Poetical Remains of the Late Mrs Hemans/To Delius
Book II. Ode III.
TO DELIUS.
Firm be thy soul!—serene in power,
When adverse Fortune clouds the sky;
Undazzled by the triumph's hour,
Since, Delius, thou must die!
Alike if still to grief resigned,
Or if through festal days 'tis thine
To quaff, in grassy haunts reclined,
The old Falernian wine:
Haunts where the silvery poplar-boughs
Love with the pine's to blend on high,
And some clear fountain brightly flows
In graceful windings by.
There be the rose, with beauty fraught
So soon to fade, so brilliant now,
There be the wine, the odours brought,
While Time and Fate allow!
For thou, resigning to thine heir,
Thy halls, thy bowers, thy treasured store,
Must leave that home, those woodlands fair,
On yellow Tyber's shore.
What then avails it if thou trace
From Inachus thy glorious line?
Or, sprung from some ignoble race,
If not a roof be thine?
Since the dread lot for all must leap
Forth from the dark revolving urn,
And we must tempt the gloomy deep,
Whence exiles ne'er return.
Original of the foregoing.
Æquam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Lætitia; moriture Delli,
Seu mœstus omni tempore vixeris,
Seu te in remoto gramine per dies
Festos reclinatum beâris
Interiore notâ Falerni.
Qua pinus ingens, albaque populus,
Umbram hospitalem consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo;
Huc vina, et unguenta, et nimium brevis
Flores amœnos ferre jube rosæ,
Dum res, et ætas, et sororum
Fila trium patiuntur atra.
Cedes coëmtis saltibus, et domo,
Villâque, flavus quam Tiberis lavit:
Cedes; et exstructis in altum
Divitiis potietur heres.
Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho,
Nil interest, an pauper et infimâ
De gente, sub divo moreris,
Victima nil miserantis Orci.
Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium
Versatur urnâ, serius, ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in æternum
Exsilium impositura cymbæ.