If you sopped up Falernian wine How did you ever write a line?
"What Flavour?"
Horace: Book III, Ode 13
_"O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro----"_
Worthy of flowers and syrups sweet, O fountain of Bandusian onyx, To-morrow shall a goatling"s bleat Mix with the sizz of thy carbonics.
A kid whose budding horns portend A life of love and war--but vainly!
For thee his sanguine life shall end-- He"ll spill his blood, to put it plainly.
And never shalt thou feel the heat That blazes in the days of Sirius, But men shall quaff thy soda sweet, And girls imbibe thy drinks delirious.
Fountain whose dulcet cool I sing, Be thou immortal by this Ode (a Not wholly meretricious thing), Bandusian fount of ice-cream soda!
The Stalling of Q. H. F.
Horace: Epode 14
_"Mollis inertia cur tantam diffuderit imis"_
Maecenas, you fret me, you worry me Demanding I turn out a rhyme; Insisting on reasons, you hurry me; You want my iambics on time.
You say my ambition"s diminishing; You ask why my poem"s not done.
The G.o.d it is keeps me from finishing The stuff I"ve begun.
Be not so persistent, so clamorous.
Anacreon burned with a flame Candescently, crescently amorous.
You rascal, you"re doing the same!
Was no fairer the flame that burned Ilium.
Cheer up, you"re a fortunate scamp, ... Consider avuncular William And Phryne, the vamp.
On the Flight of Time
Horace: Book I, Ode 2
"_Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi_"
AD LEUCONOEN
Look not, Leuconoe, into the future; Seek not to find what the Answer may be; Let no Chaldean clairvoyant compute your Time of existence.... It irritates me!
Better to bear what may happen soever Patiently, playing it through like a sport, Whether the end of your breathing is Never, Or, as is likely, your time will be short.
This is the angle, the true situation; Get me, I pray, for I"m putting you hep: While I"ve been fooling with versification Time has been flying.... Both gates!
Watch your step!
The Last Laugh
Horace: Epode 15
_"Nox erat et caelo fulgebat Luna sereno----"_
"How sweet the moonlight sleeps," I quoted, "Upon this bank!" that starry night-- The night you vowed you"d be devoted-- I"ll tell the world you held me tight.
The night you said until Orion Should cease to whip the wintry sea, Until the lamb should love the lion, You would, you swore, be all for me.
Some day, Neaera, you"ll be sorry.
No mollycoddle swain am I.
I shall not sit and pine, by gorry!
Because you"re with some other guy!
No, I shall turn my predilection Upon some truer, fairer Jane; And all your prayer and genuflexion For my return shall be in vain.
And as for _you_, who choose to sneer, O, Though deals in lands and stocks you swing, Though handsome as a movie hero, Though wise you are--and everything;
Yet, when the loss of her you"re mourning, How I shall laugh at all your woe!
How I"ll remind you of this warning, And laugh, "Ha! ha! I told you so!"
Again Endorsing the Lady
Book II, Elegy 2
_"Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto----"_
I
I was free. I thought that I had entered Love"s Antarctic Zone.
"A truce to sentiment," I said. "My nights shall be my own."