Page:Odes and Carmen Saeculare.djvu/145

 The shepherd with his weary sheep Seeks out the streamlet and the trees, Silvanus' lair: the still banks sleep Untroubled by the wandering breeze. You ponder on imperial schemes, And o'er the city's danger brood: Bactrian and Serian haunt your dreams, And Tanais, toss'd by inward feud. The issue of the time to be Heaven wisely hides in blackest night, And laughs, should man's anxiety Transgress the bounds of man's short sight. Control the present: all beside Flows like a river seaward borne, How rolling on its placid tide, How whirling massy trunks uptorn, And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock, In chaos blent, while hill and wood Reverberate to the enormous shock, When savage rains the tranquil flood Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he, Self-centred, who each night can say, "My life is lived: the morn may see A clouded or a sunny day: That rests with Jove: but what is gone, He will not, cannot turn to nought; Nor cancel, as a thing undone, What once the flying hour has brought." Fortune, who loves her cruel game, Still bent upon some heartless whim,