Part 2 (1/2)

If you sopped up Falernian wine How did you ever write a line?

”What Flavour?”

Horace: Book III, Ode 13

_”O fons Bandusiae, 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”_

Maecenas, 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 diminis.h.i.+ng; You ask why my poem's not done.

The G.o.d it is keeps me from finis.h.i.+ng 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 quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi_”

AD LEUCONOEN