Sylvæ, or, The second part of Poetical miscellanies

HORACE, ODE 7th, BOOK 4th. By an unknown HAND.

WInter's dissolv'd, behold a Worlds new face! How grass the ground, how leaves their branches grace. That Earth which wou'd not to the plough-share yeild, Is softer now and easie to be till'd. And frozen streams thaw'd by th' approaching Sun, With whispring murmurs in their channels run: The naked Nymphs and Graces dance a round, And ore the flowry meadows nimbly bound. The Months that run on times immortal wheels, The seasons treading on each others heels.

The winged hours that swiftly pass away, And spightfully consume the smiling Day, Tell us, that all things must with them decay. The year rowls round us in a constant ring, And sultry Summer wasts the milder Spring: Whose hot Meridian quickly overpast, Declines to Autumn, which with bounteous hast Comes crown'd with Grapes, but suddainly is crost, Cold Winter nips his Vintage, with a frost. The Moon renews its Orb to shine more bright; But when Deaths hand puts out our mortal light, With us alas 'tis ever ever Night! With Tullus and with Ancus we shall be, And the brave Souls of vanish'd Heroes see. Who knows if Gods above, who all things sway, Will suffer thee to live another day? Then please thy Genius, and betimes take care, To leave but little to thy greedy Heir.

When among crouds of Ghosts thou shalt appear, And from the Judge thy fatal sentence hear, Not Birth, nor Eloquence, nor Wealth, nor all. That thou canst plead can the past doom recal. Diana, though a Goddess, cannot take Her chast Hippolitus from Lethe's Lake. Perithous bound in fetters must remain, Theseus no more can break his adamantine chain.