C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
To the Ship of State
By Horace (65–8 B.C.)
From William Ewart Gladstone’s ‘Odes of Horace’
O
Seaward. What wilt thou? Hold the port, be stout!
Seest not thy mast
How rent by stiff southwestern blast?
Thine hull, with groaning yards, with rigging torn,
Can ill sustain
The fierce and ever fiercer main;
From whom, yet once, thy need might aid require.
O Pontic pine,
The first of woodland stock is thine,
Not painted sterns give storm-tost seamen trust
Unless thou dare
To be the sport of storms, beware!
A yearning care and constant strain of late,
O shun the seas
That gird those glittering Cyclades.