pine, with our hoary locks made fragrant by roses, and anointed with Syrian perfume, indulge ourselves with generous wine?  Bacchus dissipates preying cares.  What slave is here, instantly to cool some cups of ardent Falernian in the passing stream?  Who will tempt the vagrant wanton Lyde from her house?  See that you bid her hasten with her ivory lyre, collecting her hair into a graceful knot, after the fashion of a Spartan maid.

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ODE XII.

To Maecenas.

Do not insist that the long wars of fierce Numantia, or the formidable Annibal, or the Sicilian Sea impurpled with Carthaginian blood, should be adapted to the tender lays of the lyre:  nor the cruel Lapithae, nor Hylaeus excessive in wine and the earth born youths, subdued by Herculean force, from whom the splendid habitation of old Saturn dreaded danger.  And you yourself, Maecenas, with more propriety shall recount the battles of Caesar, and the necks of haughty kings led in triumph through the streets in historical prose.  It was the muse’s will that I should celebrate the sweet strains of my mistress Lycimnia, that I should celebrate her bright darting eyes, and her breast laudably faithful to mutual love:  who can with a grace introduce her foot into the dance, or, sporting, contend in raillery, or join arms with the bright virgins on the celebrated Diana’s festival.  Would you, [Maecenas,] change one of Lycimnia’s tresses for all the rich Achaemenes possessed, or the Mygdonian wealth of fertile Phrygia, or all the dwellings of the Arabians replete with treasures?  Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses, or with a gentle cruelty denies, what she would more delight to have ravished than the petitioner—­or sometimes eagerly anticipates to snatch them her self.

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ODE XIII.

To A tree.

O tree, he planted thee on an unlucky day whoever did it first, and with an impious hand raised thee for the destruction of posterity, and the scandal of the village.  I could believe that he had broken his own father’s neck, and stained his most secret apartments with the midnight blood of his guest.  He was wont to handle Colchian poisons, and whatever wickedness is anywhere conceived, who planted in my field thee, a sorry log; thee, ready to fall on the head of thy inoffensive master.  What we ought to be aware of, no man is sufficiently cautious at all hours.  The Carthaginian sailor thoroughly dreads the Bosphorus; nor, beyond that, does he fear a hidden fate from any other quarter.  The soldier dreads the arrows and the fleet retreat of the Parthian; the Parthian, chains and an Italian prison; but the unexpected assault of death has carried off, and will carry off, the world in general.  How near was I seeing the dominions of black Proserpine, and Aeacus