TO THE MISTRESS OF FORMIANUS.
HOUGH a decided snub your nose,
Your feet the kind called stumpy,
Your eyes by no means black as sloes,
Your fingers fat and dumpy;
Your lip not peachy soft, your speech
Less apt to charm than pain us;
Yet still I hail you, mistress frail
Of spendthrift Formianus.
The province, bless its stupid soul !
Is mad about your beauty,
So let me also pay my toll
Of homage and of duty.
But then they say your shape, your grace, My Lesbia's, mine, surpasses!
Oh woe, to live with such a race
Of buzzards, owls, and asses!
HATE ER thou be, oh farm of mine,
Of Sabine soil or Tiburtine
(For Tiburtine they say thou art,
Who have Catullus' peace at heart,
While those, who like to give him pain,
That thou art Sabine will maintain);
But whether Sabine soil thou be,
Or Tiburtine, most sweet to me
Thy villa was, where I shook off
A most abominable cough
My stomach caused me t'other day,—
And right it served me, I must say,
For loving with too keen a zest
Luxurious dinners highly dress'd.
With Sextianus I would dine-
They said his dinners were divine ;—
But, oh! that dinner cost me dear,
For he insisted I should hear
His speech 'gainst Antius; such a hash
Of pestilent and poisonous trash,
An ague seized me as he read !
I sneezed, I cough'd, until I fled,
And cured within thy cosy breast
Myself with nettle-juice and rest.
Wherefore, my pristine health renew'd,
Accept my warmest gratitude,
That thou hast not avenged on me
My epicure propensity.
And when again I'm doom'd, if e’er
The Fates such doom for me prepare,
To hear the wretched rubbish writ
By Sextianus' freezing wit,
Oh! may the chill his comfort mar
With shivering ague and catarrh,
Not mine, whom he alone invites
To hear the rubbish that he writes!
EPTIMIUS cried, as on his breast
His darling Acme he caress'd,
"My Acme, if I love not thee
To madness, ay, distractedly,
And with a love that well I know
With time shall fonder, wilder grow,
In Libya may I then, my sweet,
Or India's burning deserts, meet
The green-eyed lion's hungry glare,
And none be by to help me there!"
As thus he whisper'd, Love was pleased, And on the right propitious sneezed.
Then bending gently back her head, With that sweet mouth, so rosy-red, Upon his eyes she dropp'd a kiss, Intoxicating them with bliss.
"Oh, Septimillus, life!" cried she,
"So Love our only master be,
As burns in me, thine Acme true,
A fire that thrills my marrow through,
Intenser, mightier, more divine,
Than any thou canst feel in thine !"
As thus she whisper'd, Love was pleased, And on the right propitious sneezed.
And now, with such fair omens blest,
They live possessing and possess'd.
Septimius prizes Acme's smiles
Above the East or Britain's Isles ;
Whilst Acme, to Septimius true,
For him doth evermore renew
Love's first delights, and to her boy
Unveils fresh treasuries of joy.
Were ever mortals seen so blest
With all that's sweetest, brightest, best!
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