Class fS SS4-I 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 
 
INCLUDING HORACE 
 
 % 
 
INCLUDING HORACE 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS UNTERMEYER 
 
 Author of " These Times," 
 " and Other Poets," etc. 
 
 ■ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 
 
 igig 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. 
 
 22 1919 
 
 THE OUINN a BODEN COMPANY 
 RAHWAY N J. 
 
 ©CI.A5366G2 
 
* 
 •* 
 
 TO 
 H. L. MENCKEN 
 
 MORE IN SORROW THAN IN ANGER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 " INTEGER VITJE " 
 As it might have been translated by 
 
 ROBERT BRIDGES 3 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 5 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 7 
 
 SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE II 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 13 
 
 A. C. SWINBURNE 14 
 
 HEINRICH HEINE 15 
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI AND OSCAR WILDE . 1 6 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 17 
 
 C. S. CALVERLEY 19 
 
 AUSTIN DOBSON 21 
 
 WALT WHITMAN 22 
 
 J. M. SYNGE 24 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 25 
 
 GUY WETMORE CARRYL 27 
 
 W. H. DAVIES 29 
 
 ROBERT FROST 3° 
 
 CARL SANDBURG 3 2 
 
 EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 34 
 
 AMY LOWELL 3^ 
 
 THE IMAGISTS 3^ 
 
 CONRAD AIKEN AND T. S. ELIOT . . . . 40 
 
 FRANKLIN P. ADAMS 42 
 
 IRVING BERLIN 44 
 
 vii 
 
PAGE 
 
 49 
 
 vm Contents 
 
 OTHER ODES 
 "on with the dance!" 
 
 " tears, idle tears " c 
 
 growing old disgracefully 
 
 B -c 35 52 
 
 A-D. I919 53 
 
 THE TEASING OF XANTHIAS ca 
 
 A HAPPY ENDING r£ 
 
 A LINGERING ADIEU ~g 
 
 IT ALWAYS HAPPENS 60 
 
 A STRAIGHT TIP TO ALBIUS .... 62 
 
 BARINE, THE INCORRIGIBLE . . . ' . . 64 
 
 HORACE LOSES HIS TEMPER .... 66 
 
 A GRACEFUL EVASION 68 
 
 TO CHLOE y Q 
 
 TO CHLOE AGAIN y 1 
 
 " THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES " . . . . J 2 
 
 QUESTIONING LYDIA 7? 
 
 ETUDE ON THE SAME THEME 74 
 
 THE PASSING OF LYDIA 76 
 
 REVENGE! 78 
 
 BY WAY OF PERSUASION 80 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE 82 
 
 " HE WHO LAUGHS LAST — " 83 
 
 TO PYRRHA 84 
 
 THE FICKLE LYDIA 85 
 
 A BURLESQUE RONDO 87 
 
 AN APPEAL 88 
 
 ODE AGAINST ANGER 89 
 
Contents ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MUTINY 91 
 
 HOLIDAY 93 
 
 TO A FAUN 94 
 
 aftermath 96 
 
 railing at iccius 98 
 
 pantoum of procrastination .... ico 
 
 horace explains 102 
 
 an invitation io4 
 
 winter piece i06 
 
 invocation io8 
 
 the pine tree for diana io9 
 
 a pleasant voyage for maevius . . . .110 
 
 simplicity 112 
 
 victorian simplicity ii3 
 
 neapolitan simplicity 114 
 
 seditious song against prohibition . . . ii5 
 
 horace, temperance advocate . . . ii7 
 
 trite triolets 119 
 
 on pride, position, power, etc 120 
 
 the golden mean 122 
 
 civil war 123 
 
 lugubrious villanelle of platitudes . . 125 
 
 an infamous rendering 127 
 
 prolog in the approved manner . . . 129 
 
 spring summons ....... i3i 
 
 the modest host 133 
 
 the warrior returns 1 34 
 
 the toast i36 
 
 Cleopatra's death 138 
 
 the ghost of archytas i4o 
 
x Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO THE (ROMAN) SHIP OF STATE .... I43 
 
 TO MERCURY I45 
 
 TO VIRGIL I47 
 
 TO VENUS 149 
 
 TO HIS LYRE 150 
 
 TO APOLLO 152 
 
 A COMPLACENT RONDEAU REDOUBLE . . .154 
 
 HALF IN EARNEST I56 
 
 "i CELEBRATE MYSELF " 1 57 
 
 INDEX OF ODES 159 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Quintus Horatius Flaccus, popularly known as 
 Horace, was born in Venusia, a town on the eastern 
 slope of the Apennines, about sixty-five years before 
 the Christian era. He lived fifty-seven years, and 
 lived most of them fully, almost riotously. He was 
 very much the product of his age ; in thought he was 
 neither ahead of it nor behind it. When he was not 
 consulting doctors or reading, he was fighting under 
 Brutus against his future patron; carrying on a mul- 
 tiplicity of amours ; indulging in a variety of wines ; 
 suffering horribly in consequence ; taking the warm 
 baths at Baiae and the cold ones at Clusium for his 
 invalidism; forgetting caution and eating rich and 
 almost fatal food with the Roman elite; listening half- 
 credulous to the fortune-tellers at the Circus ; playing 
 a game of ball with Maecenas ; and retiring now and 
 then as a " gentleman- farmer " to his retreat in the 
 Sabine hills. 
 
 There were, of course, other distractions, but, ex- 
 cept for one thing, he occupied himself very much as 
 would any person of the comfortable middle-class of 
 his time — or of ours. In those crowded fifty-seven 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 years, whenever he was free from more fascinating 
 diversions, he was a poet. And as a poet he com- 
 posed vividly patriotic occasional odes, lively satires, 
 charming and unforgettable vers de societc, and some 
 of the dullest philosophical poems ever written by a 
 genuine poet. 
 
 Ever since Davidson published his translations in 
 171 1, an entire literature has grown up around 
 Horace, so great that the poet himself has been al- 
 most obscured. Practically every editor has sent 
 forth the Odes and Satires with a mass of erudite 
 notes, of variorum readings, of grammatical and tech- 
 nical criticisms, of dissertations on the metrical intrica- 
 cies — a collection so weighty that it made Horace 
 seem the pedantic and hair-splitting technician that 
 every freshman suspects him of being. One comes, 
 with surprise and gratification, upon such a fresh 
 and energetic work as E. C. Wickham's " Horace for 
 English Readers " (published at The Clarendon 
 Press), in which Dr. Wickham treats Horace as an 
 old friend instead of an old classic. In these almost 
 casual prose versions the spontaneity and light-heart- 
 edness of Horace's finest examples are preserved. 
 And, to acknowledge the debt more directly, it is to 
 this volume in particular that the present paraphraser 
 has turned whenever his small and sketchy stock of 
 Latin has failed him. 
 
 Examine, for instance, Horace's love-poetry. Most 
 of the translators have regarded Horace's amorous 
 persiflage as the outpourings of an intense nature — 
 
Introduction xiii 
 
 and have attempted to give it to us with this emphasis. 
 Few indeed have done what Wickham has accom- 
 plished in prose, given us Horace in his own mood — 
 light, slyly mocking, petulant, often downright flip- 
 pant. In spite of his immortal literary harem, his 
 Lydias, his Chloes, his Pyrrhas, his Lalages, there is 
 never in all of Horace's erotic rhymes the note of 
 genuine passion. Unlike a poet such as Catullus, he 
 never lets an emotion overmaster or even control him ; 
 he is more concerned with the pleasantries, the disap- 
 pointments, the incidents and ornaments of love, than 
 with love itself. His attitude is almost that of an 
 amused or interested spectator ; he keeps his head ; a 
 wave of passionate joy or sweeping bitterness scarcely 
 ever engulfs him. 
 
 His amatory poetry reflects this : it is always ar- 
 tistic, always conscious. It is the love-poetry of a 
 middle-aged man; a record of memories, of gentle 
 railleries, of approaching age and corresponding back- 
 ward glances. The note is always that of sophistica- 
 tion. It is never an outcry. It sings, but it does not 
 surge ; it delights, but it never thrills. It is for this 
 reason that the technically artificial versions of Austin 
 Dobson, the colloquial adaptations of Eugene and 
 Roswell M. Field, even the most slangy and impudent 
 burlesques of Franklin P. Adams and Bert Leston 
 Taylor reveal more of the living Horace than the 
 meticulous gravity of Professor Conington and the 
 precise but prosy translations of Addison and Ros- 
 common. 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 Had Horace been content to remain the poet of 
 ironical and generally playful verses, exquisite in form 
 rather than in substance, the world would have lost 
 some of the most dignified and illuminating records 
 of Roman life that have ever been written; records 
 that, in the satires, rise to eloquent heights. It would 
 also have lost, as hinted before, the platitudinous and 
 vague philosophical ramblings that mar much of his 
 otherwise inimitable work. If the form and diction 
 of the often quoted odes to Postumus, to Sallust, to 
 Grosphus, to Leuconoe, were not so perfect, we should 
 almost wish that Horace had never taken the time to 
 write them. They are full of an empty didacticism 
 that must have been hackneyed long before Solomon 
 wrote the Proverbs. Robbed of the glamour of the 
 verse and boiled down to its essentials, Horace's 
 philosophy is as commonplace as it is reiterative. He 
 cannot, it seems, get over the fact that life is a fragile 
 thing and that we all must die. 
 
 Over and over again he tells us to enjoy the pres- 
 ent and distrust tomorrow. " The years slip by," he 
 exclaims ; and, impressed with the profundity of this 
 thought, repeats it at every opportunity. What are 
 his words on wealth ? " All the gold in the world 
 cannot keep you from dying." Likewise, " It is 
 wrong to hoard money," and " The man who is happy 
 is better than a king." His views on friendship? 
 " Friendship is a boon ; it is more noble than love. 
 Fill the waiting goblet ere death overtake us." Love? 
 "A silly, childish game; changeable as the weather; 
 
Introduction xv 
 
 war one moment, peace the next. It is beyond all rea- 
 son or regulation." Enjoyment? "Pile on the 
 fagots and bring forth the mellowed wine ; leave all 
 else to the gods. Life is perilous and hard for those 
 who do not drink. Be temperate, however, in your 
 use of liquors; thirst turns bitter if indulged without 
 restraint, and the man who cannot control himself is 
 little better than a beast," etc., etc. ... It is the 
 taking of such banalities seriously that robs the trans- 
 lations of even so keen a humorist as Calverley of 
 their otherwise noteworthy merit, and makes the ver- 
 sions of lesser adapters both prim and pitiful. Noth- 
 ing could be flatter and more vapid than many of 
 these inconsequential thoughts — unless it is the flat 
 and vacuous reproductions of those translators, fever- 
 ishly intent upon revealing " every shade of Horace's 
 philosophic searchings." 
 
 But, though most of his odes and epodes present 
 Horace with all his shortcomings as a lover and 
 thinker, they (as well as the longer and less popular 
 works) show him to be the most gifted and spontane- 
 ous writer of occasional poetry in classic or, for that 
 matter, all literature. The thinness of thought and 
 mere graces of writing disappear whenever he turns 
 to civic or national affairs, to chant of victories or 
 patrons, to stir his countrymen to loftier aims — to 
 become, in short, not so much the poet as the man. 
 
 Whenever Horace forgot that he was " a high- 
 priest of song," forgot his position as an intimate 
 " friend of the Muses," he wrote the things that sur- 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 pass in power his most chiseled lyrics. He was a 
 charming versifier every time he wrote a single line, 
 but a great poet only when an occasional one. There 
 was never in his time that peculiar apathy to this sort 
 of verse which exists at present. The feeling which 
 has inhibited the writer of " occasional verse " is the 
 result of a strange misunderstanding: it is a prejudice 
 which has its roots not so much in a dislike as an 
 ignorance of the thing itself. Occasional poetry is, in 
 the best sense, a truly living poetry, because in it the 
 poet must celebrate an occasion rather than an abstrac- 
 tion. It is the picture of an actual thing rather than 
 a speculative generality. It is a pulsating, poetic 
 microcosm; in it the poet must synchronize the 
 thought, the temper, and the atmosphere of his times. 
 Far from trivial, it makes greater demands upon the 
 poet than almost any other manner or theme. It is 
 never, as so many suppose, the exercise of the tyro ; 
 it is the test of the master. The man who expresses 
 it fully, expresses not only his age as seen by himself 
 but himself as seen by his age. Horace did this un- 
 questionably. The picture he gives of his period and 
 his relation to it could not be equaled by a dozen 
 volumes of historical data; it is glowing and inter- 
 pretative — with a single exception. We learn from 
 him little concerning the Woman of his day. 
 
 Horace is essentially a man's poet, just as he was 
 essentially a man's man. He never troubled himself 
 to understand women in any other than a physical 
 way. He never speaks of the quality of their minds 
 
Introduction xvii 
 
 but always of the qualities of their bodies. Their 
 whiteness or redness, their arms and ankles, their 
 warmth or frigidity, seem to be the only things about 
 them which interested him. One imagines that even 
 a loose-living reprobate of a bachelor, such as Horace, 
 must have known something more compelling in 
 womankind than the poet saw fit to chronicle. He 
 never regarded or even recognized them as social 
 beings. They were, to him, so many " types " ; he 
 seems never to have observed them even as individual 
 mentalities. Once in a while he mentions the lower 
 class of women, the peasants, the farmers' wives, with 
 a grudging sort of respect. But beyond that he does 
 not exert himself. One thinks of him, after many 
 readings of his works, as an aesthetic philanderer; 
 his attitude toward women being a combination of 
 artistic admiration, playfulness, and uncomprehending 
 ridicule. 
 
 But the muse that prompted the Satires and Epistles 
 — the one Horace calls his " Musa pedestris," who 
 went humbly on foot along earthy roads instead of 
 soaring about Olympus — gave him a far more serious 
 and deep-rooted understanding than the spirit that 
 prompted his other verses. These satires and letters 
 are filled with a speech that is racy and casual. 
 Horace still deals with his favorite topics : the wisdom 
 of enjoying rather than desiring, the folly of hoard- 
 ing, the shortness of life, the perplexity of religious 
 beliefs. But there is more of the man in these lines ; 
 they are keener, warmer, more a result of feeling 
 
xviii Introduction 
 
 than of thinking. Often they take the flavor of 
 causeries — so unrhetorical and vivid are his pungent 
 ironies, his revealing bits of gossip. 
 
 It is these qualities as well as the poems written dur- 
 ing his " laureateship " which make him something 
 more than a dextrous writer of immortal light verse. 
 All in all his work, with its varying temper and its 
 various influences, gives us his picture ineradicably. 
 A keen observer, a commonplace philosopher, a crafts- 
 man with a technique at his finger tips, a frank and 
 full-blooded man — good-humored, carnal, something 
 of the mocker, something of the priest. A curious 
 blend, if one can picture it, of Austin Dobson, Hein- 
 rich Heine, and Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 ii 
 
 The present volume is an effort to do two things : 
 First, to suggest, through the thin veil of parody, how 
 certain other poets would have used Horatian sub- 
 jects — and one famous theme in particular. Second, 
 to present, in a loose set of paraphrases, the spirit 
 rather than the letter of most of Horace's finest odes. 
 A few of these renderings are almost literal trans- 
 lations, approximating, as far as the language will 
 permit, the meters of the original ; a few verge peril- 
 ously on and even descend into burlesque. But the 
 majority of the poems contained in the second part 
 are light-hearted versions that, in their very fragility 
 and varying verse-structure, attempt to reflect the 
 grace and vivacity of the sparkling originals. I have 
 
Introduction xix 
 
 not even tried (with two or three exceptions) to 
 surmount the insuperable obstacles in the way of 
 bringing over the Latin verse-forms intact into Eng- 
 lish poetry. We have no natural counterparts for the 
 Alcaiacs and Asclepiads so freely used by Horace. 
 And although John Conington's amazingly precise 
 measures and Warren Cudworth's strophe-for-strophe 
 versions are gallant attempts, for which every student 
 must be grateful, they remain among those works that 
 have dared without attaining the impossible. 
 
 It should also be said that the opinions expressed 
 in this introductory note are personal rather than 
 pedagogic. There have been many and striking dif- 
 ferences. A. T. Quiller-Couch ("Q"), for one, 
 flatly disagrees with a great part of the foregoing esti- 
 mate of Horace's work. He believes that Horace's 
 secret is buried in the Odes and " most defiant of 
 capture there " ; the Satires having been imitated suc- 
 cessfully by Cowper, Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith, and 
 others. In the Odes, " Q " maintains, " lies that 
 witchery of style which, the moment you lose grasp 
 of it, is dissipated into thin air and eludes your con- 
 centrated spirit." 
 
 There now remains nothing but to acknowledge 
 once more my indebtedness to E. C. Wickham's 
 lively prose renderings, to the microscopic eye of 
 Dudley F. Sicher, without whose vigilance this vol- 
 ume would be even less authoritative than it is now, 
 and to The Century, The New Republic, The Smart 
 Set, Life, Vanity Fair, The New York Tribune, and 
 
xx Introduction 
 
 The New York Evening Post for the privilege of 
 reprinting several of the poems that are here collected. 
 Two of these verses originally appeared in a previous 
 
 volume of parodies (" and Other Poets") and 
 
 the author thanks Henry Holt and Company for per- 
 mission to reprint them in their present setting. 
 
 L. U. 
 New York, July, 1919. 
 
" INTEGER VITAE " 
 (TWENTY-FOUR VERSIONS) 
 
ROBERT BRIDGES 
 
 TRANSLATES IT IN ITS OWN CLASSIC MEASURES 
 
 Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, 
 
 non eget Mauris iaculis . . . Book I: Ode 22 
 
 He who has lived a blameless life and pure one 
 Needs naught of Moorish bows or mighty javelins, 
 Needs neither armored plates nor poisoned arrows, 
 Fuscus, to shield him, 
 
 Whether he roams beside the shoals of Libya, 
 Or through the barren Caucasus he wanders — 
 Even in lands where, glorious in fable, 
 Rolls the Hydaspes . . . 
 
 Once in the Sabine woods a wolf beheld me 
 Strolling about unarmed. He heard me singing, 
 Singing a song of Lalage — and sudden 
 The creature vanished. 
 
 Direst of monsters! Such a savage terror 
 Lurks not within the deepest woods of Daunia; 
 Juba itself, the land that fosters lions, 
 Breeds naught so frightful. 
 
 3 
 
Robert Bridges 
 
 Oh, place me amid icy desolation, 
 Where not a tree is cheered by sunny breezes, 
 Where Jove himself is only seen in sullen 
 Sleet and gray weather; 
 
 Or place me where the very Sun's great chariot 
 Drives over me in lands that burn and wither — 
 Still Lalage's sweet words and sweeter laughter 
 Always shall rouse me. 
 
/ 
 
 ROBERT HERRICK 
 
 INCLUDES IT IN ONE OF HIS " PIOUS PIECES 
 
 Fuscus, dear friend, 
 
 I prithee lend 
 An ear for but a space, 
 
 And thou shalt see 
 
 How Love may be 
 A more than saving grace. 
 
 As on a day 
 
 I chanced to stray 
 Beyond my own confines, 
 
 Singing, perdie, 
 
 Of Lalage, 
 Whose smile no star outshines — 
 
 So 'tranced were all 
 
 Who heard me call 
 On Love, that from a grot 
 
 A wolf who heard 
 
 That tender word 
 Listened and harmed me not. 
 5 
 
Robert Herrick 
 
 Thus shielded by 
 
 The magicry 
 Of Love that kept me pure, 
 
 I live to praise 
 
 Her wondrous ways 
 Where'er I may endure. 
 
 There's but one plan: 
 
 The honest man 
 Wears Vertue's charmed spell; 
 
 And, free from vice, 
 
 That man lives twice 
 Who lives the one life well. 
 
_.OBERT BROWNING 
 
 ENLARGES UPON IT IN SEVERAL OF HIS MANNERS 
 AND INTERPOLATES A LYRIC 
 
 This is the tale: 
 
 Friend, you shall know the right and the wrong of it. 
 
 Listen, before old Sirius grows pale 
 
 And the tang leaves the ale — 
 
 For, saith the poet, all things have an end, 
 
 Even beauty must fail, 
 
 The rapture and song of it. 
 
 Here, to be brief, is the short and the long of it — < 
 
 Listen, my friend. 
 
 ii 
 
 Virtue, I hold, is the raiment to travel in. 
 Fuscus, my friend, if you're swaddled in virtue, 
 Never a spear-head, a sword or a javelin, 
 No, not an arrow that's poisoned can hurt you. 
 Virtue is more than a shield or a stirrup ; 
 Virtue's the charm — it will shock sloth and rasp ease, 
 Even in lands where the lazy Hydaspes 
 
 7 
 
$ Robert Browning 
 
 Ambles along like a curious syrup; 
 Aye, and in climes where the voice is as raucous as 
 Winds in the barren and harborless Caucasus. 
 Fuscus, the man who is guiltless is fearless; 
 He's of the chosen, the purple, the peerless — 
 What does he care for a frown more, a cheer less? 
 Bearing the falchion of Truth — 
 
 But I bore you. 
 Plague take all pedantry. Learning, what stuff is 
 
 it . . . 
 Weighty and erudite preambles — Sufficit! 
 Here, you shall have only facts set before you, 
 Told in my harsh but imperative accents. 
 (Music in which the musician must pack sense 
 Cannot be sensuous with every syllable) 
 But — here's the tale, though as teller I'm ill able 
 (Would I were worthy!) to render the glories 
 Of my adventure — how goes it? . . . O mores! 
 I tell it in rhyme like an intricate minuet 
 To caution the soul that, I warrant, is in you yet; 
 Didactic with hoping — why should I deny it — 
 You'll guess at the moral and, what's more, apply it! 
 
 in 
 
 One day I went wandering casually; 
 
 The sky was a deep lapis lazuli; 
 
 The poplars were rustling with merriment, 
 
 As half in a burst, half experiment, 
 
 I sang, without fear or apology, 
 
 Of honor, of love — and of Lalage. 
 
Robert Browning 9 
 
 And yet, 'neath the ballad's urbanity 
 Was an echo of Life and its vanity. 
 The fabric of living, how sheer it is, 
 How fragile . . . The song — eh? Well, here it is. 
 
 IV * 
 
 What's love that you should ask 
 How long Life's sands will run — 
 
 See how the butterflies bask 
 On the crocus lips i' the sun. 
 
 Theirs is no mighty task . . . 
 And yet who'ld say ill-done? 
 
 The years glide swiftly by. 
 
 How swiftly, no one knows; 
 The drainers and dancers will lie 
 
 V the long, stark night 'neath the snows. 
 The clay outlives the cry; 
 
 The thorn survives the rose. 
 
 Love, even as we stay, 
 
 Age subtly strokes thy cheek. 
 Let us snatch Time's sleeve zvhile we may, 
 
 Ere the heart with the hand grows weak. 
 Come, let us live to-day — 
 
 What's life but loving . . . Speak! 
 
 *Vide Book I: Ode if. 
 
IO Robert Browning 
 
 Well, as I sang, thinking no whit of harm, 
 
 I walked along, when . . . zooks, before me sprang 
 
 A wolf, a monster with a head like Death's, 
 
 As — how d'ye call — Apulia does not rear, 
 
 Or Juba, land that's nursing-mother to lions, 
 
 Never gave birth to. How my heart flew up! 
 
 Gr-r-r-r he stood growling in my very path. 
 
 Flesh and blood — that's all I'm made of, friend. 
 
 What to do? Fly at his face? Turn tail 
 
 And run as fast as legs could carry me? 
 
 Thus, craving your pardon, sir, might you have done. 
 
 Not I . . . My mind was set, my conscience clear; 
 
 I faltered not and kept on with my song. 
 
 With that the beast retreats, gives way, runs off — 
 
 And I am left alone, unscratched, unscathed; 
 
 A victor without arms, a conqueror without strife. 
 
 (There's thought for you in this, and moral too.) 
 
 And so all's right with me, and so I go 
 
 Singing of Lalage in every place — 
 
 Spring, summer, winter, autumn — what's the odds; 
 
 Lalage, her sweet prattle, sweeter laughter . . . 
 
 Believe it, Fuscus, to the righteous man 
 
 There's no hurt in this world but love and song 
 
 Can draw the sting and leave all sound again. 
 
 Now, let us understand the matter, sift the thing. 
 
 Here, in a nutshell, is the crux of it : 
 
 Old Euclid teaches — ha! d'ye note the dawn! — 
 
 That — What? Must you be going? 
 
 Well, good-night . . . 
 
SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE 
 
 LETS THE ANCIENT MARINER PARAPHRASE IT 
 
 Horace 
 meetetk a 
 friend and 
 detaineth 
 him with 
 advice. 
 
 He liveth best who loveth best 
 All virtues great and small, 
 
 And neither knife nor heavy strife 
 Shall make him fear at all. 
 
 And telleth 
 how the man 
 that is clear 
 of conscience 
 goeth fully 
 armed. 
 
 He relateth 
 a tale of 
 a wondrous 
 escape. 
 
 How the 
 wolf appeared 
 to him and 
 what ensued. 
 
 Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
 
 In lonely lands though he may be, 
 He shall not lift his voice in moan 
 But it shall have a pleasant tone, 
 
 Like a blessed melody. 
 
 listen well and I shall tell 
 The reason of my rime. 
 
 Know then, while walking it befell 
 
 1 wandered through a little dell, 
 Singing away the time. 
 
 When huge and weird a wolf appeared, 
 
 The while my singing ceased ; 
 He looked me up, he looked me down, 
 And, like a wave of living brown, 
 With one stride came the beast. 
 
12 
 
 Samuel T. Coleridge 
 
 How that his 
 own virtue 
 made manifest 
 to the beast, 
 did save 
 him. 
 
 Without a breath, without a pause, 
 I sang her name full clear. 
 
 And seized with dread the monster fled; 
 
 He saw about my shining head 
 A stronger thing than fear . . . 
 
 He teacheth, 
 by his own 
 example, love 
 and reverence 
 for all 
 things. 
 
 He liveth best who loveth best 
 All things, below, above. 
 
 So, Fuscus, call, the first of all 
 And last of all, on Love! 
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SOLILOQUIZES UPON IT 
 
 The quality of virtue is not strained; 
 It falleth sweetly on the upright soul 
 And clothes the spirit with a suit of mail. 
 The honest man, with neither bow nor shield, 
 Envenomed arrows, daggers, javelins, 
 Can stand unarmed against a sea of troubles 
 And, by opposing, end them. Whether he walk 
 Beside the huge and multitudinous waves, 
 Or through unharbored Caucasus he roam, 
 Nothing shall lift its great, abhorrent head 
 And freeze the quivering marrow in his bones. 
 There's a divinity doth hedge a man 
 Who feareth naught, rough-hew him how you will. 
 Why, I have seen this wonder come to pass : 
 As I went singing lately through a wood, 
 A wolf all teeth, a wolf of savage hate, 
 A wolf, whose every movement was a threat, 
 Sprang at me snarling, like the winds of March. 
 But king-becoming graces soothe the beasts 
 And music charms them with her silver sound ; 
 So on I went, unchecked by groveling fear. 
 I tell thee, Fuscus, Life is but a plant; 
 Honor and righteousness its sun and rain, 
 And Heaven grants such precious nourishment 
 To save the flower from the canker, Death. 
 13 
 
A. C. SWINBURNE 
 
 ALLITERATIVELY REVOLVES ALL AROUND IT 
 
 No murmurs, no moons have arisen; 
 
 No laughter to live with the light, 
 And the earth, like a blind thing in prison, 
 
 Must gnaw through the nimbus of night. 
 We cry and we quail and we quiver, 
 
 We fly from the fervors of Life — 
 But the pure and the passionate liver 
 Feareth no knife! 
 
 The heaven is hushed, its great heart aches, 
 
 The quiet is cruel and cold ; 
 Yet somewhere a lyrical star takes 
 
 My longings and gives them its gold. 
 The world and its warring may rack me, 
 
 Its sorrows may sting like a thong — 
 But I sing and, though wolves should attack me, 
 I thrill with my song. 
 
 For Lalage's lips have the magic 
 
 Of rhyme and the unravished rose; 
 And the terrible times are not tragic; 
 
 I am brave 'neath the bitterest blows. 
 For She is the bountiful bringer 
 
 Of joy even brighter than pain — 
 And, blessed or damned, I shall sing her 
 Again and again! 
 14 
 
HEINRICH HEINE 
 
 TRANSLATES IT INTO GERMAN, AFTER WHICH IT IS 
 " ENGLISHED " BY JOHN TODHUNTER 
 
 Good lives are like an arrow, 
 So straight and clean and pure; 
 
 The thought of them will gladden 
 And move the heart, I'm sure. 
 
 From out the songs I fashion 
 
 There comes a strength so grand, 
 
 That wolves and all things evil 
 Its power cannot withstand. 
 
 Where'er I go it follows, 
 
 Like to the moon above ; 
 And fills all the earth and heavens 
 
 With love and the light thereof. 
 
 15 
 
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI & OSCAR WILDE 
 
 BEGIN A BALLAD ON IT 
 
 The wind is weary, the world is wan ; 
 
 (Oh, lone, lank lilies and long, lean loves) 
 My shield is shed, my armor is gone, 
 And Virtue is all I depend upon. 
 
 (My lily, 
 My lissome lily, my languid love.) 
 
 Full thirteen days have I walked with woe, 
 
 (Oh dear, dead days and divine desires) 
 And wolves may follow where'er I go, 
 But nothing shall stop my song's sweet flow. 
 (My lily, 
 My love, my delirious, dark desire.) 
 
 The night is old and threadbare and thin, 
 
 (Oh limpid lily, oh labial love) 
 And at this point I shall straightway begin 
 Repeating the Ballad ad lib., ad infin. . . . 
 (My lily, 
 
 My lilting, loquacious, repetitive love.) 
 
 16 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 FINDS IT FULL OF LUNAR POSSIBILITIES 
 
 It was midnight, the month was November; 
 
 The skies, they were cheerless and cold, 
 
 The forest was trembling and old ; 
 And my heart it was grey, I remember, 
 
 As I walked through the hyaline wold. 
 The moon was a perishing ember, 
 
 The heavens were ashen and cold. 
 
 It was midnight, and so to restore me 
 To laughter and solace from pain, 
 
 I sang and the melody bore me 
 To Israfel's bosom again, 
 To the regions enchanted again ; 
 
 I felt the dim Beauty flow o'er me, 
 The fever of living seemed vain, 
 And Death but a shadow of pain. 
 
 And I sang, though a wolf stood before me. 
 
 I sang of the terrors titanic, 
 
 Of ghouls and the breath of the tomb, 
 Of scoriae floods and volcanic, 
 Of Helen, Lenore, Ulalume, 
 Of devils from hell free, 
 Of bells in the belfry, 
 17 
 
1 8 Edgar Allan Poe 
 
 Of the banging and the clanging as they boom, 
 boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 
 
 I sang of these things, and in panic 
 The wolf disappeared in the gloom — 
 
 He left me alone in the gloom. 
 
 But Lalage's eyes I remember; 
 
 I shall dream of them till I grow old, 
 When Lenore and Ligeia are cold. 
 
 They are with me in June and September, 
 
 October, November, December, — 
 
 Though the skies may be barren and old, 
 And the forest is nothing but mold ; 
 
 Though the moon is a perishing ember, 
 And the heavens are ashen and cold. 
 
C. S. CALVERLEY 
 
 TRIES IT IN A NEW METER 
 
 The man who's had a blameless life 
 
 Never needs armor, 
 Nor Moorish spear nor two-edged knife; 
 Nothing will harm or 
 Impede his progress in the land 
 Of Caucasus or Libya; and 
 Though others' joys be sweetly planned 
 His will be far more. 
 
 Once, I recall, as through a wood 
 
 Where fancy led me, 
 I sang of Lalage (too good 
 And fair to wed me), 
 A wolf that happened to appear, 
 Stopped as he saw me passing near 
 And, half in wonder, half in fear, 
 
 Abashed, he fled me. 
 ***** 
 Still will I sing of her, although 
 
 I dwell forever 
 In barren lands 'mid ice and snow, 
 Or those where never 
 19 
 
20 C. S. Calverley 
 
 The kindly shade and shelter are 
 Beneath Apollo's flaming car. 
 She still will be the guiding star 
 Of my endeavor. 
 
AUSTIN DOBSON 
 
 BUILDS A RONDEAU AROUND IT 
 
 An upright man need never dread 
 The blows of Fate; he who has led 
 A blameless life is safer far 
 Than kings in frowning castles are, 
 For he is armed with Truth instead. 
 
 Once, as I roamed with careless tread, 
 A wolf who heard me turned and fled. 
 He felt that I was, more than czar, 
 An upright man. 
 
 So when the last refrain is said 
 Above my narrow, rose-strewn bed, 
 
 Say not, " He worshiped flower and star." 
 Say not, "He loved satis let or bar." 
 But write these words above my head: 
 " An Upright Man." 
 
 21 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 
 RHAPSODIZES ABOUT IT 
 
 I sing the conscience triumphant, 
 
 I celebrate the body invulnerable. 
 
 The firm tread, the square jaw, the unflinching eye, 
 the resolute voice, 
 
 Mind equal with matter, I chant. 
 
 I see the Roman singer standing erect, 
 
 His figure rises 
 
 Masculine, haughty, naif ; 
 
 He confronts and answers me. 
 
 Me, spontaneous, imperturbe, 
 
 Loafing, swaggering, at ease with Nature, 
 
 Passive, receptive, gross, immoderate, fit, 
 
 Broad-shouldered and ripe, a good feeder, weight 
 one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, warm- 
 blooded, forty-two inches around the breast 
 and back, voluptuous, combative, vulgar, 
 
 Bearded, continental, prophetic; 
 
 Understander of beasts and scholars, meeting children 
 and Presidents on equal terms. 
 
 I hail him with the others. 
 
 He, walking about unarmed and care-free, 
 
 Pleased with all countries, climates, conditions, 
 
 Pleased with bleak Caucasus, sultry Syrtes, the woods 
 of Daunia, 
 
Walt Whitman 23 
 
 Pleased with all seasons, fortunes, women, the native 
 as well as the foreign ; 
 
 Fearing no thing, hating no thing, 
 
 Upright in life, of conduct clean ; 
 
 A lover, caresser of life, prodigal, inclusive, 
 
 Him I hail without effuse or argument. 
 
 I accept him, do not scrape or salaam, 
 
 Knowing him to be made of the right stuff, 
 
 No perfumed dilettante, no dainty affetuoso, 
 
 But a man, 
 
 Upright, solemn, desperate, yearning, puzzled, turbu- 
 lent, sound, 
 
 Loved by men, misunderstood by men, 
 
 Going on, fulfilling the hopes of a great rapport. 
 
 Libertad ! — the divine average ! — the rich melange ! — 
 
 On the wasted plain, the dark-lipped sea, the hottest 
 noon, the bitterest twelfth-month 
 
 Solitary, singing, I strike up and declare for these. 
 
J. M. SYNGE 
 
 PUTS IT INTO THE IDIOM OF THE ARRAN ISLANDS 
 
 And it's himself that should have no call to be fear- 
 ing hard words or bitter blows or evil gossip or to be 
 destroyed by the blow of a loy, itself — he, after living 
 a good life and a fine one. Many's the night I have 
 walked whistling along a twisty road with no light 
 ahead and no light behind, and only a slip of a moon, 
 like the youngest of the angels, timid and bobbing 
 before me. And sometimes, maybe, it would be in a 
 wood I'd find myself, fearing no wolves or any living 
 thing at all, but would be after dreaming of grand 
 evenings in houses of gold or be listening to the young 
 girls and young men making mighty talk. And 
 there'd be little stirring but the sound of laughter far 
 off — and I lifting my voice in lonely song. Ah, it's 
 a great blessing, I'm saying, to be pure of heart and 
 to have the sweetness of youth and the lonely wis- 
 dom of the old. And it's a better thing, I'm thinking, 
 to have the grand gift of song ; to be singing even 
 when the suns of June do be broiling or the bitter 
 winds do be blowing on me, till I'd feel my blood 
 stopping like a small stream in the winter nights. For 
 it's the singer that's young and wise, and the sweet- 
 ness of all the ages is given to him, surely. 
 
 24 
 
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 MAKES AN INDIANA " NEIGHBORLY POEM " OUT OF IT 
 
 I ain't, ner don't p'tend to be, 
 
 Much posted on philosofy, 
 
 But to my truly rural mind 
 
 The feller that is good an' kind 
 
 Ain't worritin' his whole life through 
 
 'Bout what the worl' might say er do. 
 
 I alius argy that a man 
 That lives as natchurl as he can 
 Is jes' as safe as safe can be 
 In fur-off lands as Zekesbury. 
 
 Why, onc't I kindo' los' my way 
 In Mills's woods, but I wuz gay 
 An' singin'-like, when — Jeemses-whizz ! 
 A wolf that looked like he ment biz, 
 Come snarlin' at me . . . Wuz I skeered? 
 I kep' right on. He disappeared ! 
 An' sence that day my doctern's bin 
 To teach all you-uns how to win 
 The goal by livin' as you oughter. 
 (A Ho osier-picture here by Vawter). 
 25 
 
26 James White omb Riley 
 
 I ain't, ner don't p'tend to be, 
 Much posted on philosofy, 
 But to my truly rural mind 
 It pays to jes' be good an' kind. 
 
GUY WETMORE CARRYL 
 
 TURNS IT INTO A NEW FABLE FOR THE FRIVOLOUS 
 
 Beneath a wood's umbrageous limbs, 
 Where leaves and beasts aplenty lay, 
 
 A Latin bard went singing hymns 
 Of where festina lente lay. 
 
 Unarmed, unharmed he walked along; 
 
 His ardor and his voice were strong; 
 
 And all the forest heard his song, 
 His dolce-far-niente-\a.y. 
 
 Gaily he sang of love — when lo, 
 
 A savage wolf confronted him; 
 The creature looked and eyed him so, 
 
 It looked as if it wanted him. 
 But Horace (thus he leaped to Fame), 
 Acting as though the beast were tame, 
 Sang, " Nice old doggie. What's your name? 
 In short, it never daunted him. 
 
 And, like a skilful amateur, 
 
 He jumped an octave tastily. 
 The wolf, although no connoisseur, 
 
 Went off a little space till he 
 27 
 
28 Guy Wetmore Carryl 
 
 Observed that Horace loved to dwell 
 On all the trills and high-notes. Well, 
 The beast gave one reproachful yell 
 And left the poet — hastily! 
 
 THE MORAL: Every student will 
 Applaud the beast with such a vim; 
 They too of Horace get their fill 
 Instead of just a touch of him. 
 The wolf, when Horace would not cease, 
 Could get no piece, lean or obese — 
 And since he gave the wolf no peace, 
 The wolf had far too much of him! 
 
W. H. DAVIES 
 
 MAKES IT SIMPLER THAN EVEF 
 
 The man that's good, 
 
 He never has 
 To wear a hood 
 
 Of steel or brass. 
 
 No shield he's got, 
 No sword or gun; 
 
 He's safe in what 
 He may have on. 
 
 A friend of elves, 
 He tries his tunes 
 
 On shaggy wolves 
 And burly bruins. 
 
 He sings an air 
 
 That's old and sweet, 
 And ladies fair 
 
 Sit at his feet. 
 
 They give him tea, 
 They bring him food. 
 
 Who would not be 
 The man that's good? 
 29 
 
ROBERT FROST 
 
 TAKES IT UP TO NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 
 He took the rifle from the cupboard shelf 
 And, having oiled the catch and greased the barrel, 
 He put it back again. At last he turned 
 And tried the window-locks, and stood awhile 
 Watching the snow pile hummocks on itself 
 Where there was scarcely any need for mounds, 
 And lay fresh sheets above the piece of ground, 
 Such as it was, that soon would be his bed. 
 Something, somebody's saying, half a phrase 
 Kept him there standing at the kitchen door. 
 It almost came, escaped him, and went out 
 Back to the pine-trees where it grew. He followed, 
 Afraid of nothing but a childish fear 
 Of all outdoors that made him hum his tune 
 A little louder than he meant to do. 
 " In Amsterdam there lived a maid " — and so 
 On to the shameless end of it; at least 
 Nearly the end. For, toward the final bars, 
 Behind the witch-grass and hepaticas, 
 A great white wolf appeared as suddenly 
 As though the snow had made or blown him there. 
 He thought of fairy-tales he had forgotten 
 And what, for reasons, he could not forget 
 30 
 
Robert Frost 31 
 
 Of werewolves and the time he had run off 
 
 To see the animals in Barnum's circus. 
 
 He took a doubtful step and then undid it 
 
 To gain a minute's time; thought of the gun 
 
 Within hand's reach ; then put the thought 
 
 Out of his mind to let another in : 
 
 Something he must have heard or maybe read 
 
 Concerning music and the savage breast. 
 
 So to his song again, and to the last 
 
 Lewd notes of it. When he looked up, there was 
 
 A windless stir in the forsythia trees, 
 
 An empty space where the strange beast had been, 
 
 And nothing else changed from an hour ago. 
 
 The moon went through a twisted apple tree 
 
 That leaned its crooked length against the sky. 
 
 A log snapped in the stove, reminding him 
 
 That he had meant to bring some kindling in 
 
 And that it must be late and he was cold. 
 
 He watched the moon a moment, shut the door; 
 
 Tried all the window-locks again, pulled down 
 
 The shades, blew out the light and clomped upstairs. 
 
CARL SANDBURG 
 
 CONSIDERS IT ON STATE STREET, CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 Take it from me, 
 When the cops are gone and the long barrels of the 
 
 Remingtons are only a long smear of rust, 
 When the guns of France and the arrows of Rome 
 
 Are part of the red mud, 
 When the chilled steel rots, 
 
 The lovers will rise . . . from the dusk ... in 
 the new grass. 
 
 Take it from me, 
 
 When New York is corn for the huskers, and Pekin 
 
 and Hamburg are mixed with the dust of 
 
 Daunia, 
 When the gray wolf prowls in the jungle that used 
 
 to be Main Street, 
 The lovers will sing ... in the dusk ... in 
 
 the new grass. 
 
 Believe me or not, Danny, 
 
 Iron won't help and the sword will be softer than 
 
 virtue. 
 You'll know, some day, I said a mouthful, 
 When a young star winks at you through a cobweb 
 32 
 
Carl Sandburg 33 
 
 And the ghosts of the past are put out of business. 
 When the old moon stands still and the earth is 
 
 rammed into silence, 
 
 Take it from me, 
 The lovers will laugh ... in the dusk ... in 
 
 the new grass. . . . 
 
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON 
 
 IS HALF-CAUSTIC, HALF-CRYPTIC ABOUT IT 
 
 Horatius Flaccus, child of fate, 
 
 Was honest as the fabled farmer; 
 His gentle virtues held him strait 
 
 As though they were a suit of armor. 
 His guileless spirit always hid 
 What ruder natures went and did, 
 And all he knew of ways forbid 
 Was kept from every charmer. 
 
 Careless of this or that mischance, 
 
 He walked the outskirts daily; 
 Convinced that each fell circumstance 
 
 Would somehow meet him gaily. 
 So that he watched with half a yawn 
 A brute upon his new-cut lawn, 
 A hairy sort of devil's spawn, 
 Red-eyed and almost scaly. 
 
 The creature stretched unearthly jaws; 
 
 Hell opened to affright him. 
 But Flaccus, holding to the laws 
 
 Of what could not excite him, 
 34 
 
Edwin Arlington Robinson 35 
 
 Followed a path direct and long, 
 Continuing to shape his song; 
 " The man," it went, " who knows no wrong 
 Is armed " ... ad infinitum. 
 
 And with this bland, incurious faith 
 
 He passed a calm existence ; 
 Having, for all the ghosts, no wraith 
 
 Of question or resistance ; 
 Held to a bright security, 
 Like sunlight on a fallen tree, 
 Or voices rising from the sea, 
 
 Waking a moonlit distance. 
 
AMY LOWELL 
 
 GROWS POLYPHONICALLY PROSY CONSIDERING IT 
 
 North, South, East, West, there is no rest for a 
 man save he has something stronger than arrows or 
 a narrow shield to guard him. Hard are the envious 
 blows of critics, a multitude of foes, but harder still 
 are the mind and will of the man who has fought dis- 
 tortion for a span of years. Fears are not his por- 
 tion ; his life, squandered so soon, goes to the tune 
 of Blood and Honey. 
 
 Blood and Honey! It sings in the glittering sands 
 of the Hydaspes. Blood and Honey! It rings 
 through the bitter lands of Caucasus and skirts the 
 chrome-yellow Syrtes, rambling along its bramble- 
 covered sides. Blood and Honey ! It glides and 
 swings its flame-colored notes against the polished 
 throats of Canterbury bells ; swells and spills its 
 lavish rhythms over daffodils and squills. The lilies 
 with breasts of alabaster and hearts of snow tremble 
 and glow among the asters, japonica, larkspur, and 
 sword-shaped iris-leaves. The pattern weaves and 
 interweaves. Blood and Honey! 
 
 In the heart of a wood, 
 One man is faced by a wolf. 
 He pauses and stares — 
 Stopped by the torture of a blood-shot sun, 
 36 
 
Amy Lowell 37 
 
 Held by the mauve and cobalt clattering in the west. 
 
 He hesitates . . . then sings. 
 
 Dragonflies dart about him, 
 
 Like multi-colored arrows; 
 
 An iris — or is it a butterfly? — 
 
 Opens and closes its leaf-like wings ; 
 
 Plum-blossoms settle on his shoulders, 
 
 Crystals of fragrant snow; 
 
 The sky is lacquered with lilac and red. 
 
 The song ascends. 
 
 And with it rises an enameled moon . . . 
 
 In the heart of a wood 
 
 One man is singing alone. 
 
 And still he sings ! Carried on fantastic wings, his 
 passion seeps through the earth, sweeps over water, 
 leaps through the air. Everywhere its echoes wake 
 laughter and unrest in a thousand breasts. It never 
 stops, but drops of its music fall like the tinkle of 
 pearls in a silver pan. Sweetly-smiling, sweetly- 
 prattling girls rattle their bracelets and keep beguiling 
 man with snatches of its magic. Its beauty catches 
 one by the heart, the throat. It floats, like ivory surf 
 on the curved tops of waves, into each dusty corner 
 of the years. One hears it going on ... on ... it 
 never veers . . . Straight on it goes, stopped by no 
 gate ; it knows no bars. On . . . on . . . push- 
 ing against the pointed stars . . . Crushing out wars 
 and hate . . . On . . . on . . . 
 
THE IMAGISTS 
 
 MAKE WHAT THEY CAN OF IT 
 
 Listen, 
 
 Aristius Fuscus; 
 
 it is not the quiver 
 
 bursting with arrows, 
 
 nor sudden spears, 
 
 nor certainly the warmth of 
 
 confident armor 
 
 that shields 
 
 a man . . . 
 
 Here is a wood 
 
 full of blue winds 
 
 and dead symbols; 
 
 full of white sounds, 
 
 hints out of China, 
 
 and clashing invisible flowers . 
 
 Why should I tremble? 
 
 Now let me pause . . . 
 now let me sing of you, 
 plangent and conquering . . . 
 with furious hair, 
 green and impalpable features, 
 and fluent caresses . . . 
 38 
 
The Imagists 39 
 
 why should I tremble, 
 
 and stammer 
 
 like moonlight 
 
 caught on black branches . . . 
 
 Now like a fish 
 
 in the net of to-morrow 
 
 let my heart batten 
 
 on the thought of your face; 
 
 let my soul feed 
 
 on the red rind of passion, 
 
 softly . . . exulting. 
 
 Out of the hush 
 of the arches of night, 
 from the core of despair 
 let me remember 
 climate and javelins, 
 laughter and Lalage, 
 virtue and wolves . . . 
 And so forth . . . 
 
 Et cetera 
 
CONRAD AIKEN & T. S. ELIOT 
 
 COLLABORATE UPON IT 
 
 It is late, says Fenris, and the evening trembles 
 
 Like jelly placed upon an old man's table. 
 
 It is late, he says, and I am scarcely able 
 
 To keep my collar up, attend the latest play, 
 
 Mumble stale gossip ; cough and turn away ; 
 
 Grope in confusion down an endless hall. 
 
 The evening drags . . . and why should I dissemble? 
 
 I am tired, I tell you, tired of it all . . . 
 
 The heavy dawns, the dying fall 
 
 Of music ending in a cloud of gray. 
 
 Virtue is ashes; mist and fog 
 
 Cover the worm-eaten trees. A block away 
 
 Some one is singing tunes to a mangy dog. 
 
 A thin light tops the sky like a moldy crust. 
 
 And should I read a paper, smoke a pipe, 
 
 While the full moon hangs like an overripe 
 
 Pippin upon the rotted branch of day? 
 
 Twilight and sodden rain . . . boredom and lust . . . 
 
 It is like a piece I used to play . . . 
 
 IWhat were the lines? ... I dream ... I cannot 
 
 say . . . 
 The harlot's laugh has a coating of rust . . . 
 
 40 
 
Conrad Aiken & T. S. Eliot 41 
 
 There was a bow . . . and javelins . . . some one 
 
 said 
 Juba ... or was it Lalage ... I forget. 
 I am tired, I tell you, tired . . . and yet 
 How shall I force the ineffectual crisis? 
 The air is poisoned with a delicate regret. 
 In the Copley-Plaza men are serving ices. 
 I fidget in my seat, pull down my vest; 
 Adjust my new cravat and chatter, while 
 Death slides among the dancers, strokes a breast, 
 Rattles the xylophone, slinks down the hall 
 And pares an apple with a weary smile. 
 The music twists and curves ... an alley cat 
 Adds its high tenor; wan, malignant, flat. 
 A siren echoes . . . Can I have no rest? 
 For I am tired . . . tired of the strident brawl . . . 
 Tired of ennui . . . tired of it all . . . 
 Silence is better than the twice-expressed. 
 In countless volumes new leaves turn and fall . . . 
 I have seen them all ... I have seen them all. 
 
FRANKLIN P. ADAMS 
 
 TREATS IT FAMILIARLY 
 
 Fuscus, old top, an honest phiz 
 
 Fears no police-court's shameful durance; 
 The guy who's square — his virtue is 
 His life insurance. 
 
 He's playing safe. He wears his grin 
 
 Alike in Brooklyn or Tahiti, 
 In Murky Michigan or in 
 
 This well-known city. 
 
 Why, once when I had lost my way 
 
 A wolf espied and almost clutched me; 
 I merely sang a tune — and say, 
 He never touched me. 
 
 And such a wolf ! It seemed at least 
 
 A dozen to your Uncle Horace ; 
 As Terence said, it was some beast! 
 Believe me, Mawruss. 
 42 
 
Franklin P. Adams 43 
 
 Since then I've strayed without a pang 
 Wherever f - - kle Fo - - une bore me ; 
 No foes came near whene'er I sang — 
 They fled before me. 
 
 So, as a lyric Q. E. D. — 
 
 When this here planet's " dry " — and tearful, 
 Keep singing. . . . That's my recipe? 
 You said an earful. 
 
IRVING BERLIN 
 
 JAZZES IT UP IN RAGTIME 
 
 Mister Horace, won't you come and sit with me ; 
 Play a tune that's made an awful hit with me. 
 Go and get your fiddle; 
 
 Rosin up your bow; 
 Here's a little riddle 
 That I'd like to know. 
 
 So 
 
 Tell me why your music makes me feel so good; 
 Cheers up everybody in the neighborhood. 
 I ain't never worried; 
 
 Gee! I'm awful strong 
 For the grass and cows and chickens 
 And my heart beats like the dickens 
 When I hear you singing that song. 
 
 Chorus: 
 Play me that Integer Vitae Rag; 
 
 (It gives me joy.) 
 Lose your blues and go on a musical jag. 
 
 (Oh boy!) 
 It's the latest, greatest, sort of new sensation, 
 Watch your step ! There's pep in this here syncopation. 
 Don't it beat creation how it hits you with a slam ! 
 
 (My honey lamb!) 
 44 
 
Irving Berlin 45 
 
 So play that mysterious, serious drag; 
 
 {Oh mister please!) 
 I'd get delirious if it should weary us and lag — 
 
 {I'm on my knees.) 
 Take my rings and other things, my socks or nightie, 
 If you'll only play that flighty, Gosh Almighty, 
 
 Highty-tighty, 
 
 Integer Vitey 
 Ra-hag ! 
 
OTHER ODES 
 
"ON WITH THE DANCE!" 
 
 Quid bellicosus . . . Book II: Ode iz 
 
 Why all these questions that worry and weary us? 
 
 Let's drop the serious role for a while. 
 Youth, with smooth cheeks, will be laughing behind us ; 
 
 Age will not mind us; the cynic — he'll smile. 
 
 Come, for the gray hairs already are fretting us; 
 
 Girls are forgetting us. Lord, how we've got! 
 Come, let's convince them our blood is — well, red yet. 
 
 We are not dead yet. Let's show them we're not! 
 
 Yes, we'll have cups till you can't keep a count of 
 them; 
 
 Any amount of them — hundreds, at least. 
 I'll have the table all tempting and tidy — 
 
 And we'll get Lyde to come to the feast! 
 
"TEARS, IDLE TEARS ..." 
 
 Quid fles, Asterie . . . Book III : Ode 7 
 
 Why are you weeping for Gyges ? 
 
 Your lover, though absent, is true. 
 As soon as warm weather obliges, 
 He'll come back to you. 
 
 At Oricus, snow-bound and grieving, 
 
 He yearns for domestic delights. 
 He longs for the moment of leaving; 
 He lies awake nights. 
 
 His hostess, a lady of fashion, 
 
 Is trying to fan up a few 
 Stray flames of his fiery passion, 
 Lit only for you. 
 
 With sighs and suggestive romances 
 
 She does what a sorceress can. 
 But Gyges — he scorns her advances; 
 The noble young man. 
 
 But you — how about your bold neighbor? 
 
 Does he please your still lachrymose eye? 
 When he gallops past, flashing his saber, 
 Do you watch him go by? 
 50 
 
"Tears, Idle Tears . . ." 51 
 
 When he swims, like a god, down the river, 
 
 Do you dry the perpetual tear? 
 Does your heart give the least, little quiver? 
 Be careful, my dear. 
 
 Be warned, and be deaf to his pleadings; 
 
 To all of his questions be mute. 
 Do not heed any soft intercedings 
 That rise from his flute. 
 
 Lock up when the day has departed, 
 
 Though the music grows plaintive or shrill. 
 And though he may call you hard-hearted, 
 Be obdurate still! 
 
GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY 
 
 Uxor pauperis Ibyci . . . Book III: Ode 15 
 
 B.C. 35 
 
 Wife of poor Ibycus, listen ; a word with you. 
 
 How can you seem so outrageously gay? 
 Think of your age! It is sad and absurd, with you 
 Acting this way. 
 
 Truly, old lady, it's time that you ceased all this; 
 
 Here, with young girls, you should never be found. 
 Stop those ridiculous antics ; at least all this 
 Running around. 
 
 It's all very well for a kitten like Pholoe 
 
 To smile at the lads who repay her in kind, 
 But when you approach them, they rapidly stroll 
 away — 
 
 Lord, are you blind! 
 
 Strange, you won't see that the thing which delights 
 a man 
 Is always the dancer and seldom the dance; 
 A Thyiad with white hair and wrinkles affrights a 
 man; 
 
 He looks askance. 
 52 
 
Growing Old Disgracefully £3 
 
 Roses and romance and wine-jars are not for you; 
 
 There is the loom and the raw wool to comb, 
 Mending and baking and — oh, there's a lot for you 
 Right here at home! 
 
 A.D. 1919 
 You are old, Mrs. Ibycus, wrinkled and old, 
 
 And still you are going the pace; 
 Your actions are scandalous. Really, I'm told 
 
 They know you all over the place. 
 
 You doll yourself up like a girl of sixteen, 
 
 You tango from morning to night; 
 You wear out your partners, you primp and you 
 preen — 
 
 " Do you think, at your age, it is right ? " 
 
 You run after boys that are just out of school; 
 
 You trot with your daughter's young men; 
 Forgetting that chickens may do, as a rule, 
 
 What's forbidden a silly old hen. 
 
 Oh rub off the rouge of your giddy career, 
 And send back your drinks to the bar; 
 
 " The home is the sphere for a woman," my dear, 
 — When the woman's as old as you are. 
 
THE TEASING OF XANTHIAS 
 
 Ne sit ancillae . . . Book II: Ode 4 
 
 You never need blush, since your love for a hand-maid, 
 Friend Xanthias, is known to — well, more than a 
 few. 
 Conceal it no more. Here's a girl who is planned, made 
 And fashioned for you. 
 
 Briseis, the slave-girl, with tints like the lily's, 
 
 Her body a mingling of fire and snow, 
 Enraptured the noble and haughty Achilles — 
 A thing that you know. 
 
 And Ajax, the fearless and well-known defier, 
 
 Was snared by Tecmessa, the modest and grave; 
 Though he was a lord who could surely look higher, 
 And she was his slave. 
 
 And as for your Phyllis who scorns your sesterces, 
 
 Her family tree may be broad as an oak's. 
 Her people, I'm sure, though upset by reverses, 
 Were eminent folks. 
 54 
 
The Teasing of Xanthias 55 
 
 A girl so devoted, unlike any other 
 
 Your arm may have had the occasion to crush, 
 Could never, believe me, be born of a mother 
 For whom you need blush. 
 
 Her arms and the turn of her ankles enthuse me; 
 
 Her face has the glamour that all men adore. 
 What ! Jealous ? You mean it ? Go on — you amuse 
 me! 
 
 I'm forty — and more. 
 
A HAPPY ENDING 
 
 Donee gratus eratn tibi . . . Book III: Ode 9 
 HORACE 
 
 Once (even twice) your arms to me would cling, 
 
 Before your heart made various excursions; 
 And I was happier than the happiest king 
 Of all the Persians. 
 
 LYDIA 
 
 So long as I remained your constant flame. 
 
 I was a proud and rather well-sung Lydia, 
 But now, in spite of all your precious fame, 
 I'm glad I'm rid o' ye. 
 
 HORACE 
 
 Ah well, I've Chloe for my present queen. 
 
 Her voice would thrill the marble bust of Caesar; 
 And I would exit gladly from the scene 
 If it would please her. 
 
 LYDIA 
 
 And as for me, with every burning breath, 
 
 I think of Calais, my handsome lover, 
 For him not only would I suffer death, 
 But die twice over. 
 56 
 
A Happy Ending 57 
 
 HORACE 
 
 What if the old love were to come once more 
 With smiling face and understanding tacit; 
 If Chloe went, and I'd unbar the door, 
 Would you — er — pass it? 
 
 LYDIA 
 
 Though he's a star that's constant, fair and true, 
 And you're as light as cork or wild as fever; 
 With all your faults I'd live and die with you, 
 You old deceiver! 
 
A LINGERING ADIEU 
 
 AS W. S. GILBERT MIGHT HAVE RENDERED IT 
 Vixi puellis nuper tdoneus . . . Book III: Ode 26 
 
 As a militant lover 
 
 I've taken to cover; 
 The lyrics of love — I have sung them all. 
 
 My lutes and my armor 
 
 Will rouse not a charmer; 
 In the temple of Venus I've hung them all. 
 
 Though aging and hoary, 
 
 Yet not without glory 
 I entered Love's lists when he 'sought me to; 
 
 Each maid I enraptured, 
 
 I came, saw and captured — 
 And lo, this is what it has brought me to. 
 
 Here, then, lay the crow-bars; 
 
 The door now needs no bars 
 That used to be fastened so tight to me. 
 
 Lay down Cupid's arrows — 
 
 The thought of them harrows 
 When girls are no sort of delight to me. 
 58 
 
A Lingering Adieu 59 
 
 Yet, Goddess, whose feelings 
 
 Know not the congealings 
 Of Winter, the sting and the clutch of it, 
 
 Come down where it's snowy, 
 
 And give this cold Chloe 
 The lash — and a generous touch of it! 
 
IT ALWAYS HAPPENS 
 
 Albi, ne doleas plus nimio memor 
 immitis Glycerae . . . Book I: Ode 33 
 
 Grieve not too much, my Albius, since Glycera is no 
 longer 
 As worthy of your constant love and amatory sighs 
 As in the yesterdays, and since a taller man and 
 younger, 
 Who once embraced her slender waist, seems fairer 
 in her eyes. 
 
 Lycoris of the little brow loves Cyrus unrequited; 
 
 While he in turn will madly burn for rustic Pholoe — 
 Yet shall Apulian wolves with docile she-goats be 
 united 
 Ere he persuade this wilful maid to smile and turn 
 his way. 
 
 Such is the will of Her who rules the destinies of 
 lovers ; 
 For Cupid's courts hold cruel sports when wanton 
 Venus reigns. 
 And underneath her brazen yoke one oftentimes dis- 
 covers 
 Young couples who, ill-suited to each other, curse 
 their chains. 
 
 60 
 
It Always Happens fri 
 
 Thus once the little Myrtale, a slave-born girl and 
 lowly, 
 As wild and free as is the sea beneath Calabrian 
 skies, 
 So captured me with pleasing ways I swore to love 
 her solely — 
 When from the glade a worthier maid looked on 
 with longing eyes. 
 
A STRAIGHT TIP TO ALBIUS 
 
 (THE SHADE OF VILLON SPEAKS) 
 Albi, ne doleas . . . Book I: Ode 33 
 
 Stop being peeved about that skirt ; 
 
 Cut out those maudlin songs — and hurry! 
 What if she is a heartless flirt? 
 You should worry! 
 
 You know that little low-brow dame, 
 
 Lycoris — well, her eyes still glisten 
 Only for Cyrus Whatsisname. 
 
 And he — Well, listen . . . 
 
 Cyrus, the unresponsive brute, 
 
 To Pholoe turns all his wooing; 
 But she — she doesn't give a hoot; 
 There's nothing doing. 
 
 She tells him, with a tilted nose, 
 
 Together goats and wolves will revel 
 Before she'll have him ... So it goes. 
 It beats the devil. 
 62 
 
A Straight Tip to Albius 63 
 
 Yes, so it goes. Why, look at me. 
 
 Once I was more than happy, sowing 
 Wild oats with Mamselle Myrtale; 
 She had me going. 
 
 And all the while a loftier miss 
 
 Desired me ... I should regret it? 
 No, Albius. In a case like this, 
 Old top, forget it. 
 
BARINE, THE INCORRIGIBLE 
 
 Ulla si iuris . . . Book II: Ode 8 
 
 If only once for every perjured oath, 
 
 Each broken tryst and troth, 
 One punishment, one scar, one cheek too pale, 
 
 One broken finger-nail; 
 If but one blemish would appear and grieve you, 
 I might believe you. 
 
 But in your case, with every faithless vow 
 
 You sparkle more somehow; 
 You go abroad to break, with bright untruth, 
 
 The hearts of all our youth ; 
 You swear still falsely by the gods above you — 
 And still they love you! 
 
 Yes, Venus gossips with her laughing crew, 
 
 While every Nymph laughs too; 
 And even Cupid, busy at his art, 
 
 Pointing the fiery dart, 
 In spite of all his labors pauses nightly, 
 And chuckles lightly. 
 64 
 
Barine, the Incorrigible 65 
 
 Beguiled by you the lad grows up your slave, 
 
 Freed only by the grave. 
 And though he leaves you, though the new-wed 
 spouse 
 Forsakes your godless house, 
 He comes back pleading at your doors for mercy — 
 Light-hearted Circe! 
 
HORACE LOSES HIS TEMPER 
 
 Extremum Tanain si biberes . . . Book III: Ode 10 
 
 Your husband is stern and you're adamant, Lyce, 
 
 Oh yes, there is not the least doubt of it. 
 But open the door, for the weather is icy; 
 Let me in out of it. 
 
 Oh, cruel you are to behold me, unweeping, 
 
 All huddled and drenched like a rabbit here; 
 Exposed to the pitiless snow and the sweeping 
 Winds that inhabit here. 
 
 The blast, like the sharpest of knives, cuts between 
 us — 
 Ah, will you rejoice if I freeze to death? 
 Come, put off the pride that is hateful to Venus; 
 Come, ere I sneeze to death! 
 
 Your sire was a Tuscan — may Hercules club me 
 
 Or crush out my life like a mellow pea — 
 But who in Gehenna are you that you snub me? 
 You're no Penelope ! 
 66 
 
Horace Loses His Temper 67 
 
 Forgive me. I know that I rail like a peasant, — 
 
 But, won't you be more than a friend to me? 
 Won't tears and my prayers — and the costliest present 
 Make you unbend to me? 
 
 Once more I implore ; give my pleadings a fresh hold ; 
 My soul in its torment still screams to you . . . 
 What? Think you I'll lie down and die on your 
 threshold ? 
 
 Good Night! And bad dreams to you! 
 
A GRACEFUL EVASION 
 
 Scriberis Var'io . . . Book I: Ode 6 
 
 Some other bard, Vipsanius, less wedded to his slavery, 
 Some lyricist like Varius with a more Homeric 
 touch, 
 Shall celebrate your victories, belligerence and brav- 
 ery, 
 Shall sing about your leadership, your strategy and 
 such. 
 
 But I, dear general, such as I who could not think an 
 Odyssey, 
 Can no more sing your martial deeds than tell the 
 burning tale 
 Of Troy or shrewd Ulysses when, deserted by a god- 
 dess, he 
 Defied the sea heroically with half a tattered sail. 
 
 I know my limitations and — this is no mock humility — 
 My lyre balks at thundering themes and other war- 
 like lures; 
 Its pleasant lilt, its fluent grace, its rhythmical facility 
 Would only serve to dull the edge of Caesar's fame 
 — and yours. 
 
 68 
 
A Graceful TLvasion 69 
 
 The deeds of Mars and Diomed and other ancient 
 gory ones, 
 Are not for him who lacks the voice although he has 
 the will. 
 The battles I immortalize are chiefly amatory ones, 
 The wars, the struggles waged with arms that wound 
 but never kill. 
 
TO CHLOE 
 
 Vitas inuleo me similis, Chloe, . . . Book I: Ode 23 
 
 Though all your charms in a sweet disarray, 
 Chloe, have won me, you shun me as though 
 
 I were a tiger that searches for prey, 
 I would not hurt you, your virtue is so 
 
 Glowing that passion is melted away. 
 
 As a lost fawn, wandered far as it could, 
 Starts at the breezes and freezes with fear 
 
 At the least sound from the ground where it stood; 
 Flies and escapes from the shapes that appear 
 
 And the whispering leaves in the murmurous wood, 
 
 So you evade me, my Chloe, and you 
 Daily dissemble ; you tremble when I, 
 
 Singing your loveliness, tell what is true ; 
 And, should I hold you or scold you, you fly 
 
 Out of my arms, like a bird to the blue! 
 
 I seek you and capture the ghost of a scent; 
 
 Though I pursue you, I woo you in vain. 
 Come, nights like these for dim courtships were meant, 
 When Love sings, half-breathless, the deathless re- 
 frain, 
 When dark willows call and the night-wind is spent. 
 
 70 
 
TO CHLOE AGAIN 
 
 Vitas inuleo me similis, Chloe, . . . Book I : Ode 23 
 
 You shun me, Chloe, like a fawn 
 
 That, frightened, seeks its timorous mother, 
 Running this way and the other, 
 
 When familiar paths are gone; 
 
 Starting at the lightest breeze, 
 Or a bush stirred by a lizard, 
 Or when Spring, the gentle wizard, 
 Trembles in her knees. 
 
 Chloe, do not fear me so — 
 
 I am not a beast to scare you, 
 
 Not a lion that would tear you; 
 Do not treat me as a foe. 
 Chloe, leave your mother's side; 
 
 Come, you are a child no longer. 
 
 Make your faint desires stronger — 
 Be a bride. 
 
 71 
 
" THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES " 
 
 Non vides quanto . . . Book III: Ode 20 
 
 Have you ever robbed a lioness of just one tiny whelp? 
 
 Have you ever felt the power of her claws? 
 Well, think of these, oh Pyrrhus, and before you cry 
 for help, 
 
 Remember what a woman is — and pause. 
 
 The unfair sex, the one that is " more deadly than 
 the male," 
 Will never leave unturned a single stone, 
 She'll fight, she'll bite, she'll scorn the rules; she'll 
 make a strong man pale . . . 
 So you'd better let Nearchus quite alone. 
 
 And meanwhile this Nearchus, the sweet and blushing 
 prize, 
 Conducts himself as umpire of the fray; 
 He shakes his scented locks; he smirks and rolls his 
 pretty eyes — 
 A tired semi-demi-god at play. 
 
 Oh let her have her perfumed youth — as she is sure 
 to do, 
 Although she break a Senate-full of laws; 
 Admit defeat. Retreat from them — the virgin or the 
 shrew. 
 Remember what a woman is — and pause. 
 72 
 
QUESTIONING LYDIA 
 
 Lydia, die, per omnis . . . Book I: Ode 8 
 
 Lydia, why do you ruin by lavishing 
 Smiles upon Sybaris, filling his eye 
 
 Only with love, and the skilfully ravishing 
 Lydia. Why? 
 
 Ringing his voice was ; above all the clamorous 
 Throng in the play-ground his own would be high. 
 
 Now it is changed ; he is softened and amorous. 
 Lydia, why? 
 
 Once he was blithe and, as swift as a linnet, he 
 Wrestled and swam, or on horse-back flew by. 
 
 Now he is dulled with this cursed femininity — ■ 
 Lydia, why? 
 
 Yes, he is changed — he is moody and servile, he 
 Skulks like a coward and wishes to fly. 
 
 What, can you smile at his acting so scurvily, 
 Lydia? . . . Why? 
 
 73 
 
ETUDE ON THE SAME THEME 
 
 Lydia, die, per omnis . . . Book I: Ode 8 
 
 Lydia, I conjure you by all the gods above, 
 
 Tell me why you care to try to ruin Sybaris? 
 Why have you enraptured him and captured him with 
 love? 
 Why have you inspired him and tired him with a 
 kiss? 
 
 Tell me why he sits and sulks, and hates the sunny 
 field? 
 He was not one to shun the sun, inured to dusty 
 plains. 
 Why does he never ride beside his troop with spear 
 and shield, 
 Nor curb his steed of Gallic breed with barbed and 
 bitted reins? 
 
 Why does he dread the Tiber's stream, and hate the 
 ringside oil? 
 He will not play; he throws away the quoits and 
 javelin. 
 No longer flushed with triumph does he claim the vic- 
 tor's spoil; 
 He finds each game is much too tame ; he does not 
 aim to win. 
 
 74 
 
Etude on the Same Theme 75 
 
 Oh why do martial exercises fail to bring him joy? 
 
 And tell me why he languishes in anguish as they 
 
 say 
 
 Achilles did when he was hid before the fall of Troy ; 
 
 When he appeared disguised and weird as though 
 
 he feared the fray. 
 
THE PASSING OF LYDIA 
 
 Parcius iunctas quatiunt fenestras . . . Book I: Ode 25 
 
 No longer now do perfumed swains and merry wan- 
 ton youths 
 Come flocking, loudly knocking at your gate; 
 No longer do they rob your rest, or mar the sleep 
 that soothes, 
 With calling, — bawling love-songs until late. 
 
 No longer need you bar them out, nor is your win- 
 dow-pane 
 Ever shaken, now forsaken here you lie. 
 Nevermore will lute strings woo you, nor your 
 lover's voice complain, 
 " Tis a sin, dear, let me in, dear, or I die ! " 
 
 The little door that used to swing so gaily in and out, 
 
 Creaks on hinges that show tinges of decay. 
 For you are old, my Lydia, you are old and rather 
 stout ; 
 Not the sort to court or sport with those who play. 
 76 
 
The Passing of Lydia 77 
 
 Oh now you will bewail the daring insolence of 
 rakes, 
 While you dally in an alley with the crones; 
 And the Thracian wind goes howling down the ave- 
 nues and shakes 
 Your old shutters, as it utters mocking moans. 
 
 For youth will always call to youth and greet love 
 with a will — 
 
 And Winter, though you tint her like the Spring, 
 Beneath the artificial glow she will be Winter still — 
 
 And who would hold so cold and old a thing! 
 
REVENGE! 
 
 Audivere, Lyce . . . Book IV: Ode 13 
 
 The gods have heard me, Lyce, 
 The gods have heard my prayer. 
 
 Now you, who were so icy, 
 Observe with cold despair 
 Your thin and snowy hair. 
 
 Your cheeks are lined and sunken; 
 
 Your smiles have turned to leers; 
 But still you sing, a drunken 
 
 Appeal to Love, who hears 
 
 With inattentive ears. 
 
 Young Chia, with her fluty 
 
 Caressing voice compels. 
 Love lives upon her beauty; 
 
 Her cheeks, in which He dwells, 
 
 Are His fresh citadels. 
 
 He saw the battered ruin, 
 This old and twisted tree; 
 
 He marked the scars, and flew in 
 Haste that He might not see 
 Your torn senility. 
 78 
 
Revenge! 79 
 
 No silks, no purple gauzes 
 
 Can hide the lines that last. 
 Time, with his iron laws, is 
 
 Implacable and fast. 
 
 You cannot cheat the past. 
 
 Where now are all your subtle 
 
 Disguises and your fair 
 Smile like a gleaming shuttle? 
 
 Your shining skin, your rare 
 
 Beauty half-breathless — where? 
 
 Only excelled by Cinara, 
 
 Your loveliness ranked high. 
 You even seemed the winner, a 
 
 Victor as years went by, 
 
 And she was first to die. 
 
 But now — the young men lightly 
 
 Laugh at your wrinkled brow. 
 The torch that burned so brightly 
 
 Is only ashes now ; 
 
 A charred and blackened bough. 
 
BY WAY OF PERSUASION 
 (with genuflections to f. p. a.) 
 
 Est mihi nonutn superantis annum . . . Book IV: Ode n 
 
 Here, Phyllis, I've a jar of Alban wine, 
 
 Made of the choicest grapes that one can gather. 
 Vintage? I'll say its years are more than nine. 
 Inviting? . . . Rather. 
 
 And that's not all our well-known festive cheer — 
 There's ivy in the yard, and heaps of parsley. 
 Come, twine some in your hair — and look, old dear, 
 Don't do it sparsely. 
 
 The flat's all ready for the sacrifice ; 
 In every corner handy to display it, 
 There's silver. Yes, the house looks extra nice, 
 If I do say it. 
 
 The flame has started trembling, and the smoke 
 Goes whirling upward with an eager rustling; 
 The household's overrun with busy folk. 
 Just see them hustling! 
 
 What's that? You want to know the cause of this? 
 Why, it's the birthday of old friend Maecenas; 
 And doubly dear because the season is 
 Sacred to Venus. 
 80 
 
The Way of Persuasion 81 
 
 Some holiday? I'll tell the world that's right! 
 
 And — well, my Latin heart and soul are in it 
 Therefore I hope you'll be on hand to-night. 
 Eh? . . . Just a minute. 
 
 Telephus? Pah! He isn't worth a thought. 
 
 If Telly dares neglect you, dear, why, let him! 
 He's nothing but a giddy good-for-naught — 
 Come and forget him. 
 
 Come, and permit your grief to be assuaged; 
 Forsake this flirt on whom you have your heart set. 
 Besides, Dame Rumor hath it he's engaged — 
 (" One of our smart set") 
 
 From hopes that fly too high and reckless dreams, 
 
 The doom of Phaeton's enough to scare you . . . 
 .This is — ahem — my favorite of themes; 
 But, dear, I spare you. 
 
 Come then, so that the evening may not lack 
 
 Your voice, that makes each heart a willing rover ; 
 And, as we sing, black Care will grow less black — 
 Oh, come on over. 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE 
 
 Miser arum est . . . Book III: Ode 12 
 
 Alas, poor little maids who droop and pine. 
 Neither are you allowed to wear Love's crown 
 Nor drown 
 Your sorrow in sweet wine. 
 
 For ah, one learns to dread the family tongue; 
 The lashings of an uncle or an aunt, 
 One can't 
 Defy, however young. 
 
 Yet — there's a certain robber steals away 
 Your thoughts and busy needles ; yes, I find 
 Your mind 
 Is not cast down, but gay! 
 
 Ah well, we're young, so I have heard, but once — 
 And Hebrus is a more than lucky man ; 
 He can 
 Call himself blessed, the dunce. 
 
 But wait — Hebrus can hunt ; his eye is true ; 
 
 He rides and runs ; he plants a well-aimed blow. 
 And so 
 Perhaps you're lucky too! 
 
 82 
 
" HE WHO LAUGHS LAST—" 
 
 Nox erat et caelo . . . Epode 15 
 
 It was the very noon of night, 
 
 The stars were softly shining; 
 And radiant in the amorous light, 
 
 Your arms about me twining, 
 You swore, " While tempests goad the seas, 
 While wolf and sheep are enemies, 
 I will be yours, though Hades freeze 
 
 And Heaven starts declining." 
 
 Oh fair but still more fickle love, 
 
 Oh beautiful and blind one, 
 You are a maid unworthy of 
 
 A lover and a kind one. 
 Think you that Horace will give place 
 To him now wrapped in your embrace? 
 Nay, he will seek a fairer face 
 
 And, bless you, he will find one. 
 
 And as for him, whoe'er he be, 
 
 Who views my plight with laughter, 
 
 So wealthy that his granary 
 Is filled from pit to rafter, 
 
 He in his turn, as I of old, 
 
 Will watch your love grow strangely cold. 
 
 And all of this I shall behold— 
 And smile in silence after. 
 83 
 
TO PYRRHA 
 
 Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa 
 
 perfusus liquidis urget odoribus 
 
 grato, Pyrrha, sub antrof Book I: Ode 5 
 
 What dainty, perfume-scented youth, whenever he 
 proposes, 
 Caresses you, oh Pyrrha, in a pleasant grot and fair ; 
 For whom do you reveal your charms among a thou- 
 sand roses? 
 For whom do you bedew your eyes and bind your 
 shining hair? 
 
 Alas, how soon shall he deplore your perfidy, when 
 lonely 
 He shall behold the altered gods, invisible to us, 
 Who now believes you his alone and who enjoys you 
 only, 
 Who hopes (so credulous is he) things will be al- 
 ways thus. 
 
 Oh woe to those, the luckless ones, who cling to you, 
 not knowing 
 Your faithlessness and folly — and to whom you 
 seem so fair. 
 Lo, on the wall of Neptune's temple is a tablet showing 
 My votive offering tendered to the Sea-God with a 
 prayer. 
 
 84 
 
THE FICKLE LYDIA 
 
 Cum tu Lydia, Telephi 
 
 cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi . . • Book I: Ode 13 
 
 When you, my Lydia, praise the charms 
 
 Of Telephus, and mark with pride 
 His rosy neck and waxen arms, 
 
 My bitterness I cannot hide. 
 
 My color, like the restless tide, 
 Rises in sudden wrath — and oh, 
 
 The jealous tears of love denied 
 My agonizing torments show. 
 
 Nor can I see without a tear 
 
 Your shoulders, scarred in Love's fierce play ; 
 Nor look upon those lips for fear 
 
 He, in his brutal passion, may 
 
 Have marred the smile outshining day. 
 Your heart he rudely set astir, 
 
 And stole the best of life away 
 From me, whose earth and sky you were. 
 
 Oh leave him ; you will never find 
 A lasting love in passion's rage. 
 Love should be gentle, tender, kind; 
 85 
 
86 The Fickle Lydia 
 
 Love should give comfort, and assuage 
 The storms and ravages of age. 
 
 Such love is mine, that lives to be 
 Written in glory on the page 
 
 Whose words reflect eternity. 
 
A BURLESQUE RONDO 
 
 Cum tu, Lydia, Telephi 
 
 cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi . . . Book I: Ode 13 
 
 Cum tu, Lydia . . . You know the rest — 
 Praising the waxen arms and breast 
 
 Of Telephus you drove me mad. 
 
 You made the sunniest moments sad, 
 While tortures racked my heaving chest. 
 
 Oh, I could see you softly dressed, 
 Inciting him with amorous zest; 
 
 And hear you whisper low, " My lad, 
 Come to Lydia." 
 
 Now you repent . . . Your arms protest 
 That they have been too roughly pressed. 
 Oh gain your senses ; leave the cad, 
 And heed me as again I add : 
 Awake ! Love is no giddy jest. 
 Come to ! Lydia ! 
 
 87 
 
AN APPEAL 
 
 (iN RICHARD LE GALLIENNE'S MOST LIMPID MANNER) 
 
 Mater saeve Cupidinum , 
 
 Thebanaeque iubet me Semelae fuer . . . Book I: Ode 19 
 
 Mother of Cupids grown callous and cruel, 
 Young Dionysus with Pleasure's bright train, 
 
 Why do ye heap the faint flames with new fuel, 
 Why are my pulses on fire again? 
 Why this new joy and this exquisite pain? 
 
 Glycera, she who in brightness surpasses 
 Parian marble, whose lips have undone 
 
 Me with their petulant laughter — what lass is 
 Dazzling as she is, whose face is the sun! 
 Aye, 'tis to her that my fantasies run. 
 
 Now neither war nor its wild wonder fires me; 
 
 I cannot sing of the Parthian in flight. 
 Softly I chant, for when Venus inspires me, 
 
 Love is the one theme in which I delight ; 
 
 Love is the music for mid-day and night. 
 
 Come, lads, and place on this turf as an altar, 
 Vervains and vessels of two-year-old wine. 
 
 Here shall I pray and with incense exalt her. 
 Then, when the sacrifice glows on the shrine, 
 She, being kinder, may come and be mine. 
 
ODE AGAINST ANGER 
 
 O matre pulchra filia fulchrior 
 quern criminosis cumque voles modum 
 pones iambis. Book I: Ode 16 
 
 So my random rhymes displeased you, 
 Loveliest of ladies ; how 
 
 Wroth you are— to be appeased you 
 Crave for vengeance, and your brow 
 Clouds with reddening anger now. 
 
 Take the verses rude, erratic, 
 
 (Which were never meant to pain) 
 
 Drown them in the Adriatic; 
 
 Burn them, strew them o'er the plain- 
 Only do not frown again. 
 
 Baleful anger, what can stay it? 
 
 Neither flame nor sword nor sea. 
 Jove himself can not dismay it; 
 
 It is powerful as he 
 
 In its potent tyranny. 
 
 When Prometheus dared to fashion 
 Man, by mingling worst and best 
 
 Of each beast, he took the passion 
 Of the raging lion and pressed 
 Anger in the human breast. 
 89 
 
90 Ode Against Anger 
 
 Rage is herald to perdition; 
 At its blast the city falls. 
 
 Armies suffer demolition, 
 
 While the foe, whom naught appals, 
 Drives his plowshares through the walls. 
 
 Clear your forehead. Anger frantic 
 Works but ill, and fiercer than 
 
 Storms and tumults Corybantic 
 Is the savage wrath of man. 
 Curb it, lady, when you can. 
 
 I myself, when young, was given 
 To the swift iambic verse 
 
 And, with reckless ardor driven, 
 I would often intersperse 
 Satires with a careless curse. 
 
 Now I turn to dull excuses — 
 
 Come and be my friend once more. 
 
 I recant my rhymed abuses, 
 Hoping that you will restore 
 Your affection ... as before. 
 
MUTINY 
 
 lam veris comites . . . Book IV: Ode 12 
 
 Spring's mild companion calms the seas, 
 The wind blows up from Thrace ; 
 
 The huddled hills that used to freeze 
 Shake off the cold embrace. 
 
 The seedling stirs ; the roots are squirming ; 
 
 And every bird is early-worming. 
 
 On soft young grass, the fattening sheep 
 
 Are tended by musicians 
 Who do their best to pipe and leap 
 
 According to traditions, 
 And chant their vernal panegyric 
 As shepherds do in every lyric. 
 
 " The year's at " — well, the thirsting time : 
 
 The trees suck up their sap; 
 The sun drinks on his lengthening climb; 
 
 The wine of love's on tap. 
 The earth's one sparkling ebullition . . . 
 This is no place for prohibition! 
 91 
 
92 Mutiny 
 
 Come and forget the parching laws ; 
 
 Away with dry excuses ! 
 You shall espouse a heavenly Cause 
 
 With more than earthly juices ! 
 Their genial glow shall make it warmer 
 For you — and any chance informer. 
 
 Come, for these interdicted jars 
 
 Will droop until you've kissed 'em; 
 
 Come and behold more brilliant stars 
 Than in the solar system. 
 
 Fools keep to wisdom in these glum times ; 
 
 The wiser man forgets it — sometimes. 
 
HOLIDAY 
 
 Festo quid potius die . . . Book III: Ode 28 
 
 What celebration should there be? . . . 
 
 Quick, Lyde, bring a jar! 
 Against a dull sobriety 
 
 We'll wage a lusty war. 
 
 The festive sun is setting low, 
 
 The dusk is almost there; 
 And yet you scarcely move, as though 
 
 We both had time to spare! 
 
 Let's pour the wine and sing in turns 
 
 Of Neptune in his lair, 
 Of mermaids in the water-ferns, 
 
 And of their sea-green hair. 
 
 And you, upon your curving lyre, 
 
 Shall spend a tuneful hour, 
 Singing Diana's darts of fire 
 
 And her benignant power. 
 
 Hymns shall arise to Her who sends 
 
 Fresh laughter and delight, 
 Until our weary singing ends 
 
 In lullabies to night. 
 93 
 
TO A FAUN 
 
 Faune, Nympharum . . . Book III: Ode 18 
 
 You sprightly mischief dancing by, 
 As you pursue the nymphs that fly 
 
 From your embraces, 
 Run lightly through my garden plot, 
 Respect the flower-beds that dot 
 My favorite places; 
 Avoiding please the early peas while going 
 through your paces. 
 
 Be gentle to the pigs and sows, 
 
 The horses, chickens, ducks and cows; 
 
 Pray, don't alarm them. 
 And treat each tender, youngling kid 
 With comradeship, as if you did 
 
 Not want to harm them. 
 They'll frisk and how their heads will bow if 
 you should pass and charm them! 
 
 For you there shall be sacrificed 
 
 The herd's unblemished, highest-priced 
 
 And best example. 
 Incense shall cloud the festive shrine 
 And there shall be great bowls of wine 
 For you to sample — 
 Providing all the while, of course, my grounds 
 you do not trample. 
 94 
 
To a Faun 95 
 
 And now, to celebrate your day, 
 Cattle romp and shepherds play 
 For flocks to gambol. 
 The world throws off its sordid shams 
 And no one works while wolf and lambs 
 Together amble. 
 The village goes to tear its clothes on rustic 
 bush and bramble. 
 
 The town turns out, a giddy rout: 
 Lodger, landlord, lover, lout, 
 Prince and pastor. 
 While laborers who dig or till, 
 Dance with passion, leaping still 
 Higher, faster. 
 Striking the earth, their enemy, to show they 
 are its master! 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 Intermissa, Venus . . . Book IV: Ode i 
 
 Venus, I pray, do not flay me or tear me now ; 
 
 Why should you rouse me to passion again ? 
 I am too old to let Cupid ensnare me now ; 
 
 See, there are hundreds of likelier men. 
 Spare me, oh spare me now ! 
 
 Venus, go otherwhere; pass on and pardon me; 
 
 I am no longer the man that I was. 
 Thoughts of poor Cynara rise like a guard on me, 
 
 These and my fiftieth year make me pause — 
 Do not be hard on me. 
 
 Young Paulus Maximus, he is the man for you ; 
 
 High-born and fair, with an eloquent turn. 
 He is the sort who will do all he can for you ; 
 
 Altars he'll raise to you, incense he'll burn; 
 Fires he'll fan for you. 
 
 Sweetly the smoke of his worship will rise to you, 
 
 And, twice a day, nimble feet will advance — 
 Maidens and boys, as a pleasant surprise to you, 
 Beating the ground in the Salian dance, 
 While the heart flies to you . . . 
 96 
 
Aftermath 97 
 
 Yes, I have altered. The sighs and alarms for me, 
 
 Little indeed do I think of them now. 
 Wine-cups and drinking-bouts — these have no 
 charms for me ; 
 I crave no flowers to bind on my brow, 
 No, nor soft arms for me. 
 
 But — what is this ! Can you tell, Ligurine dear, 
 Why in my dreams do our hands interclasp? 
 
 Or, like a hunter in chase of a shiny deer, 
 Why do I seek you, who fly from my grasp ? 
 And — why this briny tear? 
 
RAILING AT ICCIUS 
 
 Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides 
 gazis . . . Book I: Ode 29 
 
 Oh Iccius, now you would possess 
 Arabian wealth and foreign treasures, 
 
 And so you have prepared to press 
 
 Decisive war against — no less 
 
 Than those dread Saban kings ; confess 
 These are impulsive measures. 
 Now you are fashioning with speed 
 Chains for the formidable Mede! 
 
 What virgin, what barbarian fair, 
 
 When you have slain her lord and lover, 
 Will be your slave? With perfumed hair, 
 What stripling from the court will bear 
 The golden cups of wine ; and there, 
 To keep you safely under cover, 
 Will guard you well from every foe 
 With arrows from his father's bow? 
 
 Oh rivers now may run uphill, 
 
 And Tiber's course become erratic, 
 If for Iberian arms you will 
 Exchange your philosophic skill, 
 
Railing at Iccius 99 
 
 Panaetius' works, and those that fill 
 Your library Socratic . . . 
 Alas, your faithful friends, though few, 
 Expected better things of you. 
 
PANTOUM OF PROCRASTINATION 
 
 Mollis inertia . . . Epode 14 
 
 Why this inertia, you ask, 
 Sensing my mental disorder. 
 
 Why don't I finish the task, 
 Writing a poem to order ? 
 
 Sensing my mental disorder, 
 
 Seeing the way I put off 
 Writing a poem to order, 
 
 I do not wonder you scoff. 
 
 Seeing the way I put off, 
 
 (Laugh as you will, doubting Thomas) 
 I do not wonder you scoff — 
 
 Yet there's a reason, I promise. 
 
 Laugh as you will, doubting Thomas, 
 I will not ask you to pause. 
 
 Yet — there's a reason, I promise — 
 A god, and a small one's the cause. 
 
 I will not ask you to pause 
 Here in my comfortless hour; 
 
 A god, and a small one's the cause — 
 Yes, you yourself know his power. 
 100 
 
Pantoum of Procrastination ioi 
 
 Here, in my comfortless hour, 
 
 Cupid plays tricks with my voice. 
 
 Yes, you yourself know his power, 
 Only — you've cause to rejoice. 
 
 Cupid plays tricks with my voice; 
 
 Jeers at the poem's beginning — 
 Only you've cause to rejoice, 
 
 Your love is faithful and winning. 
 
 Jeers at the poem's beginning . . . 
 
 " Why don't I finish the task? " 
 Your love is faithful and winning. 
 
 "Why this inertia?" . . . You ask! 
 
HORACE EXPLAINS 
 
 Martiis caelebs . . . Book III: Ode 8 
 
 Why, you ask, this festive raiment, why the bright 
 regalia ? 
 Why the smoking censer and the decorated urn? 
 Why should I, a bachelor, observe the Matronalia? 
 Ah, my friend Maecenas, you have something still 
 to learn. 
 
 Many years ago to-day, before I was your laureate, 
 I lay beneath a branch and thought of nothing much 
 at all ; 
 To be precise, I think I scanned the latest Snappy 
 Storiette, 
 When suddenly the senseless tree made up its mind 
 to fall. 
 
 Pinned upon the rocky ground I spent a far from jolly 
 day. 
 " Help ! " I cried, at intervals from one o'clock to 
 eight. 
 There and then I swore to keep this date a sacred 
 holiday 
 If, I added tearfully, I live to celebrate. 
 1 02 
 
Horace Explains 103 
 
 So let's keep the oath I made with reverence and piety. 
 Here's a cask of Caecuban to nurse me back to 
 health. 
 Let the city's counselors grow sodden with sobriety ; 
 Here's a richer business and a greater common 
 wealth. 
 
 Come then, my Maecenas, bring the sunshine of your 
 presence here. 
 Toast your friend's recovery and wish him many 
 more. 
 Join me in a happy, not too rapid convalescence here. 
 Carpe diem . . . But you've heard the rest of this 
 before. 
 
AN INVITATION 
 
 Velox amoenum saepe Lucretilem . . . Book I: Ode 17 
 
 From Grecian pine and precipice 
 
 The nimble Faunus often strays, 
 And here, beside Lucretilis, 
 
 He lingers for a space of days. 
 Here he will keep 
 My goats and sheep 
 From chilling winds and Summer's blaze. 
 
 For hidden strawberries and thyme 
 The women seek in safety here; 
 While sportive kids undaunted climb 
 The mountain-side without a fear 
 Of wolves or snakes, 
 When Faunus makes 
 Sweet music to delight the ear. 
 
 Aye, all the gods are good to me, 
 
 And shielded by their gifts I dwell; 
 They love me for my piety, 
 
 And all my songs have pleased them well. 
 Sweet is my rest 
 For I am blest 
 With bounties more than I can tell. 
 104 
 
An Invitation IOJJ 
 
 Come hither. In this cool retreat 
 
 You too shall share this treasure trove. 
 Here shall you flee the dog-star's heat; 
 Here shall you learn how, torn with love, 
 Penelope 
 In rivalry 
 With Circe for a lover strove. 
 
 Here shall you drink from Grecian jars 
 
 Mild Lesbian wine, still sweet and warm, 
 Nor fear that Bacchus clash with Mars, 
 Nor savage Cyrus do you harm. 
 So come, my friend, 
 With me and spend 
 Some days upon the Sabine farm. 
 
WINTER PIECE 
 
 Fides ut alta stet nive candidum 
 Soracte . . . Book I: Ode 9 
 
 Shrouded with ice and snow 
 Soracte stands in splendor. 
 The rivers freeze; the slender 
 
 Branches are weighted low. 
 
 Oh Thaliarchus mine, 
 Come, set the fagots flaming 
 And then, with rapt acclaiming, 
 
 Bring in the Sabine wine. 
 
 The rest leave to the gods 
 Who rule the warring thunders, 
 Whose hands shape Life's deep wonders 
 
 And Death's more puzzling odds. 
 
 We only live to-day; 
 Youth knows no dull to-morrow. 
 We who have buried Sorrow 
 
 May dance when we are gray. 
 
 Look, — now the maidens seek 
 Dim walks, and breathe soft whispers 
 To scented youths, and this spurs 
 
 The love that fears to speak. 
 106 
 
Winter Piece 107 
 
 Coy smiles and feigned alarms 
 The maiden, half-resisting, 
 Yields of a sudden, twisting 
 
 The token from her arms. 
 
 One hears a plaintive tune; 
 A snatch of distant laughter . . 
 Vague murmurs pass, and after 
 
 Is silence — and the moon. 
 
INVOCATION 
 
 Dianam tenerae dicite <virgines . . . Book I: Ode 21 
 
 Maidens young and virgins tender, 
 Sing Diana in her splendor ; 
 Boys at play within the hollow, 
 Sing the flowing-haired Apollo. 
 
 (Ye that, moved by love and duty, 
 Praise Diana's holy beauty, 
 Shall be granted joys unceasing 
 And, perhaps, a mate that's pleasing.) 
 
 (And if winning words we hit on, 
 Phoebus may present the Briton, 
 Persian, Parthian and the rest, with 
 All the wars and plagues we're blessed with.) 
 
 108 
 
THE PINE TREE FOR DIANA 
 
 Montium custos . . . Book III: Ode 22 
 
 Oh virgin queen of mountain-side and woodland, 
 Blessed protector of young wives in travail, 
 Who snatchest them from death if thrice they call 
 thee — 
 
 Goddess and guardian; 
 
 To thee I dedicate this slender pine-tree; 
 And each year with a boar's blood I shall bless it — 
 A youngling boar just dreaming of his first thrust, 
 Savage and sidelong. 
 
 109 
 
A PLEASANT VOYAGE FOR MAEVIUS 
 
 Mala soluta . . . Epode 10 
 
 Under an evil star she slips, 
 
 Accompanied by my hate; 
 She reels, unluckiest of ships, 
 
 With him, her stinking freight. 
 
 Do not forget, O southwest wind, 
 To lash her sides with waves, 
 
 Till Maevius sees, before, behind, 
 Nothing but yawning graves. 
 
 Litter the sea, till on it lie 
 These oars and tattered ropes ; 
 
 And make the breakers tower as high 
 As mountains on his hopes. 
 
 Let not one friendly star appear, 
 
 Let even days be dark; 
 So that he'll fare as calm and clear 
 
 — As Ajax' impious bark! 
 no 
 
A Pleasant Voyage for Maevius in 
 
 Ah, how the mariners will sweat! 
 
 How Maevius will pale ! 
 As weeping, woman-like and wet, 
 
 He prays to stop the gale. 
 
 I too shall pray! And if a rock 
 Receive his mangled form, 
 
 The choicest ewe-lamb of the flock 
 I'll offer to the storm. 
 
SIMPLICITY 
 
 Persicos odi, puer . . . Book I: Ode 38 
 
 The diversions of the Persians with their ostentatious 
 ways 
 
 Do not thrill me, for they fill me with disdain; 
 I abominate the dominating style of coarse displays, 
 
 And from garlands brought from far lands I refrain. 
 
 But the myrtle plain and fertile you may bind around 
 your brow, 
 And in future let it suit your taste like mine. 
 Come, my fervent little servant, you may place it on 
 me now, 
 As with wine here I recline here near the vine. 
 
 112 
 
VICTORIAN SIMPLICITY 
 
 (A LA ANDREW LANG) 
 
 I do not love this pomp and pride 
 Extolled by Persians magnified 
 
 With self-esteem ; and to my taste 
 
 The linden chaplets interlaced 
 With roses should be cast aside. 
 
 Seek not the place where these abide; 
 Those perfumed robes and wreaths applied 
 With brilliant gauds and gems misplaced, 
 I do not love. 
 
 But bring the jars; beneath the wide, 
 Green mantle of these boughs I'll hide. 
 Come, bind my brow with myrtle chaste 
 And bring — oh, anything — but haste! 
 For there's no wine I ever tried 
 I do not love. 
 
 113 
 
NEAPOLITAN SIMPLICITY 
 
 (T. A. DALY PUTS IT IN HIS FAVORITE DIALECT) 
 
 My frand, I am seeck, an' I talla you w'at, 
 Dees grandness, eet maka me — w'at you call — hot! 
 See, roses an' ribbons all ovra da place; 
 I tal you, my frand, eet ees bigga deesgrace. 
 
 Oh my ! soocha f ooleeshness geeve me a pain. 
 Com' back to Italia's sweetness again! 
 An' Rosa, weeth myrtle-leaves steeck 'een her hair, 
 Gon' breeng da Chianti for dreenk weeth us dere. 
 
 114 
 
SEDITIOUS SONG AGAINST PROHIBITION 
 (with an interpolated and wholly ad lib. chorus) 
 
 O nata mecum . . . Book III: Ode 21 
 
 I 
 
 When Manlius was consul, when you and I wore 
 young, 
 This ancient wine was born of precious juices; 
 Of Caecuban and Massic grapes, of various and classic 
 grapes, 
 'Twas made for happy days and noble uses. 
 
 chorus 
 So zvine, wine, wine till the planets reel and fall; 
 Yellozv wine and mellow wine or any wine at all. 
 The happy earth has put her mirth and courage in the 
 
 vine; 
 And Love and Laughter follow after wine. 
 
 11 
 So highly do we prize it that no man dare despise it, 
 
 Though cynical he may be or Socratic. 
 They say that even Cato old declared it ne'er too late 
 to hold 
 A cup of wine to make the heart ecstatic. 
 
 chorus 
 So wine, wine, wine, etc. 
 "5 
 
n6 Seditious Song Against Prohibition 
 
 in 
 
 For wine's divine emulsion creates a sweet compulsion, 
 It lifts the weak above complaint or pity; 
 
 It makes him raise his horn again and Hope and 
 Strength are born again — 
 It turns the witty wise, the wise man witty ! 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 So wine, wine, wine, etc. 
 
 IV 
 
 It rids the soul of languor, of sorrow, fear and anger; 
 
 While Bacchus joins the feast to make it splendid. 
 And Venus and the Graces hear our songs and take 
 their places here, 
 
 With night-long lamps until the revel's ended. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 So wine, wine, wine till the planets reel and fall; 
 Yellow wine and mellow wine or any zvine at all. 
 The happy earth has put her mirth and courage in 
 
 the wine; 
 And Love and Laughter follow after wine! 
 
HORACE, TEMPERANCE ADVOCATE 
 
 Nullam, Vare, sacra <vite prius sevens arborem . . . 
 
 Book I: Ode li 
 
 When you start your planting, Varus, 
 Let your first thought be the vine ; 
 
 Knowing how its powers spare us 
 When our cares and doubts combine, 
 
 Knowing how the fears that snare us 
 Vanish with the use of wine. 
 
 Wine is cheering and sustaining; 
 
 Thoughts of harm and dreams of war 
 In the cups that we are draining 
 
 Fade away and, as we pour 
 Wine anew, our cares are waning— 
 
 Poverty is felt no more. 
 
 Yet with all your deep potations, 
 Check the overpowering thirst ; 
 
 Do not quaff with wild impatience- 
 Moderate your passion first. 
 
 Bear in mind the brutal Thracians, 
 Even by great Pan accursed. 
 117 
 
Ii8 Horace, Temperance Advocate 
 
 When their passions have been fired, 
 Armed with wine and roused with song, 
 
 They will fight as if inspired 
 With mad fury, and ere long 
 
 Gain the thing that they desired, 
 Caring naught for right or wrong. 
 
 Never will I rouse thee, Bacchus, 
 'Gainst thy will as in the past. 
 
 Cease thy cymbals, then, that rack us; 
 Hush thy trumpets' brazen blast, 
 
 For they make false Pride attack us 
 And the Faith that does not last. 
 
TRITE TRIOLETS 
 
 Tu ne quaesieris . . . Book I: Ode n 
 
 Ask not — what does it matter — 
 
 How long we're going to live; 
 The fortune-teller's patter 
 Ask not. What does it matter 
 If Jove has years to scatter 
 
 Or only one to give? . . . 
 Ask not. What does it matter 
 How long we're going to live ! 
 
 Oh friend, trust no to-morrow, 
 But seize the flying present. 
 
 Would you escape all sorrow, 
 
 Oh friend? Trust no to-morrow! 
 
 Drink deep, and do not borrow 
 One thought that isn't pleasant. 
 
 Oh friend, trust no to-morrow, 
 But seize the flying present. 
 
 119 
 
ON PRIDE, POSITION, POWER, ETC. 
 
 Nullus argento color est . . . Book II: Ode 2 
 
 Silver hidden in the mine 
 
 Does not shine. 
 
 Though no soul on earth refuse it, 
 
 Gold grows either bright or sordid 
 By the way a man may use it; 
 
 It grows dull when hoarded. 
 All the coins a miser owns 
 Might as well be stones. 
 
 He rules with power over pelf 
 
 Who rules himself. 
 
 Libyan shores and Carthaginian, 
 
 Realms whose length may well dismay us, 
 Who conquers Greed has such dominion — 
 
 Look at Proculeius. 
 All the years the gods may give, 
 Deeds like his outlive. 
 
 What's a title, what's a crown? 
 Virtue laughs them down. 
 And to him alone she offers 
 
 Wreaths and things that grow no older 
 
 120 
 
On Pride, Position, Power, Etc. 121 
 
 Who can gaze on golden coffers, 
 Gaze — and shrug his shoulder. 
 The happy man wants no one's throne — 
 He has his own! 
 
THE GOLDEN MEAN 
 
 Rectius vives . . . Book II: Ode 10 
 
 Licinius, here's a recipe 
 
 To keep you from undue commotion, 
 Remember that the shore can be 
 
 As treacherous as the depths of ocean : 
 
 The man who loves the golden mean, 
 
 Avoids the squalor of a hovel; 
 And scorns the palaces, serene 
 
 Above the envious ones who grovel. 
 
 It is the giant pine that creaks, 
 It is the tallest towers that tumble; 
 
 And it is on the mountain peaks 
 
 That lightnings strike and heavens crumble. 
 
 The heart forearmed, when times are drear, 
 Hopes for the best, and in fair weather 
 
 Allows itself an hour of fear — 
 It takes the good and bad together. 
 
 Be patient then, and reef your sails ; 
 
 Equip your courage with endurance. 
 Thus shall you meet the roaring gales 
 
 With laughing wisdom and assurance. 
 
 122 
 
CIVIL WAR 
 
 Quo, quo scelesti ruitisf . . . Epode 7 
 
 Why do ye rush, oh wicked folk, 
 
 To a fresh war? 
 Again the cries, the sword, the smoke- 
 
 What for? 
 
 Has not sufficient precious blood 
 Been fiercely shed? 
 
 Must ye spill more until ye flood 
 The dead? 
 
 Not even armed in rivalry 
 
 Your hate's employed ; 
 
 But 'gainst yourselves until ye be 
 Destroyed ! 
 
 Even when beasts slay beasts, they kill 
 
 Some other kind. 
 Can it be madness makes ye still 
 
 So blind? 
 
 123 
 
124 Civil War 
 
 Make answer! Is your conscience numb? 
 
 Each ashy face 
 Admits, with silent lips, the dumb 
 
 Disgrace. 
 
 Murder of brothers ! Of all crime, 
 
 Vilest and worst! 
 Pause — lest ye be, through all of time, 
 
 Accursed. 
 
LUGUBRIOUS VILLANELLE OF PLATITUDES 
 
 Eheu fugaces, Postume . . . Book II: Ode 14 
 
 Ah Postumus, my Postumus, the years are slipping by ; 
 Old age with hurrying footsteps draws nearer day 
 by day; 
 
 And we will leave this friendly earth and every friend- 
 lier tie. 
 
 Soon Death, whose strength is never spent, whose 
 
 sword is always high, 
 Will beckon us, and all our faith will win us no 
 
 delay. 
 Ah Postumus, my Postumus, the years are slipping by. 
 
 Grim Pluto waits for all of us; he waits with pitiless 
 eye, 
 Until we journey down the stream that carries us 
 away; 
 
 And we will leave this friendly earth and every friend- 
 lier tie. 
 
 Though we be kings or worse than slaves, the eager 
 moments fly; 
 Though we be purer than the gods, Time will not 
 halt or stay — 
 Ah Postumus, my Postumus, the years are slipping by. 
 
 "5 
 
126 Lugubrious Villanelle of Platitudes 
 
 Aye, we must go, though we have shunned the red sun 
 of July, 
 The bitter winds, the treacherous surf, the blind and 
 savage fray, 
 
 And we will leave this friendly earth and every friend- 
 lier tie. 
 
 Too soon the stubborn hand of Fate tears all our 
 dreams awry; 
 Too soon the plowman quits his plow, the child 
 his happy play — 
 Ah Postumus, my Postumus, the years are slipping by, 
 And we will leave this friendly earth and every friend- 
 lier tie. 
 
AN INFAMOUS RENDERING 
 
 (The Parentheses and Italics being the Translator's) 
 O fons Bandusiae . . . Book III: Ode 13 
 
 Bandusian Spring, I've known thee long (in various 
 
 translations) 
 And now at last I sing of thee; (with anything but 
 
 patience) 
 Worthy of wine and flowers, (like a hackneyed 
 
 "Hymn to Victory") 
 Brilliant as glass. (A metaphor both trite and con- 
 tradictory.) 
 
 To-morrow shall a kid be thine, (a spring with 
 
 butchered goats on it!) 
 His blood shall dye thy crystal stream ; (and Horace 
 
 simply gloats on it.) 
 On thee the dog-star's hour of rage (that part was 
 
 never clear to me) 
 Shall lay no hand. (In fact this ode, though famed, 
 
 is far from dear to me.) 
 
 Thou givest freely of thy wealth (a feeling I don't 
 
 share at all) 
 To all who seek thy cooling side; (yet, somehow, 
 
 I don't care at all) 
 127 
 
128 An Infamous Rendering 
 
 The bull that's wearied of the plow, ("and I, for 
 
 one, don't blame him";) 
 The sheep that's strayed. (And, entre nous, the fox 
 
 that's sure to claim him.) 
 
 Thou too shalt rank with famous founts, (you note 
 
 how Horace hates himself) 
 For I shall be thy laureate; (thus modestly he rates 
 
 himself;) 
 I will immortalize thy rocks, (and now the light 
 
 that glowed is dun) 
 
 Thy babbling streams. (And, thank the Lord, the 
 
 babbling with this Ode is done!) 
 
PROLOG IN THE APPROVED MANNER 
 
 (to Maecenas) 
 Maecenas atavis edite regibus . . . Book I: Ode i 
 
 Lordly descendant of a royal line, 
 Whose love and honored patronage is mine, 
 Know you not how the varied types of men 
 Struggle, each with his own desires, and then 
 Count themselves kings — yes, gods are not more 
 
 blessed — 
 If by some trick of fate they pass the rest. 
 
 This man exults if fortune sweep him high 
 Where he may swagger in the public eye; 
 Another hopes to magnify his stores 
 With grain swept from the Libyan threshing- 
 floors. 
 He who delights to till his fertile fields 
 Is most concerned with what the farming yields 
 And would not change for things more hazardous, 
 Though tempted with the wealth of Attalus. 
 The merchant, dreading winds and angry seas, 
 Commends tranquillity and rural ease; 
 Another one (you may have heard of such) 
 Is not averse to Massic, and will touch 
 129 
 
130 Prolog in the Approved Manner 
 
 The lips of jars that hold it while he may; 
 Draining and dreaming through the longest day. 
 One quaffs it lying by some sacred stream, 
 Another stretched on roses loved to dream. . . . 
 
 The camp, the sound of trumpets as they blend 
 With clarions and cries, with wars that rend 
 A thousand mothers' hearts with fresh despair, 
 Are things for which a nation seems to care. 
 The huntsman, deaf to his neglected spouse, 
 Creeps in the cold and shuns his own warm house, 
 Whether by dogs a hart is held to view, 
 Or some wild Marsian boar has broken through 
 The fine-wrought net which he has torn askew. 
 
 For me the ivy, emblem that I love, 
 
 Ranks me an equal with the gods above. 
 
 For me the placid groves and cool retreats 
 
 Where never throngs disturb the woodland streets, 
 
 But where the Nymphs and Satyrs dancing light 
 
 Add a new glory to the splendid night. 
 
 These will I sing until my battered lute 
 
 Is still and Polyhymnia's lyre is mute. 
 
 Thus will I seek for favor in your eyes, 
 
 And if with lyric bards you say I rise 
 
 My head shall grow until it scrapes the skies. 
 
SPRING SUMMONS 
 
 Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris . . . Book I: Ode 4 
 
 When breezes kiss the lips of Spring, 
 
 And ships again at anchor ride, 
 The plowman leaves his hearth to sing 
 And wander through the countryside, 
 Where daisies glow 
 Like drifts of snow, 
 And fields below are white and wide. 
 
 At night the playful moonbeams dance 
 
 With Venus and her rosy train; 
 
 The kiss of flute and lyre enchants 
 
 The Nymphs upon each mossy plain, 
 
 Whose feet repeat 
 
 The rhythmic beat 
 
 And help complete the magic strain. 
 
 Come then, this is the joyous time, 
 
 The time beloved by god and man ; 
 Awake, this is the glad year's prime; 
 Awake and, in the name of Pan, 
 Anoint with wine 
 The sacred shrine 
 Where wreaths entwine the gift we plan. 
 131 
 
132 Spring Summons 
 
 Live well to-day. Time will not wait, 
 Nor Death the slightest favor show 
 At hovel or the castle-gate. 
 
 And when thine hour striketh — lo, 
 The light shall pass . . . 
 No more the glass 
 Nor lad nor lass for thee shall glow. 
 
THE MODEST HOST 
 
 Vile potabis modicis Sabinum 
 cantharis . . . Book I: Ode 20 
 
 These cups of mine are neither large nor rare, 
 My joys are simple ; humble, too, my fare. 
 That day the theater hailed thee with a sign 
 Of wildest welcome, this poor Sabine wine, 
 In Grecian casks, I did myself prepare. 
 
 Yet though, my patron knight, thou mayest with prayer 
 Extol the seasoned Caecuban and swear 
 To touch no poorer wine ; do not decline 
 These cups of mine. 
 
 And though my cellar-shelves are always bare 
 Of sweet Falernian, and the vessels there 
 
 Contain weak juices that may seem like brine 
 When tasted after vintages like thine — 
 Come, dear Maecenas ; come, and dare to share 
 These cups of mine. 
 
 133 
 
THE WARRIOR RETURNS 
 
 Et ture et fidibus iwvat 
 placare . . . Book I: Ode 36 
 
 Now see the sacrifice leap up to heaven, 
 
 Greeting the gods as their vision is thrilled ; 
 Hear what new songs to the lyre are given, 
 
 While the warm blood of a heifer is spilled. 
 Even the dumb things their gladness are voicing; 
 
 For from the ultimate limits of Spain 
 Numida comes to the sounds of rejoicing, 
 
 Comes to his home and his comrades again 
 
 Come then, bring the jars 
 
 Full of bubbling glories ; 
 Let us shake the stars 
 
 With our songs and stories. 
 Pour the laughing wine 
 
 Borne by this Liburnian; 
 Mix with Surrentine, 
 
 Massic and Falernian. 
 
 Let the jocund dance 
 
 Cease not till the morning, 
 
 And let wreaths enhance 
 Nature's own adorning. 
 134 
 
The Warrior Returns 135 
 
 Where the parsley shows, 
 
 Strew the daffodilly ; 
 Lavishing the rose 
 
 And the short-lived lily. 
 
 Feast your swimming eyes 
 
 On this floral palace 
 And its fairest prize, 
 
 The divine Damalis. 
 Lo, how soft she sings 
 
 In this leafy cover, 
 And like ivy clings 
 
 To her latest lover . . . 
 
 Now see the sacrifice leap up to heaven, 
 
 Greeting the gods as their vision is thrilled; 
 Hear tvhat new songs to the lyre are given 
 
 While the warm blood of a heifer is spilled. 
 Even the dumb things their gladness are voicing; 
 
 For from the ultimate limits of Spain 
 Numida comes to the sounds of rejoicing, 
 
 Comes to his home and his comrades again! 
 
THE TOAST 
 
 Natis in usum laetitiae scyphis 
 
 pugnare Thracem est . . . Book I: Ode 27 
 
 To brawl and quarrel over wine 
 And, drugged with dissipation, 
 To strike in anger, and decline 
 The toast is rude, is base, — in fine, 
 It's downright Thracian. 
 
 Let songs uncurl the scornful lip ; 
 
 Let verses, light or classic, 
 Regale the board ; let dancers trip . . . 
 Here, try these peacock's tongues, and sip 
 This rare old Massic. 
 
 Come, toast the one that rules your heart; 
 
 A truce to idle lying. 
 Blessed are the wounds that ache and smart 
 When some fair Chloe speeds the dart 
 Of which you're dying. 
 
 Who needs excuse his love or make 
 
 Apologies for passion ? 
 The heavy bonds that none can break 
 I weave in pleasing chains ; so take 
 Yours in this fashion. 
 136 
 
The Toast 137 
 
 Come then, her name. What! Is it she? . . . 
 
 Alas, my lad, I fear a 
 Fate will be yours none dare foresee. 
 What god can save you, set you free 
 From this chimera! 
 
CLEOPATRA'S DEATH 
 
 Nunc est vibendum . . . Book I: Ode 37 
 
 Now let us drink and tread the earth 
 
 With dancing mirth. 
 Now, comrades, let us open up 
 
 The rare wine stored away so long, 
 And raise, with many a glowing cup, 
 
 A thankful and victorious song. 
 
 A short time since all men had seen 
 
 The Ethiop Queen 
 Plotting to rule on land and sea; 
 
 Sending fresh ships on every wave, 
 To flood fair Rome with savagery 
 
 And turn the Empire to a grave. 
 
 But soon her madness was dispelled. 
 
 Her hopes were quelled 
 When all her ships went up in flame 
 And Caesar, giving swift pursuit, 
 Brought back her reason as she came 
 Nearer the shores she left to loot. 
 138 
 
Cleopatra's Death 139 
 
 Hot as the hunter out to stalk 
 
 The hare ; or hawk 
 After a pigeon, Caesar swept 
 
 To make his triumph greater still. 
 But, scorning chains, she never wept 
 
 Or shrank from her majestic will. 
 
 She smiled at death and dared to grasp 
 
 The deadly asp. 
 Ruined and lost, she never mourned; 
 
 She let the poison have its way. 
 Unqueened, she kept her throne, and scorned 
 
 To make a Roman holiday. 
 
THE GHOST OF ARCHYTAS 
 (in professor conington's strictest manner) 
 
 Tg maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenae . . . 
 
 Book I: Ode 28 
 
 A SAILOR SPEAKS: 
 
 Oh you who circled every sea 
 
 Who knew each mile of foreign strand, 
 Oh, Archytas, and can it be 
 
 That for the lack of grains of sand, 
 
 Your soul from Heaven's realm is banned 
 To haunt the shore eternally. 
 
 Aye, though in life your spirit flew 
 In fancy over earth and sky, 
 
 What good was it, since even you 
 Were doomed to die. 
 
 And thus did Pelops' father lie — 
 
 He who was Heaven's favored guest; 
 And thus Tithonus faced the sky 
 Although Aurora loved him best; 
 And Minos, though he was possessed 
 Of Jove's own secrets, lived to die. 
 Aye, in some bleak Tartarean hole, 
 
 The son of Panthous is confined — 
 Of what avail his warlike soul, 
 His noble mind? 
 140 
 
The Ghost of Archytas 141 
 
 The selfsame night awaits us all; 
 
 The road of Death all mortals tread. 
 On fields of carnage many fall, 
 
 The sport and toy of Mars, the dread; 
 
 Others in ocean caves lie dead. 
 For, in a mingled funeral, 
 
 The young and old together lie ; 
 
 No mortal cheats the fates — not one ; 
 
 Proserpine's all-watchful eye 
 Is blind to none. 
 
 THE SHADE REPLIES! 
 
 The South wind, warm Orion's mate, 
 
 Has sunk me 'neath th'Illyrian wave, 
 And here in this unhallowed state 
 
 I seek the comfort of a grave. 
 
 Oh scatter sand on me and save 
 My spirit ere it be too late. 
 
 So shall your soul be comforted 
 
 And ne'er a wind shall do you harm, 
 
 But blessings be upon your head 
 While you lie warm. 
 
 So shall you profit by the winds 
 
 And reap what fortunes you may please; 
 For he who has Jove's favor finds 
 
 The love of Neptune on the seas. 
 
 But do not flout these obsequies 
 
142 The Ghost of Archytas 
 
 Or you will blast your children's minds ; 
 For such a grave iniquity 
 
 No expiation can atone . . . 
 So sprinkle sand thrice over me — 
 And then begone. 
 
TO THE (ROMAN) SHIP OF STATE 
 
 O navis, referent in mare te novi 
 
 fluctusf O quid agis? . . . Book I: Ode 14 
 
 Proud Ship, the waves and winds conspire 
 
 To drag you back to sea. 
 O, gain the port that we desire; 
 
 Ride swiftly, lest you be 
 
 A hopeless wreck ; for even now 
 
 Devoid of oars you sail, 
 Your mast is bent and weak (a blow 
 
 Dealt by a foreign gale) . 
 
 And see the signs that from each spar 
 
 A dire destruction spell: 
 Your sails in tattered ribbons are 
 
 That catch the breezes' swell. 
 
 Your keel shows lines of swift decay; 
 
 Your cables all are bare ; 
 No gods are left to whom you may 
 
 Turn with a frenzied prayer. 
 
 Of Pontic pine, you boast, you came, 
 
 Reared in a noble wood ; 
 Think you that this will ever tame 
 
 The tempest's angry mood? 
 
 141 
 
144 To the (Roman) Ship of State 
 
 'Tis little courage sailors find 
 In neatly-painted boats. 
 
 Beware then, lest the howling wind 
 Hurls back the boastful notes. 
 
 Oh, You who are my grief and care, 
 Turn back to calmer seas. 
 
 Beware, oh precious Ship, beware 
 The shining Cyclades. 
 
TO MERCURY 
 
 Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis . . . Book I: Ode 10 
 
 Bright grandson of old Atlas, thrice-eloquent of 
 tongue, 
 Who raised the early races by the graces of your art, 
 With oratory noble and the splendid gift of song, 
 Who wrought a thousand wonders and reformed 
 the savage heart, 
 
 I sing of you, light messenger of Jove and all the 
 gods — 
 The parent of the lyre and the higher lord of theft ; 
 Who smiles on his disciples, and in spite of all the 
 odds, 
 Who seizes what he pleases and then smiles when 
 nothing's left. 
 
 Once when you were a little boy, Apollo in a rage, 
 (His oxen having vanished as though banished 
 from the sun) 
 Knowing your mischiefs, threatened you, not thinking 
 of your age, 
 Then of a sudden stopped and laughed — his quiver 
 too had gone! 
 
 M5 
 
146 To Mercury 
 
 And it was you whose guidance and whose mighty 
 power led 
 The wealthy Priam when he left the many walls of 
 Troy; 
 Deceived the sons of Atreus and saved his hoary head 
 By stealing through the camp which Trojans never 
 could destroy. 
 
 You are companion to the soul, conductor of the dead ; 
 
 The evil spirits cower at the power of your rod ; 
 The airy throngs to soft abodes eternally are led 
 
 By you, who are the favorite of each and every god. 
 
TO VIRGIL 
 
 Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus 
 tarn cari capitis f . . . Book I: Ode 24 
 
 O weep and wail — there is no shame in weeping. 
 
 What bounds can measure grief for one so dear? 
 Melpomene, arise, thy wild harp sweeping 
 
 And teach me songs of sadness and the bier. 
 
 And does Quintilius sleep eternal slumbers? 
 
 O Justice, pious Modesty, and Fear — 
 Intrepid Truth, though Life has valiant numbers, 
 
 When shall ye ever hope to find his peer? 
 
 Aye, though he died, amid a throng lamentous, 
 By none, my Virgil, better wept than you, 
 
 In vain you ask him back; he was not lent us 
 On any terms but what the gods endue. 
 
 Aye, though you strike the lyre with wilder sobbing 
 And sweeter sighs than Orpheus of Thrace, 
 
 You cannot set one drop of life-blood throbbing 
 
 Or bring one blush to that poor, pallid face. 
 
 147 
 
148 To Virgil 
 
 For Mercury, impervious to stations, 
 
 Cannot reverse the fates that placed him there ; 
 
 And though the blow is deep, 'twill heal with 
 patience. 
 For what we cannot change we learn to bear. 
 
TO VENUS 
 
 O Venus, regina Cnidi Paphique . . . Book I: Ode 30 
 
 Come Venus, Cnidian-Paphian queen, 
 
 Leave Cyprus for a while, 
 And haste where Glycera may be seen 
 Invoking thee with incense, e'en 
 To win thy smile. 
 
 Bring Cupid and the Graces three 
 
 To fan thy fires, 
 Ungirdled Nymphs, and Mercury — 
 And buoyant Youth that, without thee, 
 No maid desires. 
 
 149 
 
TO HIS LYRE 
 
 Poscimur. Si quid vacui sub umbra 
 lusimus tecum . . . Book I: Ode 32 
 
 Now we are called upon. O lyre, 
 
 If ever we in secret here 
 Have sung one strain that men admire 
 
 And may outlive the passing year, 
 I pray thee tune the throbbing wire 
 
 From which my dearest songs have flowed, 
 And let me build for my desire 
 A Latin ode. 
 
 A Lesbian poet showed us first 
 
 Thy passion and thy fluent power; 
 And in the battle's lust and thirst, 
 
 Or quiet of the calmer hour, 
 He swept the silent strings ; he versed 
 
 The lovely Venus in her pride ; 
 Or showed us Cupid being nursed 
 Close at her side. 
 150 
 
To His Lyre 15 1 
 
 He chanted Bacchus wondrously; 
 
 And, when the Muses' praise was sung, 
 Extolled the black-eyed Lycus, he 
 
 Who was so delicate and young . . . 
 O thou who art and e'er wilt be 
 
 The charm and the delight of all, 
 Come and be gracious unto me — 
 Answer the call. 
 
TO APOLLO 
 
 Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem 
 <vates? . . . Book I: Ode 31 
 
 Lord of all the lyrists, hear the poet's supplication. 
 
 See, before the temple that is hallowed in thy sight, 
 From the flowing flagon I will pour the first libation ; 
 
 Phoebus, Lord Apollo, hear my fervid prayer aright. 
 
 Grant me neither goodly crops from fertile, far 
 Sardinia, 
 Nor the wealth of countless herds from scorched 
 Calabrian strands, 
 Ivory from Indian caskets, gold from Carthaginia, 
 Nor the towns where silently the Liris lips the 
 sands. 
 
 Let the favored nobles who to Fortune are beholden 
 For their purple vineyards prune them with a 
 crooked knife; 
 Let the wealthy merchants drink from goblets carved 
 and golden; 
 Grant me but the boon of living; let me know the 
 strength of life. 
 
 152 
 
To Apollo 153 
 
 Let me walk unto the end, erect, with brow unclouded ; 
 
 Let my years be sonant with the sweeping of the 
 
 lyre. 
 
 And, when I am less than dust and all the urns are 
 
 shrouded, 
 
 May the singing echo even when the songs expire. 
 
A COMPLACENT RONDEAU REDOUBLE 
 
 Musis amicus tristitiam et metus 
 
 tradam frotervis in mare ...» Book I : Ode 26 
 
 The Muses love me, and I am content, 
 For naught to me is either grief or fear; 
 
 The winds will sweep them into banishment, 
 The sea will drag them to a briny bier. 
 
 Let others quail and, trembling, force the tear, 
 And cringe, with looks that on the ground are 
 bent; 
 
 Let all the angry powers of earth appear, 
 The Muses love me — and I am content. 
 
 What though the days of joy are only lent, 
 What though the skies are overcast and drear ; 
 
 I care not if the thundering heavens be rent, 
 For naught to me is either grief or fear. 
 
 Come then, bright-hearted nymph from brooklets 
 clear, 
 A garland for my Lamia weave ; nor vent 
 Thy proud disdain upon my verses here — 
 The winds will sweep them into banishment. 
 iS4 
 
A Complacent Rondeau Redouble 155 
 
 O, come with perfumed words from Venus sent 
 And twine a golden couplet for our cheer. 
 
 (Mind not the cares that mar our merriment; 
 The sea will drag them to a briny bier). 
 
 Attune my strings and so, for many a year, 
 
 Singing of thee I will be diligent; 
 And even when the leaves of life are sere, 
 
 One thought will cheer me when all else is spent : 
 The Muses love me. 
 
HALF IN EARNEST 
 
 Exegi monumentum aere -perennius . . . Book III: Ode 30 
 
 My work is done, a monument sublime, 
 A thing outliving brass ; 
 One that the pyramids cannot surpass, 
 Untouched by the corroding rains of Time. 
 
 The flight of ages, the parade of years, 
 Will gently pass me by; 
 For, buried though I be, I cannot die — 
 I shall escape the death-bed's final fears. 
 
 Fresh with each generation's lavish praise 
 My work and I shall grow, 
 Until at last the world of men will know 
 The living magic of these deathless lays. 
 
 Until at last they recognize in me 
 One of the first to give 
 Soul to the lyric, stuff to make it live . . . 
 So come and crown me, O Melpomene. 
 
 156 
 
" I CELEBRATE MYSELF " 
 
 Non usitata nee tenui ferar . . . Book II: Ode 20 
 
 Before I end this glorious batch 
 
 Of deathless verses, friend Maecenas, 
 
 I've something still to add, to snatch 
 One laurel more to share between us. 
 
 (I mention all of this to no man 
 
 Except perhaps a friend— or Roman.) 
 
 Now that my time has come to die 
 (Within a score or two of years) 
 
 I wish to have it known that I 
 
 Will gladly leave this vale of tears, 
 
 Because (and how my friends will chortle!) 
 
 I shall be more than just immortal. 
 
 Into the clear and boundless air 
 
 I shall ascend with sounding pinions, 
 
 Shouting a buoyant " I-don't-care," 
 
 Laughing at kings and their dominions. 
 
 And folks will say (and well you know it) 
 
 Q. Flaccus? Ah, he was a poet! 
 157 
 
158 "1 Celebrate Myself" 
 
 My wings shall sprout. Why, even now 
 I feel all creepy and absurdlike ; 
 
 My skin is roughening somehow, 
 My legs are positively birdlike. 
 
 And see — sure as I'm growing older — 
 
 Feathers and quills on either shoulder! 
 
 Thus shall I fly about as long 
 As I've the slightest inclination, 
 
 A veritable Bird-of-Song 
 Without a local habitation. 
 
 Like Icarus I'll travel surely 
 
 And (need I say it?) more securely. 
 
 From where the Dacian hides in shame 
 To where the river Rhone runs muddy, 
 
 All men will celebrate my name, 
 My works will constitute a Study. 
 
 I shall be loved by people pat in 
 
 The ways of elementary Latin. 
 
 Then let there be no dirge for me, 
 No petty grief nor lamentation; 
 
 Why weep for one who's sure to be 
 A joy and honor to creation ! 
 
 Ah, you're a lucky man, by Venus, 
 
 To have a friend like me, Maecenas, 
 
INDEX OF THE ODES 
 
 BOOK ODE PAGE 
 
 I i 129 
 
 4 x 3* 
 
 5 84 
 
 6 68 
 
 8 73. 74 
 
 9 106 
 
 10 145 
 
 11 9, 119 
 
 13 85, 87 
 
 14 x 43 
 
 16 89 
 
 17 104 
 
 18 117 
 
 19 88 
 
 20 133 
 
 21 108 
 
 22 3-45 
 
 23 70, 71 
 
 24 147 
 
 25 76 
 
 26 154 
 
 27 136 
 
 28 140 
 
 29 98 
 
 30 149 
 
 31 J 52 
 
 32 150 
 
 33 6o, 62 
 
 36 *34 
 
 37 x 38 
 
 38 112-114 
 
 BOOK ODE PAGE 
 
 II 2 I20 
 
 4 54 
 
 8 64 
 
 10 122 
 
 " 49 
 
 14 125 
 
 20 157 
 
 HI 7 50 
 
 8 102 
 
 9 56 
 
 10 66 
 
 12 82 
 
 13 127 
 
 15 52, 53 
 
 18 94 
 
 20 72 
 
 21 115 
 
 22 109 
 
 26 58 
 
 28 93 
 
 30 156 
 
 IV 1 96 
 
 11 80 
 
 12 91 
 
 13 78 
 
 Epode 7 123 
 
 10 no 
 
 14 100 
 
 15 83