Something Else Again. Franklin P. Adams
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 Bandusiæ, 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"
Mæcenas, 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 quæsieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi"
AD LEUCONOEN
Look not, Leuconoë, 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 cælo 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, Neæra, 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