Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Home: IV. Youth | | To Thaliarchus | | Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 B.C.) |
| | From the Latin by Sir Stephen Edward de Vere |
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A SPECTRAL form Soracte stands, snow-crowned, | |
| His shrouded pines beneath their burden bending; | |
| Not now, his rifts descending, | |
| Leap the wild streams, in icy fetters bound. | |
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| Heap high the logs! Pour forth with lavish hand, | 5 |
| O Thaliarchus, draughts of long-stored wine, | |
| Blood of the Sabine vine! | |
| To-day be ours: the rest the gods command. | |
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| While storms lie quelled at their rebuke, no more | |
| Shall the old ash her shattered foliage shed, | 10 |
| The cypress bow her head, | |
| The bursting billow whiten on the shore. | |
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| Scan not the future: count as gain each day | |
| That Fortune gives thee; and despise not, boy, | |
| Or love, or dance, or joy | 15 |
| Of martial games, ere yet thy locks be gray. | |
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| Thine be the twilight vow from faltering tongue; | |
| The joyous laugh that self-betraying guides | |
| To where the maiden hides; | |
| The ring from finger half resisting wrung. | 20 | | |
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