Odes

Horace

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

That circling flood, which all must stem,

Who eat the fruits that Nature yields,

Wearers of haughtiest diadem,

Or humblest tillers of the fields.

In vain we shun war's contact red

Or storm-tost spray of Hadrian main:

In vain, the season through, we dread

For our frail lives Scirocco's bane.

Cocytus' black and stagnant ooze

Must welcome you, and Danaus' seed

Ill-famed, and ancient Sisyphus

To never-ending toil decreed.

Your land, your house, your lovely bride

Must lose you; of your cherish'd trees

None to its fleeting master's side

Will cleave, but those sad cypresses.

Your heir, a larger soul, will drain

The hundred-padlock'd Caecuban,

And richer spilth the pavement stain

Than e'er at pontiff's supper ran.