Odes

Horace

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

A nation's hope, a nation's name,

They died with dying Hasdrubal.”

What will not Claudian hands achieve?

Jove's favour is their guiding star,

And watchful potencies unweave

For them the tangled paths of war.

Best guardian of Rome's people, dearest boon

Of a kind Heaven, thou lingerest all too long:

Thou bad'st thy senate look to meet thee soon:

Do not thy promise wrong.

Restore, dear chief, the light thou tak'st away:

Ah! when, like spring, that gracious mien of thine

Dawns on thy Rome, more gently glides the day,

And suns serener shine.

See her whose darling child a long year past

Has dwelt beyond the wild Carpathian foam;

That long year o'er, the envious southern blast

Still bars him from his home:

Weeping and praying to the shore she clings,

Nor ever thence her straining eyesight turns: