HORACE,

Book II. Ode X.

I.

RECEIVE, dear friend, the truths I teach, So shalt thou live beyond the reach

Of adverse Fortune's pow'r ; Not always tempt the distant deep, Nor always timorously creep

Along the treach❜rous shore.

II.

He, that holds fast the golden mean,

And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,

Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, Imbitt'ring all his state.

III.

The tallest pines feel most the pow'r
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tow'r
Comes heaviest to the ground;

The bolts, that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.

IV.

The well-inform'd philosopher
Rejoices with a wholesome fear,
And hopes, in spite of pain;

If Winter bellow from the north,

Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth,

And Nature laughs again.

V.

What if thine heav'n be overcast,

The dark appearance will not last;
Expect a brighter sky.

The God that strings the silver bow,
Awakes sometimes the muses too,
And lays his arrows by.

VI.

If hind'rances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,

And let thy strength be seen;

But O! if fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.

A REFLECTION

ON THE FOREGOING ODE.

AND is this all? Can Reason do no more,

Than bid me shun the deep, and dread the shore?
Sweet moralist! afloat on life's rough sea,

The Christian has an art unknown to thee.
He holds no parley with unmanly fears;
Where duty bids, he confidently steers,
Faces a thousand dangers at her call,

And, trusting in his God, surmounts them all.