aught Recks he of pitfalls otherwhere; The soldier fears the mask'd retreat Of Parthia; Parthia dreads the thrall Of Rome; but Death with noiseless feet Has stolen and will steal on all. How near dark Pluto's court I stood, And AEacus' judicial throne, The blest seclusion of the good, And Sappho, with sweet lyric moan Bewailing her ungentle sex, And thee, Alcaeus, louder far Chanting thy tale of woful wrecks, Of woful exile, woful war! In sacred awe the silent dead Attend on each: but when the song Of combat tells and tyrants fled, Keen ears, press'd shoulders, closer throng. What marvel, when at those sweet airs The hundred-headed beast spell-bound Each black ear droops, and Furies' hairs Uncoil their serpents at the sound? Prometheus too and Pelops' sire In listening lose the sense of woe; Orion hearkens to the lyre, And lets the lynx and lion go. XIV. EHEU, FUGACES. Ah, Postumus! they fleet away, Our years, nor piety one hour Can win from wrinkles and decay, And Death's indomitable power; Not though three hundred bullocks flame Each year, to soothe the tearless king Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame And Tityos in his watery ring, That circling flood, which all must stem, Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, Wearers of haughtiest diadem, Or humblest tillers of the fields. In vain we shun war's contact red Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main: In vain, the season through, we dread For our frail lives Scirocco's bane. Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus To never-ending toil decreed. Your land, your house, your lovely bride Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees None to its fleeting master's side Will cleave, but those sad cypresses. Your heir, a larger soul, will drain The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban, And richer spilth the pavement stain Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran. XV. JAM PAUCA ARATRO.