Classic Poem

'T IS he, the friend of Seneca, not less
Beloved than dear Serenus of the sage,
Whose kindly greetings writ on many a page
Serve still to testify his tenderness.

And you that crossed the wide Sicilian sea
To follow him and share his exile drear,
Ovid, we praise you still and hold you dear,
Who scorned a monarch's frenzied tyranny.

The days of old of Pylades may prate
Who to a wrathful woman's victim clave,
Thine, Ovid, was the nobler part, to brave —
And all for love — a Nero's cruel hate.