Short Poems

Of course you envy all I write or do,
But that is pardonable in a Jew:
You steal the verse you sneer about; this too
Is naught and shows some wisdom for a Jew.
But now you dare my loved one to pursue,
Must I endure that insult from a Jew?
You swear by Jove you do not? That's untrue:
Swear by your Syrian gods, you perjured Jew!

He said you were a vicious man? He lied:
You're not a man, you're vice personified.

'T WAS evening ere I got a mile from town,
Yet I am not the sluggard that you thought me.
To your account the fault is written down;
Remember, Paetus, 'twas your mules that brought me!

Though so lengthy a book should your taste satisfy,
You have asked me for more: but my household will cry
For some food, and the usurer's drained me quite dry;
So reader … you see what I mean to imply?
You are silent and don't understand me? Good bye!

The great refuse you little loans? Then press
For great ones, so refusal shames one less.

Naught will you give me while you live;
You'll leave your wealth to me?
Then if you're sane, it must be plain
What my desire will be.

TO-DAY your birthday board to grace
You ask a horde of guests to dine.
In other years an honoured place—
And none disputed it—was mine;
You bid me come to-morrow? Nay,
Let ‘friends,’ with whom I am not classed,
Observe the feast, but must I pay
With presents for a feast that's past?

I KNOW not what you write to girls, and yet—
I know the answer that you never get.

She never giveSherself for love? No doubt.
She has to buy her loves or do without!

He hopes that you may have a son, he says;
A silly lie, there's naught he wishes less;
This is the fortune-hunter's trick—he prays
For what, if granted, would his soul distress;
Just watch the rascal blench if you profess
That your Cosconia expects an heir:
And let your will suggest that all success
(How he will rave!) attended on his prayer.