Odes

Horace

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

  • Revering Heaven, you rule below;
  • Be that your base, your coping still;
  • 'Tis Heaven neglected bids o'erflow
  • The measure of Italian ill.
  • Now Pacorus and Monaeses twice
  • Have given our unblest arms the foil;
  • Their necklaces, of mean device;
  • Smiling they deck with Roman spoil.
  • Our city, torn by faction's throes,
  • Dacian and Ethiop well-nigh razed,
  • These with their dreadful navy, those
  • For archer-prowess rather praised.
  • An evil age erewhile debased
  • The marriage-bed, the race, the home;
  • Thence rose the flood whose waters waste
  • The nation and the name of Rome.