Odes and Carmen Saeculare — Book III - II - Angustam Amice

ANGUSTAM AMICE.

To suffer hardness with good cheer, In sternest school of warfare bred, Our youth should learn; let steed and spear Make him one day the Parthian's dread;

Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.

Methinks I see from rampired town Some battling tyrant's matron wife, Some maiden, look in terror down,-- "Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!

O tempt not the infuriate mood Of that fell lion!

see!

from far He plunges through a tide of blood!"

What joy, for fatherland to die!

Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake, Nor spare a recreant chivalry, A back that cowers, or loins that quake.

True Virtue never knows defeat: HER robes she keeps unsullied still, Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat To please a people's veering will.

True Virtue opens heaven to worth: She makes the way she does not find: The vulgar crowd, the humid earth, Her soaring pinion leaves behind.

Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come: Who drags Eleusis' rite to day, That man shall never share my home, Or join my voyage: roofs give way And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves Neglected Justice oft confounds: Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.

III.