Odes by Horace

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THE ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE

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ANGUSTAM AMICE.


To suffer hardness with good cheer,

In sternest school of warfare bred,

Our youth should learn; let steed and spear

Make him one day the Parthian's dread;

Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.

Methinks I see from rampined town

Some battling tyrant's matron wife,

Some maiden, look in terror down,--

"Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!

O tempt not the infuriate mood

Of that fell lion! see! from far

He plunges through a tide of blood!"

What joy, for fatherland to die!

Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake,

Nor spare a recreant chivalry,

A back that cowers, or loins that quake.

True Virtue never knows defeat:

HER robes she keeps unsullied still,

Nor takes, nor quits, HER curule seat

To please a people's veering will.

True Virtue opens heaven to worth:

She makes the way she does not find:

The vulgar crowd, the humid earth,

Her soaring pinion leaves behind.

Seal'd lips have blessings sure to come:

Who drags Eleusis' rite to day,

That man shall never share my home,

Or join my voyage: roofs give way

And boats are wreck'd: true men and thieves

Neglected Justice oft confounds:

Though Vengeance halt, she seldom leaves

The wretch whose flying steps she hounds.





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