Page:Odes and Carmen Saeculare.djvu/98



H, Postumus! they fleet away, Our years, nor piety one hour Can win from wrinkles and decay, And Death's indomitable power; Not though three hundred bullocks flame Each year, to soothe the tearless king Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame And Tityos in his watery ring, That circling flood, which all must stem, Who eat the fruits that Nature yields, Wearers of haughtiest diadem, Or humblest tillers of the fields. In vain we shun war's contact red Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main: In vain, the season through, we dread For our frail lives Scirocco's bane. Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus To never-ending toil decreed. Your land, your house, your lovely bride Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees None to its fleeting master's side Will cleave, but those sad cypresses.