Odes

Horace

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

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.

Lady of Antium, grave and stern!

O Goddess, who canst lift the low

To high estate, and sudden turn

A triumph to a funeral show!

Thee the poor hind that tills the soil

Implores; their queen they own in thee,

Who in Bithynian vessel toil

Amid the vex'd Carpathian sea.

Thee Dacians fierce, and Scythian hordes,

Peoples and towns, and Rome, their head,

And mothers of barbarian lords,

And tyrants in their purple dread,