Classic Poem

" Fame comes not to the living. Strange!" you say,
" How few can love the artists of their day!"
The cause is this, that envy's cross-eyed view
Will always set the old above the new.
Thus haunt we Pompey's ancient porch — and thus
Fools praise the crumbled fanes of Catulus.
So Virgil's Rome pored still o'er Ennius' page,
And Homer lived unhonoured of his age;
Few were his peers to laud Menander's plays;
Who save Corinna knew her Ovid's lays?
Yet soft, my books, no haste, nor hurry fate;
If fame must wait on death, then let it wait.