Odes

Horace

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

  • Jove rules in heaven, his thunder shows;
  • Henceforth Augustus earth shall own
  • Her present god, now Briton foes
  • And Persians bow before his throne.
  • Has Crassus' soldier ta'en to wife
  • A base barbarian, and grown grey
  • (Woe, for a nation's tainted life!)
  • Earning his foemen-kinsmen's pay,
  • His king, forsooth, a Mede, his sire
  • A Marsian? can he name forget,
  • Gown, sacred shield, undying fire,
  • And Jove and Rome are standing yet?
  • 'Twas this that Regulus foresaw,
  • What time he spurn'd the foul disgrace
  • Of peace, whose precedent would draw
  • Destruction on an unborn race,
  • Should aught but death the prisoner's chain
  • Unrivet. “I have seen,” he said,
  • “Rome's eagle in a Punic fane,
  • And armour, ne'er a blood-drop shed,