The Odes and Carmen Saeculare/Book 4/Part 7
VII.
Diffugere nives.
THE snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,
The fields their green:
Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run
Their banks between.
Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads
The dance essay:
"No 'scaping death" proclaims the year, that speeds
This sweet spring day.
Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,
To vanish, when
Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,—
Winter again!
Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:
We, soon as thrust
Where good Æneas, Tullus, Ancus went,
What are we? dust.
Can Hope assure you one more day to live
From powers above?
You rescue from your heir whate'er you give
The self you love.
When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed
The grand last doom,
Hot birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
Torquatus' tomb.
Hot Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
To life recall,
Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
From Lethe's thrall.