Odes

Horace

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

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

You bend the expedient to the right,

Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,

Or bear your banners through the fight,

Scattering the foeman's firm array.

The lord of boundless revenues,

Salute not him as happy: no,