Odes

Horace

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

Yours should be the wool that grows

By fair Luceria, not the merry lute:

Flowers beseem not wither'd brows,.

Nor wither'd lips with emptied wine-jars suit.

Full well had Danae been secured, in truth,

By oaken portals, and a brazen tower,

And savage watch-dogs, from the roving youth

That prowl at midnight's hour:

But Jove and Venus mock'd with gay disdain

The jealous warder of that close stronghold:

The way, they knew, must soon be smooth and plain

When gods could change to gold.

Gold, gold can pass the tyrant's sentinel,

Can shiver rocks with more resistless blow

Than is the thunder's. Argos' prophet fell,

He and his house laid low,