Odes

Horace

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

That, if his granary has stored away

Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire;

The man who digs his field as did his sire,

With honest pride, no Attalus may sway

By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,

The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.

The winds that make Icarian billows dark

The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease

Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed

Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.

There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,

Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,

Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward,

Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;

Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,

And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd.

See, patient waiting in the clear keen air,

The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride,

Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed,

Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare.