If you'd dip in such joys, come--the better the quicker!--
But remember the fee--for it suits not my ends,
To let you make havoc, scot-free, 'with my liquor,
As though I were one of your heavy-pursed friends.
To the winds with base lucre and pale melancholy!--
In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain,
Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,--
'Tis delightful at times to be somewhat insane.
--Sir Theodore Martin
[Footnote 2: Virgil must bring some rare perfume in exchange
for the rich wine, since Horace thus playfully conditions his
invitation.]
THE GOLDEN MEAN
Horace. Book II, Ode 10
Receive, dear friends, 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.
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