Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray and Smollett

Translation of Horace

Book I. Ode XXII

1 The man, my friend, whose conscious heart
      With virtue’s sacred ardour glows,
    Nor taints with death the envenom’d dart,
      Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows:

2 Though Scythia’s icy cliffs he treads,
      Or horrid Afric’s faithless sands;
    Or where the famed Hydaspes spreads
      His liquid wealth o’er barbarous lands.

3 For while, by Chlöe’s image charm’d,
      Too far in Sabine woods I stray’d;
    Me singing, careless and unarm’d,
      A grisly wolf surprised, and fled.

4 No savage more portentous stain’d
      Apulia’s spacious wilds with gore;
    None fiercer Juba’s thirsty land,
      Dire nurse of raging lions, bore.

5 Place me where no soft summer gale
      Among the quivering branches sighs;
    Where clouds condensed for ever veil
      With horrid gloom the frowning skies:

6 Place me beneath the burning line,
      A clime denied to human race;
    I’ll sing of Chlöe’s charms divine,
      Her heavenly voice, and beauteous face.