Odes

Horace

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

  • Sweet tuner of the Grecian lyre,
  • Whose locks are laved in Xanthus' dews,
  • Blooming Agyieus! help, inspire
  • My Daunian Muse!
  • 'Tis Phoebus, Phoebus gifts my tongue
  • With minstrel art and minstrel fires:
  • Come, noble youths and maidens sprung
  • From noble sires,
  • Blest in your Dian's guardian smile,
  • Whose shafts the flying silvans stay,
  • Come, foot the Lesbian measure, while
  • The lyre I play:
  • Sing of Latona's glorious boy,
  • Sing of night's queen with crescent horn,
  • Who wings the fleeting months with joy,
  • And swells the corn.
  • And happy brides shall say, “'Twas mine,
  • When years the cyclic season brought,
  • To chant the festal hymn divine
  • By Horace taught.”