Odes

Horace

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

Let him chain this lawless will,

And be our children's hero! cursed spite!

Living worth we envy still,

Then seek it with strain'd eyes, when snatch'd from sight.

What can sad laments avail

Unless sharp justice kill the taint of sin?

What can laws, that needs must fail

Shorn of the aid of manners form'd within,

If the merchant turns not back

From the fierce heats that round the tropic glow,

Turns not from the regions black

With northern winds, and hard with frozen snow;

Sailors override the wave,

While guilty poverty, more fear'd than vice.

Bids us crime and suffering brave,

And shuns the ascent of virtue's precipice?

Let the Capitolian fane,

The favour'd goal of yon vociferous crowd,

Aye, or let the nearest main

Receive our gold, our jewels rich and proud: