Here are sapphics from Franklin P. Adams, reproducing Horace’s meter in translating Horace’s Ode 1.22. Adams has always been a minor favorite of mine, a much under-appreciated American figure.
Franklin P. Adams’s "The Clear Conscience"
He who is upright in his way of living,
Stainless of guilt, needs never the protection
Darts of Morocco, or bows or poisoned arrows,
Fuscus, can give him;
Whether his path be though the sultry Syrtes,
Or through the sunless Caucasus he travel,
Or through the countries watered by the famous
River Hydaspes.
Once in the Sabine Woods when I was strolling
Far past my farm, unarmed and free of worry,
Singing of Lalage, the wolf that heard me
Came up; and left me.
Place me on the sun-divested prairie
Where not a tree lives in the breath of summer;
Or there is nothing ever but the forecast:
Cloudy with showers.
Yes, you may place me on the old Equator
Where it is far too hot for habitation,
Yet I will love my Lalage forever,
Smiling so sweetly.
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