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Horace, Book IV, Ode IX, Addressed To Archbishop King,[1] 1718
By Jonathan Swift
Virtue conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure;
Or suffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame,
In good and evil times, the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;[2]
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,
With life, his country or his friend.
Extra Info:
[Footnote 1: With whom Swift was in constant correspondence, more or less friendly. See Journal to Stella, "Prose Works," vol. ii, passim; and an account of King, vol. iii, p. 241, note.]
[Footnote 2:
"Non possidentem multa vocaveris
recte beatum: rectius occupat
nomen beati, qui deorum
muneribus sapienter uti
duramque callet pauperiem pati,
pejusque leto flagitium timet."]
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