C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Mediæval Latin Student Songs

Time’s A-flying (Lauriger Horatius)

Translation of John Addington Symonds

[“Two lyrics of distinguished excellence, which still hold their place in the ‘Commersbuch,’ cannot claim certain antiquity in their present form…. The first starts with an allusion to the Horatian tempus edax rerum.”]

LAUREL-CROWNED Horatius,

True, how true thy saying!

Swift as wind flies over us

Time, devouring, slaying.

Where are, oh! those goblets full

Of wine honey-laden,

Strifes and loves and bountiful

Lips of ruddy maiden?

Grows the young grape tenderly,

And the maid is growing;

But the thirsty poet, see,

Years on him are snowing!

What’s the use on hoary curls

Of the bays undying,

If we may not kiss the girls,

Drink while time’s a-flying?

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