Odes

Horace

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

  • “Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!
  • O tempt not the infuriate mood
  • Of that fell lion I see! from far
  • He plunges through a tide of blood!“
  • What joy, for fatherland to die!
  • Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake,
  • Nor spare a recreant chivalry,
  • A back that cowers, or loins that quake.
  • True Virtue never knows defeat:
  • Her robes she keeps unsullied still,
  • Nor takes, nor quits, her curule seat
  • To please a people's veering will.