Odes

Horace

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

In sacred awe the silent dead

Attend on each: but when the song

Of combat tells and tyrants fled,

Keen ears, press'd shoulders, closer throng.

What marvel, when at those sweet airs

The hundred-headed beast spell-bound

Each black ear droops, and Furies' hairs

Uncoil their serpents at the sound?

Prometheus too and Pelops' sire

In listening lose the sense of woe;

Orion hearkens to the lyre,

And lets the lynx and lion go.

Ah, Postumus! they fleet away,

Our years, nor piety one hour

Can win from wrinkles and decay,

And Death's indomitable power;

Not though three hundred bullocks flame

Each year, to soothe the tearless king

Who holds huge Geryon's triple frame

And Tityos in his watery ring,