| Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922. | | | | A Translation |
| | (HORACE, BK. V. Ode 3)
THERE are whose study is of smells, | |
| And to attentive schools rehearse | |
| How something mixed with something else | |
| Makes something worse. | |
| |
| Some cultivate in broths impure | 5 |
| The clients of our body—these, | |
| Increasing without Venus, cure, | |
| Or cause, disease. | |
| |
| Others the heated wheel extol, | |
| And all its offspring, whose concern | 10 |
| Is how to make it farthest roll | |
| And fastest turn. | |
| |
| Me, much incurious if the hour | |
| Present, or to be paid for, brings | |
| Me to Brundusium by the power | 15 |
| Of wheels or wings; | |
| |
| Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned | |
| Life-long, save that by Pindar lit, | |
| Such lore leaves cold. I am not turned | |
| Aside to it | 20 |
| |
| More than when, sunk in thought profound | |
| Of what the unaltering Gods require, | |
| My steward (friend but slave) brings round | |
| Logs for my fire. | | | | |
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