Works

Grieve not, my Albius, if thoughts of Glycera may haunt you,
Nor chant your mournful elegies because she faithless proves;
If now a younger man than you this cruel charmer loves,...

Fuscus, whoso to good inclines,
And is a faultless liver,
Nor Moorish spear nor bow need fear,
Nor poison-arrowed quiver.

Ay, though through desert wastes he roam,
Or scale the rugged mountains,...

And thou, twin orbs of love and joy!
Unveil thy glories with the morn--
Dear eyes, another day is born--
Awake, O little sleeping boy!
Bright are the summer morning skies,
But in this quiet little room...

'Tis years, soubrette, since last we met;
And yet--ah, yet, how swift and tender
My thoughts go back in time's dull track
To you, sweet pink of female gender!
I shall not say--though others may--...

Aha! a traitor in the camp,
A rebel strangely bold,--
A lisping, laughing, toddling scamp,
Not more than four years old!

To think that I, who've ruled alone
So proudly in the past,...

If for your oath broken, or word lightly spoken,
A plague comes, Barine, to grieve you;
If on tooth or on finger a black mark shall linger
Your beauty to mar, I'll believe you.
...

Why do you shun me, Chloe, like the fawn,
That, fearful of the breezes and the wood,
Has sought her timorous mother since the dawn,
And on the pathless mountain tops has stood?
...

Chloe, you shun me like a hind
That, seeking vainly for her mother,
Hears danger in each breath of wind,
And wildly darts this way and t' other;

Whether the breezes sway the wood...

Cinna, the great Venusian told
In songs that will not die
How in Augustan days of old
Your love did glorify
His life and all his being seemed
Thrilled by that rare incense...

Dear Miller: You and I despise
The cad who gathers books to sell 'em,
Be they but sixteen-mos in cloth
Or stately folios garbed in vellum.

But when one fellow has a prize...

O virgin, tri-formed goddess fair,
The guardian of the groves and hills,
Who hears the girls in their despair
Cry out in childbirth's cruel ills,
And saves them from the Stygian flow!...

There--let thy hands be folded
Awhile in sleep's repose;
The patient hands that wearied not,
But earnestly and nobly wrought
In charity and faith;
And let thy dear eyes close--...

The cruel mother of the Loves,
And other Powers offended,
Have stirred my heart, where newly roves
The passion that was ended.

'T is Glycera, to boldness prone,
Whose radiant beauty fires me;...

You vain, self-conscious little book,
Companion of my happy days,
How eagerly you seem to look
For wider fields to spread your lays;
My desk and locks cannot contain you,...

If ever in the sylvan shade
A song immortal we have made,
Come now, O lute, I prithee come,
Inspire a song of Latium!

A Lesbian first thy glories proved;
In arms and in repose he loved...

Whereas, good friend, it doth appear
You do possess the notion
To his awhile away from here
To lands across the ocean;
Now, by these presents we would show
That, wheresoever wend you,...

What end the gods may have ordained for me,
And what for thee,
Seek not to learn, Leucon'e; we may not know.
Chaldean tables cannot bring us rest.
'T is for the best...

Seek not, Leucon'e, to know how long you're going to live yet,
What boons the gods will yet withhold, or what they're going to give yet;
For Jupiter will have his way, despite how much we worry,--...

Though mighty in Love's favor still,
Though cruel yet, my boy,
When the unwelcome dawn shall chill
Your pride and youthful joy,
The hair which round your shoulder grows
Is rudely cut away,...

O Cruel fair,
Whose flowing hair
The envy and the pride of all is,
As onward roll
The years, that poll
Will get as bald as a billiard ball is;
Then shall your skin, now pink and dimply,...