Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODES II, 3. TO DELLIUS, by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODES II, 3. TO DELLIUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O dellius, when there blows an adverse wind
Last Line: To endless exile and the boundless dark.
Alternate Author Name(s): Horace
Subject(s): Mortality


O Dellius, when there blows an adverse wind
See thou preservest an untroubled mind!
And when prosperity attests thy worth
Refrain as well from unbecoming mirth;
For thou must die and vanish from the earth.

Whether thy life be spent in sorrow's ways
Or in the griefless flow of festive days
Thou lollest at thy ease in pastures where
The hours are dreamed away remote from care,
Choicest Falernian thy comrade there.

Where the vast pine and poplar pale have made
Their blended boughs a roof for social shade,
And where between its winding banks the stream,
That babbler-in-an-undertone, doth seem
To shiver by, fugacious as a dream.

Bring hither wine, be lavish of perfume
And the too-quickly-fading roses' bloom,
While youth remains with opportunity,
And their dark threads awhile (how fruitlessly)!
Are left unfingered by the Sisters three.

Soon wilt thou leave thy widely purchased grove,
Thy mansion with its satisfying loves,
Thy villa that the tawny Tiber laves,—
Wilt leave them all, and to the wind and waves
Thy heir will cast the wealth affection saves.

It matters not if riches thee were lent,
From ancient Inachus thy long descent,
Or if ignoble and of beggar birth
Beneath the naked heavens they flung thee forth,
The victim of unpitying Orcus' wrath.

We are all hurried to the self-same bourn,
The lots alike are shaken in the urn
That soon or late our destiny will mark
And send us helpless, by the fateful bark,
To endless exile and the boundless dark.





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