Odes

Horace

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

  • Your heart on Arab wealth is set,
  • Good Iccius: you would try your steel
  • On Saba's kings, unconquerd yet,
  • And make the Mede your fetters feel.
  • Come, tell me what barbarian fair
  • Will serve you now, her bridegroom slain?
  • What page from court with essenced hair
  • Will tender you the bowl you drain,
  • Well skill'd to bend the Serian bow
  • His father carried? Who shall say
  • That rivers may not uphill flow,
  • And Tiber's self return one day,
  • If you would change Panaetius' works,
  • That costly purchase, and the clan
  • Of Socrates, for shields and dirks,
  • Whom once we thought a saner man?