with Grecian fires, even him concealed in his mother’s womb:  had not the father of the gods, prevailed upon by thy entreaties and those of the beauteous Venus, granted to the affairs of Aeneas walls founded under happier auspices.  Thou lyrist Phoebus, tutor of the harmonious Thalia, who bathest thy locks in the river Xanthus, O delicate Agyieus, support the dignity of the Latian muse.  Phoebus gave me genius, Phoebus the art of composing verse, and the title of poet.  Ye virgins of the first distinction, and ye youths born of illustrious parents, ye wards of the Delian goddess, who stops with her bow the flying lynxes, and the stags, observe the Lesbian measure, and the motion of my thumb; duly celebrating the son of Latona, duly [celebrating] the goddess that enlightens the night with her shining crescent, propitious to the fruits, and expeditious in rolling on the precipitate months.  Shortly a bride you will say:  “I, skilled in the measures of the poet Horace, recited an ode which was acceptable to the gods, when the secular period brought back the festal days.”

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ODE VII.

To Torquatus.

The snows are fled, the herbage now returns to the fields, and the leaves to the trees.  The earth changes its appearance, and the decreasing rivers glide along their banks:  the elder Grace, together with the Nymphs, and her two sisters, ventures naked to lead off the dance.  That you are not to expect things permanent, the year, and the hour that hurries away the agreeable day, admonish us.  The colds are mitigated by the zephyrs:  the summer follows close upon the spring, shortly to die itself, as soon as fruitful autumn shall have shed its fruits:  and anon sluggish winter returns again.  Nevertheless the quick-revolving moons repair their wanings in the skies; but when we descend [to those regions] where pious Aeneas, where Tullus and the wealthy Ancus [have gone before us], we become dust and a mere shade.  Who knows whether the gods above will add to this day’s reckoning the space of to-morrow?  Every thing, which you shall indulge to your beloved soul, will escape the greedy hands of your heir.  When once, Torquatus, you shall be dead, and Minos shall have made his awful decisions concerning you; not your family, not you eloquence, not your piety shall restore you.  For neither can Diana free the chaste Hippolytus from infernal darkness; nor is Theseus able to break off the Lethaean fetters from his dear Piri thous.

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ODE VIII.

To Marcius Censorinus.