Odes

Horace

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

In vain we shun war's contact red

Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main:

In vain, the season through, we dread

For our frail lives Scirocco's bane.

Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze

Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed

Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus

To never-ending toil decreed.

Your land, your house, your lovely bride

Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees

None to its fleeting master's side

Will cleave, but those sad cypresses.

Your heir, a larger soul, will drain

The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban,

And richer spilth the pavement stain

Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran.

Few roods of ground the piles we raise

Will leave to plough; ponds wider spread

Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze

On every side; the plane unwed