Classic Poem

S UETONIUS ' pleasing country this; and he
Near Tibur raised his humble villa where
Some vine-clad wall the years still kindly spare,
And arcade's ruin wreathed in greenery.

Here, far from Rome, he came each fall to see
The sky's last azure, and from elm-trees' care
To take the plenteous grapes empurpling there.
His life flowed on in calm tranquility.

In this sweet pastoral peace would Claudius bide,
Caligula and Nero; here, with pride,
Vile Messalina in her purple strolled;

And here with pointed stylus he has told,
Scratched in the unpitying wax, of him who tried
In Capri all that's foul when he was old.