Would that you were alive today, Catullus! <br />Truth ’tis, there is a filthy skunk amongst us, <br />A rank musk-idiot, the filthiest skunk, <br />Of no least sorry use on earth, but only <br />Fit in fancy to justify the outlay <br />Of your most horrible vocabulary. <br /> <br />My Muse, all innocent as Eve in Eden, <br />Would yet wear any skins of old pollution <br />Rather than celebrate the name detested. <br />Ev’n now might he rejoice at our attention, <br />Guess'd he this little ode were aiming at him. <br /> <br />O! were you but alive again, Catullus! <br /> <br />For see, not one among the bards of our time <br />With their flimsy tackle was out to strike him; <br />Not those two pretty Laureates of England, <br />Not Alfred Tennyson nor Alfred Austin.<br /><br />Robert Seymour Bridges<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-catullus-2/
