The Poetry Corner

Religion. I-34 (From The Odes Of Horace)

By Helen Leah Reed

God's mean and careless servant - while I wander Deep in the madness of Philosophy, - Now backward I must set my sail, and ponder Where my forsaken course retraced shall be. For Jupiter, who with his glittering fire So often cleaves apart the threatening clouds, His wingd car and thundering horses higher Toward air has driven where no shadow shrouds. Whereat the sluggish earth, each vagrant river, - The Styx, and hated Tnarus' dread abode, And the Atlantic borders shake and shiver. Ah - to reverse high things and low, our God Is able, and the mighty he can lower, The obscure can raise. From this man Fortune steals The crown to give to that one; - in her power, Showing with hissing wings the joy she feels.