Odes

Horace

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

Now rolling on its placid tide,

Now whirling massy trunks uptorn,

And waveworn crags, and farms, and stock,

In chaos blent, while hill and wood

Reverberate to the enormous shock,

When savage rains the tranquil flood

Have stirr'd to madness. Happy he,

Self-centred, who each night can say,

“My life is lived: the morn may see

A clouded or a sunny day:

That rests with Jove: but what is gone,

He will not, cannot turn to nought;

Nor cancel, as a thing undone,

What once the flying hour has brought.”

Fortune, who loves her cruel game,

Still bent upon some heartless whim,

Shifts her caresses, fickle dame,

Now kind to me, and now to him:

She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake

Those wings, her presents I resign,