Odes

Horace

Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. Conington, John, translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1882.

The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous prize,

Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind;

This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind

Through triple grade of honours bid him rise,

That, if his granary has stored away

Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire;

The man who digs his field as did his sire,

With honest pride, no Attalus may sway

By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,

The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.

The winds that make Icarian billows dark

The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease

Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed

Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.

There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,

Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,