Odes 3.30 (Gladstone): Exegi Monumentum

Now have I reared a monument
more durable than brass,
And one that doth the royal scale
of pyramids surpass,
Nor shall defeated Aquilo
destroy, nor soaking rain,
Nor yet the countless tide of years,
nor seasons in their train.

Not all of me shall die: my praise
shall grow, and never end,
While pontiff and mute vestal shall
the Capitol ascend,
And so a mighty share of me
shall Libitina foil.

Where bellows headstrong Aufidus,
where, on his arid soil,
King Daunus ruled a rural folk,
of me it shall be told
That, grown from small to great, I first
of all men subtly wrought
Aeolian strains to unison
with our Italian thought.

So take thine honours earned by deeds;
and graciously do thou,
Melpomene, with Delphic bays
adorn thy poet's brow.