Her supple waist, her arm from Venus came,
Hebe her nose and lip confess,
And, looking in her eyes, you guess
Her name.
(Expanded from an Epigram of Piron)
TELLA, 'tis not your dainty head,
Your artless look, I own;
'Tis not your dear coquettish tread,
Or this, or that, alone;
Nor is it all your gifts combined;
'Tis something in your face,—
The untranslated, undefined,
Uncertainty of grace,
That taught the Boy on Ida's hill
To whom the meed was due;
All three have equal charms-but still
This one I give it to !
INCENSE, and flesh of swine, and this year's
At the new moon, with suppliant hands, bestow,
O rustic Phidyle! So naught shall know
Thy crops of blight, thy vine of Afric bane,
And hale the nurslings of thy flock remain
Through the sick apple-tide. Fit victims grow
"Twixt holm and oak upon the Algid snow,
Or Alban grass, that with their necks must stain
The Pontiff's axe: to thee can scarce avail
Thy modest gods with much slain to assail,
Whom myrtle crowns and rosemary can please.
Lay on the altar a hand pure of fault;
More than rich gifts the Powers it shall appease,
Though pious but with meal and crackling salt.
FOR mart and strlar yos, Book of mine!
'OR mart and street you seem to pine
Still craving on some stall to stand,
Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand.
You chafe at locks, and burn to quit
Your modest haunt and audience fit
For hearers less discriminate.
I reared you up for no such fate.
Still, if you must be published, go;
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,
Be fretted of slow moths, unread,
Or to Ilerda you'll be sent,
Or Utica, for banishment!
And I, whose counsel you disdain,
At that your lot shall laugh anıain,
Wryly, as he who, like a fool,
Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule.
Nay! there is worse behind. In age
They e'en may take your babbling page
In some remotest "slum" to teach
Mere boys their rudiments of speech!
When on warm days you see
A chance of listeners, speak of me.
Tell them I soared from low estate,
A freedman's son, to higher fate
(That is, make up to me in worth
What you must take in point of birth);
Then tell them that I won renown
In peace and war, and pleased the town,
Paint me as early gray, and one
Little of stature, fond of sun,
Quick-tempered, too,—but nothing more.
Add (if they ask) I'm forty-four,
Or was, the year that over us
Both Lollius ruled and Lepidus.
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