LITMIR.BIZ

      Mæcenas, you will be my death,—though friendly you profess yourself,—

      If to me in a strain like this so often you address yourself:

      "Come, Holly, why this laziness? Why indolently shock you us?

      Why with Lethean cups fall into desuetude innocuous?"

      A god, Mæcenas! yea, a god hath proved the very curse of me!

      If my iambics are not done, pray, do not think the worse of me;

      Anacreon for young Bathyllus burned without apology,

      And wept his simple measures on a sample of conchology.

      Now, you yourself, Mæcenas, are enjoying this beatitude;

      If by no brighter beauty Ilium fell, you've cause for gratitude.

      A certain Phryne keeps me on the rack with lovers numerous;

      This is the artful hussy's neat conception of the humorous!

      You ask me, friend,

      Why I don't send

      The long since due-and-paid-for numbers;

      Why, songless, I

      As drunken lie

      Abandoned to Lethean slumbers.

      Long time ago

      (As well you know)

      I started in upon that carmen;

      My work was vain,—

      But why complain?

      When gods forbid, how helpless are men!

      Some ages back,

      The sage Anack

      Courted a frisky Samian body,

      Singing her praise

      In metered phrase

      As flowing as his bowls of toddy.

      Till I was hoarse

      Might I discourse

      Upon the cruelties of Venus;

      'T were waste of time

      As well of rhyme,

      For you've been there yourself, Mæcenas!

      Perfect your bliss

      If some fair miss

      Love you yourself and not your minæ;

      I, fortune's sport,

      All vainly court

      The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne!

      O ship of state

      Shall new winds bear you back upon the sea?

      What are you doing? Seek the harbor's lee

      Ere 't is too late!

      Do you bemoan

      Your side was stripped of oarage in the blast?

      Swift Africus has weakened, too, your mast;

      The sailyards groan.

      Of cables bare,

      Your keel can scarce endure the lordly wave.

      Your sails are rent; you have no gods to save,

      Or answer pray'r.

      Though Pontic pine,

      The noble daughter of a far-famed wood,

      You boast your lineage and title good,—

      A useless line!

      The sailor there

      In painted sterns no reassurance finds;

      Unless you owe derision to the winds,

      Beware—beware!

      My grief erewhile,

      But now my care—my longing! shun the seas

      That flow between the gleaming Cyclades,

      Each shining isle.

      The hero of

      Affairs of love

      By far too numerous to be mentioned,

      And scarred as I'm,

      It seemeth time

      That I were mustered out and pensioned.

      So on this wall

      My lute and all

      I hang, and dedicate to Venus;

      And I implore

      But one thing more

      Ere all is at an end between us.

      O goddess fair

      Who reignest where

      The weather's seldom bleak and snowy,

      This boon I urge:

      In anger scourge

      My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!

      You, who have compassed land and sea,

      Now all unburied lie;

      All vain your store of human lore,

      For you were doomed to die.

      The sire of Pelops likewise fell,—

      Jove's honored mortal guest;

      So king and sage of every age

      At last lie down to rest.

      Plutonian shades enfold the ghost

      Of that majestic one

      Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,

      Had once been Pentheus' son;

      Believe who may, he's passed away,

      And what he did is done.

      A last night comes alike to all;

      One path we all must tread,

      Through sore disease or stormy seas

      Or fields with corpses red.

      Whate'er our deeds, that pathway leads

      To regions of the dead.

      The fickle twin Illyrian gales

      Overwhelmed me on the wave;

      But you that live, I pray you give

      My bleaching bones a grave!

      Oh, then when cruel tempests rage

      You all unharmed shall be;

      Jove's mighty hand shall guard by land

      And Neptune's on the sea.

      Perchance you fear to do what may

      Bring evil to your race?

      Oh, rather fear that like me here

      You'll lack a burial place.

      So, though you be in proper haste,

      Bide long enough, I pray,

      To give me, friend, what boon shall send

      My soul upon its way!

      In maudlin spite let Thracians fight

      Above

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