Short Poems

You snatched that half-burned incense from the fire,
Stole cinnamon and nard from bier and pyre,
Your myrrh and cassia have tainted breath.
Restore, polluted knave, your spoils to Death;
Small wonder that your hands have learned to cheat;
Slave, runaway, they learned it from your feet.

Though from the painted Britons Claudia came,
Her noble soul befits the Roman race,
Her kinship dames of Italy might claim,
Greeks laud her beauty; and by heaven's grace
Offspring she hath, so ere her lovely face
Hath lost its youth, they too shall wed, and she
Loving her lord, in him shall ever place
Her trust, rejoicing in her children three.

Childless and rich and of an age untold,
Can these new friends be true as were the old
When you were young ere wealth had come to you?
Nay, 'tis your will that's courted by the new.

You ask for lively epigrams, but give
Themes dull and dead—no art could make them live.
If Attic bees were fed upon a field
Of bitter herbs, what honey would they yield?

He bought a slave to drive his mule
And paid a thousand—what a fool!
The slave is deaf—all hearing gone—
The buyer was a Solomon!

Why gird a jewel with a pound of gold?
Poor Sardonyx, 'tis smothered I declare!
Nay, Zoilus, a finger cannot bear
The weight you bore upon your leg of old.

J ULIUS , a pearl should mark the day whereon
Heaven gave you life in answer to my prayer;
Now joy is deeper for the dread that's gone,
Less glad are they who never knew despair;
Hypnus, you sluggard, pour a vintage rare,
This festal day my oldest cask may claim,
And I would quaff and you, my slave, shall share
A draught to every letter of his name.

Of all the guests you ask to dine
I know not one, so I decline;
Why should you grumble? 'Tis not rude
To hate a crowded solitude.

A PER has bought a ruin foul
Too grimy for the moping owl,
A cunning rogue is he;
Hard by doth wealthy Maro dwell,
So Aper looks to board right well,
Though vile his lodging be.

How oft the green hath won! ‘Aye’, envy saith,
‘By Nero's favour were the rest undone’
Doth Nero's favour then outlive his death?
For since he died more palms the green hath won!