The Ninth Ode of the First Book of Horace

BEHOLD yon Mountains hoary height,

Made higher with new Mounts of Snow;

Again behold the Winters weight

Oppress the lab’ring Woods below:

And Streams, with Icy fetters bound,

Benum’d and crampt to solid Ground.

With well-heap’d Logs dissolve the cold,

And feed the genial hearth with fires;

Produce the Wine, that makes us bold,

And sprightly Wit and Love inspires:

For what hereafter shall betide,

God, if ’tis worth his care, provide.

III

Let him alone, with what he made,

To toss and turn the World below;

At his command the storms invade;

The winds by his Commission blow;

Till with a Nod he bids ’em cease,

And then the Calm returns, and all is peace.

To morrow and her works defie,

Lay hold upon the present hour,

And snatch the pleasures passing by,

To put them out of Fortunes pow’r:

Nor love, nor love’s delights disdain;

Whate’re thou get’st to day is gain.

Secure those golden early joyes,

That Youth unsowr’d with sorrow bears,

E’re with’ring time the taste destroyes,

With sickness and unwieldy years!

For active sports, for pleasing rest,

This is the time to be possest;

The best is but in season best.

The pointed hour of promis’d Bliss,

The pleasing whisper in the dark,

The half unwilling willing kiss,

The laugh that guides thee to the mark,

When the kind Nymph wou’d coyness feign,

And hides but to be found again;

These, these are joyes the Gods for Youth ordain.