Odes

Horace

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

  • Dear Valgius, lies the cold dull snow
  • Through all the year; nor northwinds keen
  • Upon Garganian oakwoods blow,
  • And strip the ashes of their green.
  • You still with tearful tones pursue
  • Your lost, lost Mystes; Hesper sees
  • Your passion when he brings the dew,
  • And when before the sun he flees.
  • Yet not for loved Antilochus
  • Grey Nestor wasted all his years
  • In grief; nor o'er young Troilus
  • His parents' and his sisters' tears
  • For ever flow'd. At length have done
  • With these soft sorrows; rather tell
  • Of Caesar's trophies newly won,
  • And hoar Niphates' icy fell,
  • And Medus' flood, 'mid conquer'd tribes
  • Rolling a less presumptuous tide,
  • And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes,
  • Henceforth o'er narrower steppes to ride.