Fair were the pageants given in days of yore,
To Caesar owe we deeper obligations;
Our eyes confess they owe him much, far more
Our grateful ears — he banned the recitations!

An astrologer said that you would not last long,
And I really imagine he was not far wrong,
For, wishing to leave not one penny behind,
In a year you have thrown your estate to the wind;
A very nice fortune you've managed to spend,
So I think we may say that you've had a quick end.

" UNPOLISHED " — so that scribbler sneers,
While he that reads and he that hears,
Approve my little books;
I do not care a single jot,
My fame is for my guests and not
To please my rival cooks.

Poor John in his youth was so very sharp-set,
He married a grand dame for what he could get.
To-day he discovers there's plenty to do;
For he has both to feed her and fondle her too.

The servants once who stood at Caesar's board
In the proud palace were by Rome abhorred.
But now your men to all, Sire, are so dear
That our own households are our second care;
So deferential are they and so kind,
Such modest calm in every face we find.
Each page takes pattern by his master's ways
And not his own, but Caesar's, mood displays.

Seven husbands she got,
Made away with the lot,
And has buried them all — but I know
That as you're number eight,
She has not long to wait
Before she rejoins them — below.

P RISCUS describes with learned zest
The sort of feast he holds the best
In pages full of interest
And erudition;

But, if you ask my private view,
The best of all is that where you
Are not required to listen to
A damned musician.

Behold , the young Camonius you see
As when he sported in his infancy.
In twenty years his face had manlier grown
And his fair cheeks were shadowed by a down
Whose darkness just had felt the barber's knife,
When jealous fate cut short his thin-spun life.
Far, far away he died; and to his sire
Only came ashes from the funeral pyre.
So while this picture gives his childish face,
A later image in these lines I trace.

No flint, no ashlar, here are seen,
No brick like that wherewith her Queen
Built Babylon's great wall;
It is of timber, planks, and lath,
This cooling room in Tucca's bath
That is not cool at all;
So closely all the timbers fit
That if he chose to sail in it
'Twould make a perfect boat.
The hot room's rich with pillars wrought
By Phrygian quarrymen or brought
From Afric lands remote,
Though Sparta sent her marbles rare,
Though rich Euboea's gems are there
Perfect in hue and form,
'Tis always chill that marble tomb;

Here may we trace the aspect that he wore
In childhood's hour, the bud but not the flower;
His sire forbore to paint his manhood's grace,
Lest evermore grief should renew her power
Standing before that loved and silent face.