Odes

Horace

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

  • Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he,
  • Self-centred, who each night can say,
  • “My life is lived: the morn may see
  • A clouded or a sunny day:
  • That rests with Jove: but what is gone,
  • He will not, cannot turn to nought;
  • Nor cancel, as a thing undone,
  • What once the flying hour has brought.”
  • Fortune, who loves her cruel game,
  • Still bent upon some heartless whim,
  • Shifts her caresses, fickle dame,
  • Now kind to me, and now to him:
  • She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake
  • Those wings, her presents I resign,
  • Cloak me in native worth, and take
  • Chaste Poverty undower'd for mine.
  • Though storms around my vessel rave,
  • I will not fall to craven prayers,
  • Nor bargain by my vows to save
  • My Cyprian and Sidonian wares,