Odes

Horace

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

  • Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon
  • Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:
  • Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:
  • Do not thy promise wrong.
  • Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:
  • Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine
  • Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,
  • And suns serener shine.
  • See her whose darling child a long year past
  • Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;
  • That long year o'er, the envious southern blast
  • Still bars him from his home:
  • Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,
  • Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns:
  • So, smit by loyal passion's restless stings,
  • Rome for her Caesar yearns.