Odes by Horace

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THE ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE

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NON SEMPER IMBRES.


The rain, it rains not every day

On the soak'd meads; the Caspian main

Not always feels the unequal sway

Of storms, nor on Armenia's plain,

Dear Valgius, lies the cold dull snow

Through all the year; nor northwinds keen

Upon Garganian oakwoods blow,

And strip the ashes of their green.

You still with tearful tones pursue

Your lost, lost Mystes; Hesper sees

Your passion when he brings the dew,

And when before the sun he flees.

Yet not for loved Antilochus

Grey Nestor wasted all his years

In grief; nor o'er young Troilus

His parents' and his sisters' tears

For ever flow'd. At length have done

With these soft sorrows; rather tell

Of Caesar's trophies newly won,

And hoar Niphates' icy fell,

And Medus' flood, 'mid conquer'd tribes

Rolling a less presumptuous tide,

And Scythians taught, as Rome prescribes,

Henceforth o'er narrower steppes to ride.





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