TO CALVUS.

14.

HEE did I not more dearly prize,
Most pleasant Calvus, than mine eyes,
I'd hate thee with Vatinian hate
For sending what thou didst of late?
What had I done, what said, to be
Belaboured so remorselessly

With such a mass of maudlin verse?
May Jove with countless mischiefs curse
The client, who on thee bestow'd
Of fustian rascals such a load!
But if, as shrewdly I surmise,
That pedant Sylla sent this prize
Of new and most recondite stuff,
I can't feel gratitude enough,
That all thy toil in his defence
Has had such fitting recompence.

Gods! what a book! and this you send

To your Catullus, to your friend,

His comfort wholly to undo,

Upon the Saturnalia, too,

Of all our holidays the day,
One most relies on to be gay.

A harmless jest, you say? But no,
I shan't so lightly let you go;
For by the peep of sunrise I
To all the booksellers will fly,

And gathering into one vile hash
Suffenus' versicles, the trash,

Rank poison all, indited by
The Casii and Aquinii,

With these I'll quit you, throe for throe,
The pangs you've made me undergo.

But you, ye wretched sons of rhyme, The plagues and vermin of the time, Hence to that grim infernal haunt,

From which ye sprang! Hence, hence, avaunt!

TO THE GOD OF GARDENS.

18.

HIS

grove I vow and consecrate to thee, Priapus! thou whose home and woodland seat Are fix'd at Lampsacus, because the sea

Of Hellespont, with oysters more replete Than any sea besides, thee worships most Through all the cities that enrich her coast!

THE GARDEN GOD.

19.

HIS farm and homestead here among the fens,
With rushes and with plaited sedges thatch'd,
Have I, oh youths, I, whom a rustic axe

Shaped from a withered oak, so nursed that they
With each new year have flourish'd more and more.
For they that do this humble cottage own
Pay me due rites, and worship me as god,

Both sire and son,-the one with constant care
Suffering no bramble, thorn, or clambering grass
To clog my shrine; the other fetching me
His simple offerings with unstinting hand.
In the first budding of the bloomy spring
Upon my altar is a chaplet laid

Of many-colour'd flow'rets, interwoven

With tender corn-ears in their sheaths of green.
There too are yellow violets laid, beside
The saffron poppy, and the creamy gourd,
Sweet-smelling apples, and the ruddy grapé,
In the green umbrage of the vineyard grown.
Sometimes the bearded he-goat, and his mate,
She of the horny hoof, (but blab not this!)
Dye with their blood my altar: in return
For all which honours is Priapus bound

To do his office yarely, and to ward

The orchard of his master, and the vines.
Wherefore, oh boys, take hence your thievish hands.
The man who owns the neighbouring farm is rich,
And that Priapus slumbers on his post;

Hie thither, then, and help yourselves! This path
Will carry you at once into his grounds.