Part 2 (2/2)

Look not, Leuconoe, into the future; Seek not to find what the Answer may be; Let no Chaldean clairvoyant compute your Time of existence.... It irritates me!

Better to bear what may happen soever Patiently, playing it through like a sport, Whether the end of your breathing is Never, Or, as is likely, your time will be short.

This is the angle, the true situation; Get me, I pray, for I'm putting you hep: While I've been fooling with versification Time has been flying.... Both gates!

Watch your step!

The Last Laugh

Horace: Epode 15

_”Nox erat et caelo fulgebat Luna sereno----”_

”How sweet the moonlight sleeps,” I quoted, ”Upon this bank!” that starry night-- The night you vowed you'd be devoted-- I'll tell the world you held me tight.

The night you said until Orion Should cease to whip the wintry sea, Until the lamb should love the lion, You would, you swore, be all for me.

Some day, Neaera, you'll be sorry.

No mollycoddle swain am I.

I shall not sit and pine, by gorry!

Because you're with some other guy!

No, I shall turn my predilection Upon some truer, fairer Jane; And all your prayer and genuflexion For my return shall be in vain.

And as for _you_, who choose to sneer, O, Though deals in lands and stocks you swing, Though handsome as a movie hero, Though wise you are--and everything;

Yet, when the loss of her you're mourning, How I shall laugh at all your woe!

How I'll remind you of this warning, And laugh, ”Ha! ha! I told you so!”

Again Endorsing the Lady

Book II, Elegy 2

_”Liber eram et vacuo meditabar vivere lecto----”_

I

I was free. I thought that I had entered Love's Antarctic Zone.

”A truce to sentiment,” I said. ”My nights shall be my own.”

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