Odes

Horace

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

For me sweet Love had forged a milder spell;

But Myrtale still kept me her fond slave,

More stormy she than the tempestuous swell

That crests Calabria's wave.

My prayers were scant, my offerings few,

While witless wisdom fool'd my mind;

But now I trim my sails anew,

And trace the course I left behind.

For lo! the sire of heaven on high,

By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven,

Today through an unclouded sky

His thundering steeds and car has driven.

E'en now dull earth and wandering floods,

And Atlas' limitary range,

And Styx, and Taenarus' dark abodes

Are reeling. He can lowliest change

And loftiest; bring the mighty down

And lift the weak; with whirring flight

Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch's crown,

And decks therewith some meaner wight.