Odes

Horace

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

  • Heap high the logs, and melt the cold,
  • Good Thaliarch; draw the wine we ask,
  • That mellower vintage, four-year-old,
  • From out the cellar'd Sabine cask.
  • The future trust with Jove; when he
  • Has still'd the warring tempests' roar
  • On the vex'd deep, the cypress-tree
  • And aged ash are rock'd no more.
  • O, ask not what the morn will bring,
  • But count as gain each day that chance
  • May give you; sport in life's young spring,
  • Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance,
  • While years are green, while sullen eld
  • Is distant. Now the walk, the game,
  • The whisper'd talk at sunset held,
  • Each in its hour, prefer their claim.
  • Sweet too the laugh, whose feign'd alarm
  • The hiding-place of beauty tells,
  • The token, ravish'd from the arm
  • Or finger, that but ill rebels.