The Hardy Youth. III-2 (From The Odes Of Horace)

The hardy youth, my friends, in bitter warfare             To narrow poverty must learn to bend,         And, for his spear a horseman to be dreaded,             Courageous Parthians into flight must send.         And he must try all dangerous adventures,             His life out in the open he must pass;         The warring tyrant's wife and growing daughter             Him spying from their hostile walls, "Alas,"         They sigh - for fear the royal husband,             Unskilled in warlike arts, should dare attack         This lion, fierce to touch, whom bloody anger             Into the midst of slaughter has dragged back.         'Tis sweet and fit to perish for one's country,             Death follows fast upon the man who flees,         Nor spares the coward backs of youth retreating,             Nor saves them trembling on their timid knees,         Valor, of shabby failure all unconscious,             Gleams with untarnished honor where she stands,         Assuming not, nor laying down her emblems,             As now the gaping populace demands.         Valor, when opening Heaven to those, who dying             Deserve not death, by paths no other knows         Points out the way, and still while she is soaring,             Her scorn for crowds and humid earth she shows.         And there's a sure reward for loyal silence.             Him I'll forbid under my roof to sit         Who has divulged the Elusinian mysteries,             Nor in my fragile shallop shall he flit         Often great Jupiter, when once neglected,             The wicked near the innocent has put,         But punishment to overtake the guilty             Has rarely failed, though she is lame of foot