Poetical Works of John Oldham/Paraphrase upon Horace—Book II Ode XIV
PARAPHRASE UPON HORACE.
BOOK II. — ODE XIV.
Eheu fugaces Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni, &c.
1
ALAS! dear friend, alas! time hastes away,
Nor is it in our power to bribe its stay;
The rolling years with constant motion run,
Lo! while I speak, the present minute's gone,
And following hours still urge the foregoing on.
'Tis not thy wealth, 'tis not thy power,
'Tis not thy piety can thee secure;
They're all too feeble to withstand
Grey hairs, approaching age, and thy avoidless end.
When once thy glass is run,
When once thy utmost thread is spun,
'Twill then be fruitless to expect reprieve;
Couldst thou ten thousand Kingdoms give
In purchase for each hour of longer life,
They would not buy one gasp of breath,
Not move one jot inexorable death.
2
Which now, like swarms of insects, crawl
Upon the surface of earth's spacious ball,
Must quit this hillock of mortality,
And in its bowels buried lie.
The mightiest king, and proudest potentate
In spite of all his pomp, and all his state,
Must pay this necessary tribute unto fate.
The busy, restless monarch of the world, which now
Keeps such a pother, and so much ado
To fill gazettes alive,
And after in some lying annal to survive,
Even he, even that great mortal man must die,
And stink, and rot, as well as thou and I,
As well as the poor tattered wretch that begs his bread,
And is with scraps out of the common basket fed.
3
In vain do we escape
The sultry Line, and stormy Cape,
And all the treacheries of the faithless deep;
In vain for health to foreign countries we repair,
And change our English for Montpellier air,
In hope to leave our fears of dying there;
In vain with costly far-fetched drugs we strive
To keep the wasting vital lamp alive;
In vain on doctor's feeble art rely;
Against resistless death there is no remedy.
Both we and they, for all their skill, must die,
And fill alike the bead-rolls of mortality.
4
And leave thy house, thy wife, and family behind;
Thou must thy fair and goodly manors leave,
Of these thy trees thou shalt not with thee take,
Save just as much as will thy coffin make;
Nor wilt thou be allowed of all thy land, to have
But the small pittance of a six-foot grave.
Then shall thy prodigal young heir
Lavish the wealth, which thou for many a year
Hast hoarded up with so much pains and care;
Then shall he drain thy cellars of their stores,
Kept sacred now as vaults of buried ancestors;
Shall set the enlargèd butts at liberty,
Which there close prisoners under durance lie,
And wash these stately floors with better wine
Than that of consecrated prelates when they dine.