Odes

Horace

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

Or Sthenelus, earn'd the Muses' crown:

Not Hector first for child and wife,

Or brave Deiphobus, laid down

The burden of a manly life.

Before Atrides men were brave:

But ah! oblivion, dark and long,

Has lock'd them in a tearless grave,

For lack of consecrating song.

'Twixt worth and baseness, lapp'd in death,

What difference? You shall ne'er be dumb,

While strains of mine have voice and breath:

The dull neglect of days to come

Those hard-won honours shall not blight:

No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,

Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright

When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:

To greed and rapine still severe,

Spurning the gain men find so sweet:

A consul, not of one brief year,

But oft as on the judgment-seat