Explore "His Monument" by Franklin P. Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Horace: Book III, Ode 30 / "_Exegi monumentum aere perennius -- -- _"
The monument that I have built is durable as brass, / And loftier than the Pyramids which mock the years that pass.
Nor blizzard can destroy it, nor furious rain corrode -- / Remember, I'm the bard that built the first Horatian ode.
I shall not altogether die; a part of me's immortal.
A part of me shall never pass the mortuary portal; / And when I die my fame shall stand the nitric test of time -- / The fame of me of lowly birth, who built the lofty rhyme!
Ay, fame shall be my portion when no trace there is of me, / For I first made AEolian songs the songs of Italy.
Accept I pray, Melpomene, my modest meed of praise, / And crown my thinning, graying locks with wreaths of Delphic bays!