Odes

Horace

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

  • Young men's homes your daughter storms,
  • Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat:
  • Nothus' love her bosom warms:
  • She gambols like a fawn with silver feet.
  • 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.