Odes

Horace

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

  • Fleeter than Icarus, see me float
  • O'er Bosporus, singing as I go,
  • And o'er Gaetulian sands remote,
  • And Hyperborean fields of snow;
  • By Dacian horde, that masks its fear
  • Of Marsic steel, shall I be known,
  • And furthest Scythian: Spain shall hear
  • My warbling, and the banks of Rhone.
  • No dirges for my fancied death;
  • No weak lament, no mournful stave;
  • All clamorous grief were waste of breath,
  • And vain the tribute of a grave.
  • Bid the unhallow'd crowd avaunt!
  • Keep holy silence; strains unknown
  • Till now, the Muses' hierophant,
  • I sing to youths and maids alone.
  • Kings o'er their flocks the sceptre wield;
  • E'en kings beneath Jove's sceptre bow:
  • Victor in giant battle-field,
  • He moves all nature with his brow.