HORACE.

BOOK II. ODE X.

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

Of adverse Fortune's power:
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep,

Along the treacherous shore.
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,

Imbittering all his state.
The tallest pines feel most the power
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tower

Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain's side,
His cloud-capt eminence divide,

And spread the ruin round.
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.

What if thine heaven 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.
If hinderances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,

And let thy strength be seen;
But 0! 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.

This elegant Rose had I shaken it less,

Might have bloomed with its owner awhile; And the tear, that is wip'd with a little address,

May be follow'd perhaps with a sinile.

THE ROSE.

The rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower,

Which Mary to Anna convey'd,
The plentiful moisture encumbered the flower,

And weigh'd down its beautiful head.

The cup was all fill’d, and the leaves were all wet,

And it seem'd, to a fanciful view,
To weep for the buds it had left with regret,

On the flourishing bush where it grew.

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was

For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd, And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas !

I snapp'd it, it fell to the ground.

And such, I exclaim’d, is the pitiless part

Some act by the delicate mind,
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart

Already to sorrow resign'd.

This elegant rose, had I shaken it less,

Might have bloom'd with its owner awhile, And the tear that is wiped with a little address,

May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.