Horace: Book III, Ode 3 <br /> <br />"Carminis interea nostri redæmus in orbem---" <br /> <br /> <br />Let us return, then, for a time, <br />To our accustomed round of rhyme; <br />And let my songs' familiar art <br />Not fail to move my lady's heart. <br /> <br />They say that Orpheus with his lute <br />Had power to tame the wildest brute; <br />That "Vatiations on a Theme" <br />Of his would stay the swiftest stream. <br /> <br />They say that by the minstrel's song <br />Cithæron's rocks were moved along <br />To Thebes, where, as you may recall, <br />They formed themselves to frame a wall. <br /> <br />And Galatea, lovely maid, <br />Beneath wild Etna's fastness stayed <br />Her horses, dripping with the mere, <br />Those Polypheman songs to hear. <br /> <br />What marvel, then, since Bacchus and <br />Apollo grasp me by the hand, <br />That all the maidens you have heard <br />Should hang upon my slightest word? <br /> <br />Tænerian columns in my home <br />Are not; nor any golden dome; <br />No parks have I, nor Marcian spring, <br />Nor orchards--nay, nor anything. <br /> <br />The Muses, though, are friends of mine; <br />Some readers love my lyric line; <br />And never is Callipoe <br />Awearied by my poetry. <br /> <br />O happy she whose meed of praise <br />Hath fallen upon my sheaf of lays! <br />And every song of mine is sent <br />To be thy beauty's monument. <br /> <br />The Pyramids that point the sky, <br />The House of Jove that soars so high, <br />Mausolus' tomb--they are not free <br />From Death his final penalty. <br /> <br />For fire or rain shall steal away <br />The crumbling glory of their day; <br />But fame for wit can never die, <br />And gosh! I was a gay old guy!<br /><br />Franklin P. Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/propertius-s-bid-for-immortality/
