Classic Poem

Horace — somewhere upon the Esquiline —
Is ashes now, a moldering bit of bone;
And there, perhaps, a battered slab of stone —
Hymettus marble, streaky serpentine,
Or rose-flushed giallo from its Afric mine
(Such as in life the poet would not own)
Tells where his grave lies deep, unsought, unknown,
Below the pavement's roar, the tram-car's whine.

Two thousand years ago! O god that gave
The power divine that saved his song from death,
That by his music still our hearts are stirred:
Soon, — soon, my words and I sink to the grave;
Oh, save this praise thus shapen by my breath;
Link deathless to his name one word of mine ... one word!