TO PHIDYLE (HOR. III. 23) INCENSE, and flesh of swine, and this year's grain, At the new moon, with suppliant hands, bestow, More than rich gifts the Powers it shall appease, FOR TO HIS BOOK (HOR., EP. I. 20) OR mart and street you seem to pine I reared you up for no such fate. But mind, you can't come back, you know! "What have I done?" I hear you cry, And writhe beneath some critic's eye; "What did I want?"—when, scarce polite, They do but yawn, and roll you tight. And yet methinks, if I may guess (Putting aside your heartlessness In leaving me and this your home), You should find favour, too, at Rome. That is, they'll like you while you're young, When you are old, you'll pass among The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped, Or Utica, for banishment! And I, whose counsel you disdain, Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule. But go. When on warm days you see In peace and war, and pleased the town, Or was, the year that over us FOR A COPY OF HERRICK MANY days have come and gone, Many suns have set and shone, HERRICK, since thou sang'st of Wake, And thy numbers are of gold! WITH A VOLUME OF VERSE ABOUT the ending of the Ramadán, When leanest grows the famished Mussulman, A haggard ne'er-do-well, Mahmoud by name, At the tenth hour to Caliph OMAR came. "Lord of the Faithful (quoth he), at the last The long moon waneth, and men cease to fast; Hard then, O hard! the lot of him must be, Who spares to eat . . . but not for piety!" "Hast thou no calling, Friend?"—the Caliph said. "Sir, I make verses for my daily bread." "Verse!"-answered OMAR. ""Tis a dish, indeed, Whereof but scantily a man may feed. Go. Learn the Tenter's or the Potter's Art,—— Verse is a drug not sold in any mart." I know not if that hungry Mahmoud died; |