Something Else Again. Franklin P. Adams
Suppose I promise to be good?
I'd love you, Lyd. I'll say I would.
LYDIA:
Though Charley's good and handsome—oh, boy! And you're a stormy, fickle doughboy, Go give the Hun his final whack, And I'll marry you when you come back.
From: Horace
To: Phyllis
Subject: Invitation
Book IV, Ode 11
"Est mihi nonum superantis annum——"
Phyllis, I've a jar of wine,
(Alban, BC 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, Mæcenas.
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 Phaëton—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 Chloë
Horace: Book I, Ode 23
"Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloë——"
Why shun me, my Chloë? 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 nequitiæ fige modum tuæ——"
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 Pholoë may fool around (she dances like a doe!)
A débutante 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 Pholoë, 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 Pholoë 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 Æolian 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 sæva 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