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The notion of the single Ode as a unit, coherent and complete in itself, has played a long and important part in Horatian criticism, as recent research has shown. But there are dangers to this interpretive principle, partly because lyric is an expansive and digressive genre, and partly because the units into which editors divide the books are based on traditional numeration rather than the most ancient evidence and careful argumentation. The presence or absence of division necessarily has implications for our reading, as is illustrated by examination of Carm. 2.13-15. If we adopt the principle that within a book Horace begins a new Ode where he changes metre, this unit can be read as a fine exploration of interwoven themes, looking back at times to the modes of the Epodes and the Satires, and ahead to the complex combination of public and private found in the Roman Ode. Another Alcaic unit, 2.19-20, marks the inspiration that leads to the sublimity of 3.1-6.