Odes

Horace

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

  • So Bacchus, with the vine-wreath round his hair,
  • Gives prosperous issue to his votary's prayer.
  • Think not those strains can e'er expire,
  • Which, cradled 'mid the echoing roar
  • Of Aufidus, to Latium's lyre
  • I sing with arts unknown before.
  • Though Homer fill the foremost throne,
  • Yet grave Stesichorus still can please,
  • And fierce Alcaeus holds his own
  • With Pindar and Simonides.
  • The songs of Teos are not mute,
  • And Sappho's love is breathing still:
  • She told her secret to the lute,
  • And yet its chords with passion thrill.
  • Not Sparta's queen alone was fired
  • By broider'd robe and braided tress,
  • And all the splendours that attired
  • Her lover's guilty loveliness:
  • Not only Teucer to the field
  • His arrows brought, nor Ilion