Chapter 1

"_Est mihi nonum superantis annum----_"

Phyllis, I've a jar of wine, (Alban, B. C. 49), Parsley wreaths, and, for your tresses, Ivy that your beauty blesses.

Shines my house with silverware; Frondage decks the altar stair-- Sacred vervain, a device For a lambkin's sacrifice.

Up and down the household stairs What a festival prepares! Everybody's superintending-- See the sooty smoke ascending!

What, you ask me, is the date Of the day we celebrate? 13th April, month of Venus-- Birthday of my boss, Maecenas.

Let me, Phyllis, say a word Touching Telephus, a bird Ranking far too high above you; (And the loafer doesn't love you).

Lessons, Phyllie, may be learned From Phaeton--how he was burned! And recall Bellerophon was One equestrian who thrown was.

Phyllis, of my loves the last, My philandering days are past. Sing you, in your clear contralto, Songs I write for the rialto.

Advising Chloe

Horace: Book I, Ode 23

_"Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloe----"_

Why shun me, my Chloe? Nor pistol nor bowie Is mine with intention to kill. And yet like a llama you run to your mamma; You tremble as though you were ill.

No lion to rend you, no tiger to end you, I'm tame as a bird in a cage. That counsel maternal can run for _The Journal_-- You get me, I guess.... You're of age.

To An Aged Cut-up

Horace: Book III, Ode 15

I

"_Uxor pauperis Ibyci, Tandem nequitiae fige modum tuae----_"

IN CHLORIN

Dear Mrs. Ibycus, accept a little sound advice, Your manners and your speech are over-bold; To chase around the sporty way you do is far from nice; Believe me, darling, you are growing old.

Now Pholoe may fool around (she dances like a doe!) A debutante has got to think of men; But you were twenty-seven over thirty years ago-- You ought to be asleep at half-past ten.

O Chloris, cut the ragging and the roses and the rum-- Delete the drink, or better, chop the booze! Go buy a skein of yarn and make the knitting needles hum, And imitate the art of Sister Suse.

II

Chloris, lay off the flapper stuff; What's fit for Pholoe, a fluff, Is not for Ibycus's wife-- A woman at your time of life!

Ignore, old dame, such pleasures as The shimmy and "the Bacchus Jazz"; Your presence with the maidens jars-- You are the cloud that dims the stars.

Your daughter Pholoe may stay Out nights upon the Appian Way; Her love for Nothus, as you know, Makes her as playful as a doe.

No jazz for you, no jars of wine, No rose that blooms incarnadine. For one thing only are you fit: Buy some Lucerian wool--and knit!

His Monument

Horace: Book III, Ode 30

"_Exegi monumentum aere perennius----_"

The monument that I have built is durable as brass, And loftier than the Pyramids which mock the years that pass. Nor blizzard can destroy it, nor furious rain corrode-- Remember, I'm the bard that built the first Horatian ode.

I shall not altogether die; a part of me's immortal. A part of me shall never pass the mortuary portal; And when I die my fame shall stand the nitric test of time-- The fame of me of lowly birth, who built the lofty rhyme!

Ay, fame shall be my portion when no trace there is of me, For I first made AEolian songs the songs of Italy. Accept I pray, Melpomene, my modest meed of praise, And crown my thinning, graying locks with wreaths of Delphic bays!

Glycera Rediviva!

Horace: Book I, Ode 19

"_Mater saeva Cupidinum_"

Venus, the cruel mother of The Cupids (symbolising Love), Bids me to muse upon and sigh For things to which I've said "Good-bye!"

Believe me or believe me not, I give this Glycera girl a lot: Pure Parian marble are her arms-- And she has eighty other charms.

Venus has left her Cyprus home And will not let me pull a pome About the Parthians, fierce and rough, The Scythian war, and all that stuff.

Set up, O slaves, a verdant shrine! Uncork a quart of last year's wine! Place incense here, and here verbenas, And watch me while I jolly Venus!

On a Wine of Horace's

What time I read your mighty line, O Mr. Q. Horatius Flaccus, In praise of many an ancient wine-- You twanged a wicked lyre to Bacchus!-- I wondered, like a Yankee hick, If that old stuff contained a kick.

So when upon a Paris card I glimpsed Falernian, I said: "Waiter, I'll emulate that ancient bard, And pass upon his merits later." Professor Mendell, _quelque_ sport, Suggested that we split a quart.

O Flaccus, ere I ceased to drink Three glasses and a pair of highballs, I could not talk; I could not think; For I was pickled to the eyeballs. 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 god 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