Odes

Horace

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

  • O, what can match the green recess,
  • Whose honey not to Hybla yields,
  • Whose olives vie with those that bless
  • Venafrum's fields?
  • Long springs, mild winters glad that spot
  • By Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear
  • To fruitful Bacchus, envies not
  • Falernian cheer.
  • That spot, those happy heights desire
  • Our sojourn; there, when life shall end,
  • Your tear shall dew my yet warm pyre,
  • Your bard and friend.
  • O, oft with me in troublous time
  • Involved, when Brutus warr'd in Greece,
  • Who gives you back to your own clime
  • And your own gods, a man of peace,
  • Pompey, the earliest friend I knew,
  • With whom I oft cut short the hours
  • With wine, my hair bright bathed in dew
  • Of Syrian oils, and wreathed with flowers?