Odes

Horace

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

  • No vulgar wing, nor weakly plied,
  • Shall bear me through the liquid sky;
  • A two-form'd bard, no more to bide
  • Within the range of envy's eye
  • 'Mid haunts of men. I, all ungraced
  • By gentle blood, I, whom you call
  • Your friend, Maecenas, shall not taste
  • Of death, nor chafe in Lethe's thrall.
  • E'en now a rougher skin expands
  • Along my legs: above I change
  • To a white bird; and o'er my hands
  • And shoulders grows a plumage strange: