Classic Poem

You want to hear my verse, but not to buy it?
If that's your longing, you can gratify it:
Find Auctus (near Mars' temple is his dwelling,
Perhaps you know the man and need no telling)
In civic as in legal lore a leader,
He is himself my book and no mere reader.
A written scroll could not record it better,
He reels it off, and never drops a letter,
So if he said 'twas his, all would believe him,
But were my fame diminished, that would grieve him.
Call about four, till then he's not at leisure,
And dine a deux , he will recite with pleasure:
The while you drink, declaiming endless verse for you;
If you are bored, why then so much the worse for you:
Cry Hold — enough, yet on he still will run with it,
You cannot stop him once he has begun with it.