Classic Poem

Ode 1.22

SOLILOQUIZES UPON IT

The quality of virtue is not strained;
It falleth sweetly on the upright soul
And clothes the spirit with a suit of mail.
The honest man, with neither bow nor shield,
Envenomed arrows, daggers, javelins,
Can stand unarmed against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. Whether he walk
Beside the huge and multitudinous waves,
Or through unharbored Caucasus he roam,
Nothing shall lift its great, abhorrent head
And freeze the quivering marrow in his bones.
There's a divinity doth hedge a man
Who feareth naught, rough-hew him how you will.
Why, I have seen this wonder come to pass:
As I went singing lately through a wood,
A wolf all teeth, a wolf of savage hate,
A wolf, whose every movement was a threat,
Sprang at me snarling, like the winds of March.
But king-becoming graces soothe the beasts
And music charms them with her silver sound;
So on I went, unchecked by groveling fear.
I tell thee, Fuscus, Life is but a plant;
Honor and righteousness its sun and rain,
And Heaven grants such precious nourishment
To save the flower from the canker, Death.English