Aislinn A. Melchior

Home UPS Classics Dept.

Horace Ode 2.14 Aislinn Melchior I grieve the swift flow downstream. You know...you were born after your father’s death. No religious fervor slows the withering, nor does it halt looming age or death, never checked. No my friend.  If you dropped a bull for every day, there still is no placating Pluto.  Tearless, he ensnares everyone, heroes and villains, with black water. We must sail this deep prison, we who graze earth’s fruit, whether royalty or hard scrabble farmers, full only of want. Bloody Mars is shunned in vain and the roaring floods of the Adriatic with its broken waves.  In vain do we fear the autumn winds that bite. We must look into that river, black, slow, errant Cocytus. So too see the unspeakable family of Danaus and Sisyphus condemned to endless efforts. We must leave this land, this home, this our wife.  Nor will trees, deep planted, spring from their roots and follow, save as a grave wreath for their brief master. And the wine you thought to save for a special occasion, better even than the wine of priests, your heir will taste, staining the tiles of the dining hall red.