A line-o'-verse or two

Q·HORATIVS·FLACCUS
B· L· T·SVO·SALVTEM

 
HAEC·CARMINA·MI·VETVLE·QVAE
ME·IVVENE·PARVM·DILIGENTER
COMPOSITA·EXCIDERVNT·SENEX
REFICIENDA·LIMANDAQVE·IAM
DVDVM·EXISTIMO·QVOD·NVNC
DEMVM·FACTVM·EST·MIRARIS
FORTASSE·CVR·ANGLICE·RE
SCRIPSERIM·DESINES·MIRARI
CVM·DIXERO·SINE·FVCO·OPOR
TERE·POETA·ETIAM·VIVVS·NON
SOLVM·ACCOMMODEM·MEA·OPERA
AD·NORMAM·RECENTIORVM·TEM
PORVM·SED·ETIAM·VTAR·NEMPE
EA·LINGVA·QVAE·MAIORE·RE
SILIENDI·VT·ITA·DICAM·VI
PRAEDITA·VIDEATVR·VELIM
SINT·NOVI·VERSVS·TIBI·MVL
TO·IVCVNDIORES·QVAM·PRIS
CA·EXEMPLA
 
 
SCRIBEBAM·HELNGON
XVII·KAL·DEC
 

A NOTE FROM MR. FLACCUS

(Concerning the verses that follow.)

Dear B. L. T.:

You know my “pomes.” Well, old man, I was pretty young when I got them out of my system, and they seem rather raw to me now – I’m getting along, you know; so I’ve been thinking that I’d do ’em over again, file ’em down, as we used to say. Enclosed is the result of my labors.

I presume you are wondering why I have done them into United States; but you know perfectly well that a poet as much alive as I am to-day must not only keep up with the procession, but choose a thought-vehicle that has good springs to it – “beaucoup resiliency,” I s’pose you’d call it.

I hope you will like these new lines of mine better than their prototypes.

Yours regardfully,

Q. H. F.

Helngon, November 15.

I
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS

“Integer vitæ scelerisque purus.”

 
Fuscus, old scout, if a guy’s on the level
That’s all the arsenal he’ll have to tote;
Up to St. Peter or down to the Devil,
No need to carry a gun in his coat.
 
 
Prowling around, as you know is my habit,
I met a wolf in the forest, and he
Beat it for Wolfville and ran like a rabbit.
(He was some wolf, too, receive it from me.)
 
 
Where I may happen to camp is no matter, —
Paris, Chicago, Ostend or St. Joe, —
Like the old dame in the nursery patter
I shall make music wherever I go.
 
 
Drop me in Dawson or chuck me in Cadiz,
Dump me in Kansas or plant me in Rome, —
I shall keep on making love to the ladies:
Where there’s a skirt is my notion of home.
 

II
DUETTO

“Donec gratus eram.”

HORACE:

 
What time my Lydia owned me lord
No Persian king had much on Horace;
And when you blew my bed and board
I was some sad, believe me, Mawruss.
 

LYDIA:

 
What time you loved no other She,
Before this Chloë person signed you,
I flourished like a green bay tree;
Now I’m the Girl You Left Behind You.
 

HORACE:

 
This Chloë dame that takes my eye
Has so peculiar an allurance
I would not hesitate to die
If she could cop my life insurance.
 

LYDIA:

 
Well, as for that, I know a gent
With whom it’s some delight to dally.
With me he makes an awful dent;
I’d perish once or twice for Cally.
 

HORACE:

 
Suppose our former love should go
Into a new de luxe edition?
Suppose I tie a can to Chlo,
And let you play your old position?
 

LYDIA:

 
Why, then, you cork, you butterfly,
You sweet, philandering, perjured villain,
With you I’d love to live and die,
Tho’ Cally boy were twice as killin’.
 

III
TO PYRRHA

“Quis multa gracilis.”

 
What young tin whistle gent,
Bedaubed with barber’s scent, —
What cheapskate waits on you
To woo,
O Pyrrha?
 
 
For whom the puff and rat
And transformation that
You bought a year ago
Or so,
O Pyrrha?
 
 
Peeved? Not a bit. Not I
I’m sorry for the guy.
He draws a lovely lime
This time,
O Pyrrha!
 
 
I’ve dipped. The wet ain’t fine.
Hung on the votive line
My duds. The gods can see
I’m free.
Eh, Pyrrha!
 

IV
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS

“My sweetly-smiling, sweetly-speaking Lalage.”

 
Fuscus, take a tip from me:
This here job’s no bed of roses,
Not the cinch it seems to be,
Not the pipe that one supposes.
What care I, tho’, if I may
Lallygag with Lalage.
 
 
Every day there’s ink to spill,
Tho’ I may not feel like working.
Every day a hole to fill;
One must plug it – there’s no shirking.
Oh, that I might all the day
Lallygag with Lalage!
 
 
People say, “Gee! what a snap,
Turning paragraphs and verses.
He’s the band on Fortune’s cap,
Gets a barrel of ses-terces.”
Let them gossip, while I play
Hide and seek with Lalage.
 
 
People hand me out advice:
“Hod, you’re doing too much drivel.
Write us something sweet and nice.
Stow the satire, chop the frivol.”
But we have the rent to pay,
Lalage; eh, Lalage?
 
 
Ladies shy the saving sense
Write me patronizing letters;
And there are the writing gents,
Always out to knock their betters.
What cares Flaccus if he may
Lallygag with Lalage!
 
 
No, old top, the writing lay’s
Not a bed of sweet geranium.
Brickbats mingle with bouquets
Shied at my devoted cranium.
Does it peeve yours truly? Nay.
Nothing can – with Lalage.
 
 
Paste this, Fuscus, in your hat:
Not a pesky thing can peeve me.
Take it, too, from Horace flat,
She’s some gal, is Lal, believe me.
So I coin this word to-day,
“Lallygag” – from Lalage.
 

V
TO SYLVIA

 
Were I on the Latin lay,
Were I turning Odes to-day,
You would draw a gem from me,
Little maid of mystery!
 
 
In an Ode I’d love to spout you;
I am simply bug about you.
That’s the way! – the fairest peach
Is the one that’s out of reach.
 
 
I have toasted in my time
Many a peach (and many a lime),
All of them, I must confess,
Lacking your elusiveness.
 
 
Lalage, my well known flame,
Was considerable dame;
Likewise Lydia and Phyllis,
Chloë, Pyrrha, Amaryllis.
 
 
Syl, if you had lived when they did
You’d have had those damsels faded.
(That will give you, girl, some notion
Of your Flaccus’s devotion.)
 
 
Yep. If I were doing Odes
In my quondam favorite modes,
With your image to qui-vive me
I’d tear off some Ode, believe me!
 

A BALLAD OF MISFITS

 
“Chacun son métier:
Les vaches seront bien gardées.”
 

– La Fontaine.

 
With skill for doing this or that
The Lord each man endows.
Some men are best for pushing pens,
And some for pushing plows;
And oh, the many many more
That should be tending cows!
Chacun son métier:
Les vaches bien gardées.
 
 
The ivory-headed serving maid
Who poses as a “cook,”
She hath a very bovine brain,
She hath a bovine look.
Oh, prithee, lead her to the kine,
Oh, prithee get the hook!
Chacun son métier:
Les vaches bien gardées.
 
 
The papering-and-painting gents
Whose work is never done,
Who mess around your house until
You pine to pull a gun,
Who take three mortal days to do
What should be done in one; —
Chacun son métier:
Les vaches bien gardées.
 
 
The pestilential “pianiste,”
The screechy singer too,
The writer of the stupid book
And of the dull review,
The actor who is greatest when
He takes his exit cue; —
Chacun son métier:
Les vaches bien gardées.
 
 
If every one were set to do
The task for which he’s fit,
The writer of these trifling lines
Might also have to quit.
At tending cows the undersigned
Might make an awful hit.
Chacun son métier:
Les vaches bien gardées.
 

AN ORIENTAL APOLOGY

 
When the hour was come Prince Chun arose,
And balanced a shoestring on his nose.
“From this some notion you will get,”
Said he, “of China’s deep regret.”
 
 
Now balancing upon his ear
A stein of foaming lager beer,
“This attitude,” said he, “reveals
How very sorry China feels.”
 
 
Then spinning top-like on his cue,
“I can’t begin to tell to you
The deep remorse we suffer for
The death of your Ambassador.”
 
 
Next, placing on his cue a plate,
He said, as it ’gan to gyrate:
“Nothing that’s happened in his reign
Has caused my Emperor so much pain.”
 
 
Upon his back he did declare,
While juggling five balls in the air,
“This attitude – the humblest yet —
Expresses personal regret.”
 
 
Last, spreading out a deck of cards —
“Accept my Emperor’s regards.
As our intentions were well meant,
Pray overlook the incident.”
 

THE DAY OF THE COMET

(May 18, 1910.)

 
Here it is – Eighteenth of May!
Dawneth now the fatal day
When we take the awful veil
Of the fearsome comet’s tail.
Vale, Earth!
 
 
What will happen, heaven knows;
We can’t even guess, suppose,
Hazard, speculate, surmise,
Hint, conjecture, theorize,
Or divine.
 
 
Will we merely drill a hole
Through the trailing aureole?
Or will the prediction dire
Of a world destroyed by fire
Be fulfilled?
 
 
Shall we crook our knees and pray
Counting this the Judgment Day?
Or preserve a cosmic ca’m,
Caring not a cosmic dam
What may come?
 
 
There’s the rub. If we but knew
We should know just what to do.
Yes is just as good as No
To all questions. Here we go! —
Hang on tight!
 

THE MORNING AFTER

(May 19, 1910.)

 
Here we are, friends, whole and hale
In or through the comet’s tail;
And as far as we can say,
Matters are about as they
Were before.
 
 
Everything is much the same
As before the comet came.
Grasses grow and waters run —
Nothing new beneath the sun —
Same old sphere.
 
 
Life is drab or life is gay,
Thorny path or primrose way;
All is common, all is strange;
“Down the ringing grooves of change”
Spins the world.
 
 
Change but of a humdrum kind.
What we vaguely had in mind
Was some new sensation or
Thrill we never felt before.
Vain desire!
 
 
Nothing’s added to the stock:
Same old shiver, same old shock.
Round about the sun we’ll go
In the same old status quo.
Awful bore!
 

A BALLADE OF IRRESOLUTION

 
Isolde, in the story old,
When Ireland’s coast the vessel nears,
And Death were fairer to behold,
To Tristan gives “the cup that clears.”
Straight to their fate the helmsman steers:
Unknowing, each the potion sips…
Comes echoing through the ghostly years
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
 
 
Ah, that like Tristan I were bold!
My soul into the future peers,
And passion flags, and heart grows cold,
And sicklied resolution veers.
I see the Sister of the Shears
Who sits fore’er and snips, and snips…
Still falls upon my inward ears,
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
 
 
Hero of lovers, largely soul’d!
Imagination thee enspheres
With song-enchanted wood and wold
And casements fronting magic meres.
Tristan, thy large example cheers
The faint of heart; thy story grips! —
My soul again that echo hears,
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
 

L’Envoi

 
Sweet sorceress, resolve my fears!
He stakes all who Elysium clips.
What tho’ the fruit be tares and tears! —
Give me the philtre of thy lips!