chanced that I, the other day,Was sauntering up the Sacred Way,
And musing, as my habit is,
Some trivial random fantasies,
When there comes rushing up a wight
Whom only by his name I knew.
“Ha! my dear fellow, how d’ye do?”
Grasping my hand, he shouted. “Why,
As times go, pretty well,” said I;
“And you, I trust, can say the same.”
But after me as still he came,
“Sir, is there anything,” I cried,
“You want of me?” “Oh,” he replied,
“I’m just the man you ought to know:
A scholar, author!” “Is it so?
For this I’ll like you all the more!”
Then, writhing to escape the bore,
I’ll quicken now my pace, now stop,
And in my servant’s ear let drop
Some words; and all the while I feel
Bathed in cold sweat from head to heel.
“Oh, for a touch,” I moaned in pain,
“Bolanus, of the madcap vein,
To put this incubus to rout!”
As he went chattering on about
Whatever he describes or meets —
The city’s growth, its splendour, size.
“You’re dying to be off,” he cries
(For all the while I’d been stock dumb);
“I’ve seen it this half-hour. But come,
Let’s clearly understand each other;
It’s no use making all this pother.
My mind’s made up to stick by you;
So where you go, there I go too.”
“Don’t put yourself,” I answered, “pray,
So very far out of your way.
I’m on the road to see a friend
Whom you don’t know, that’s near his end,
Away beyond the Tiber far,
Close by where Cæsar’s gardens are.”
“I’ve nothing in the world to do,
And what’s a paltry mile or two?
I like it: so I’ll follow you!”
Down dropped my ears on hearing this,
Just like a vicious jackass’s,
That’s loaded heavier than he likes,
But off anew my torment strikes:
“If well I know myself, you’ll end
With making of me more a friend
Than Viscus, ay, or Varius; for,
Of verses, who can run off more,
Or run them off at such a pace?
Who dance with such distinguished grace?
And as for singing, zounds!” says he,
“Hermogenes might envy me!”
Here was an opening to break in:
“Have you a mother, father, kin,
To whom your life is precious?” “None;
I’ve closed the eyes of everyone.”
Oh, happy they, I inly groan;
Now I am left, and I alone.
Quick, quick despatch me where I stand;
Now is the direful doom at hand,
Which erst the Sabine beldam old,
Shaking her magic urn, foretold
In days when I was yet a boy:
“Him shall no poison fell destroy,
Nor hostile sword in shock of war,
Nor gout, nor colic, nor catarrh.
In fulness of time his thread
Shall by a prate-apace be shred;
So let him, when he’s twenty-one,
If he be wise, all babblers shun.”
THE WISH FOR LENGTH OF LIFE
PRODUCE the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the mighty dust that yet remains.
And this is all? Yet this was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Attic could not hold.
Afric, outstretched from where the Atlantic roars
To Nilus; from the Line to Libya’s shores.
Spain conquered, o’er the Pyrenees he bounds.
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps and snows. O’er these with torrent force
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.
Yet thundering on, “Think nothing done,” he cries,
“Till o’er Rome’s prostrate walls I lead my powers,
And plant my standard on her hated towers!”
Big words? But view his figure, view his face!
Ah, for some master hand the lines to trace,
As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increased,
The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast!
But what ensued? Illusive glory, say:
Subdued on Zama’s memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state,
With headlong haste, and at a despot’s gate
Sits, mighty suppliant – of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian’s morning nap be out.
Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,
Shall quell the man whose frowns alarmed the world.
The vengeance due to Cannæ’s fatal field,
And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield!
Go, madman, go! at toil and danger mock,
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,
To please the rhetoricians, and become
A declamation for the boys of Rome.
THE ASS’S LEGACY
A PRIEST there was, in times of old,
Fond of his church, but fonder of his gold,
Who spent his days, and all his thought,
In getting what he preached was naught.
His chests were full of robes and stuff;
Corn filled his garners to the roof,
Stored up against the fair-times gay
From St. Rémy to Easter day.
An ass he had within his stable,
A beast most sound and valuable;
For twenty years he lent his strength
For the priest, his master, till at length,
Worn
