anxious dread for Rome, what preparations the Seres and the Bactrians subject to Cyrus, and the factious Tanais are making.  A wise deity shrouds in obscure darkness the events of the time to come, and smiles if a mortal is solicitous beyond the law of nature.  Be mindful to manage duly that which is present.  What remains goes on in the manner of the river, at one time calmly gliding in the middle of its channel to the Tuscan Sea, at another, rolling along corroded stones, and stumps of trees, forced away, and cattle, and houses, not without the noise of mountains and neighboring woods, when the merciless deluge enrages the peaceful waters.  That man is master of himself and shall live happy, who has it in his power to say, “I have lived to-day:  to-morrow let the Sire invest the heaven, either with a black cloud, or with clear sunshine; nevertheless, he shall not render ineffectual what is past, nor undo or annihilate what the fleeting hour has once carried off.  Fortune, happy in the execution of her cruel office, and persisting to play her insolent game, changes uncertain honors, indulgent now to me, by and by to another.  I praise her, while she abides by me.  If she moves her fleet wings, I resign what she has bestowed, and wrap myself up in my virtue, and court honest poverty without a portion.  It is no business of mine, if the mast groan with the African storms, to have recourse to piteous prayers, and to make a bargain with my vows, that my Cyprian and Syrian merchandize may not add to the wealth of the insatiable sea.  Then the gale and the twin Pollux will carry me safe in the protection of a skiff with two oars, through the tumultuous Aegean Sea.”

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ODE XXX.

On his own works.

I have completed a monument more lasting than brass, and more sublime than the regal elevation of pyramids, which neither the wasting shower, the unavailing north wind, nor an innumerable succession of years, and the flight of seasons, shall be able to demolish.  I shall not wholly die; but a great part of me shall escape Libitina.  I shall continualy be renewed in the praises of posterity, as long as the priest shall ascend the Capitol with the silent [vestal] virgin.  Where the rapid Aufidus shall murmur, and where Daunus, poorly supplied with water, ruled over a rustic people, I, exalted from a low degree, shall be acknowledged as having originally adapted the Aeolic verse to Italian measures.  Melpomene, assume that pride which your merits have acquired, and willingly crown my hair with the Delphic laurel.

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THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE ODES OF HORACE.

ODE I.

To Venus.