Odes

Horace

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

  • But these are not my riches: your desire
  • Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
  • A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
  • Accept, and learn the value of the lyre.
  • Not public gravings on a marble base,
  • Whence comes a second life to men of might
  • E'en in the tomb: not Hannibal's swift flight,
  • Nor those fierce threats flung back into his face,
  • Not impious Carthage in its last red blaze,
  • In clearer light sets forth his spotless fame,
  • Who from crush'd Afric took away—a name,
  • Than rude Calabria's tributary lays.
  • Let silence hide the good your hand has wrought,
  • Farewell, reward! Had blank oblivion's power
  • Dimm'd the bright deeds of Romulus, at this hour,
  • Despite his sire and mother, he were nought.
  • Thus Aeacus has 'scaped the Stygian wave,
  • By grace of poets and their silver tongue,
  • Henceforth to live the happy isles among.
  • No, trust the Muse: she opes the good man's grave,