Odes

Horace

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

  • 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,
  • Call him the happy, who can use
  • The bounty that the gods bestow,
  • Can bear the load of poverty,
  • And tremble not at death, but sin:
  • No recreant he when called to die
  • In cause of country or of kin.
  • Here is a cask of Alban, more
  • Than nine years old: here grows for you
  • Green parsley, Phyllis, and good store
  • Of ivy too
  • (Wreathed ivy suits your hair, you know):
  • The plate shines bright: the altar, strew'd
  • With vervain, hungers for the flow
  • Of lambkin's blood.