Classic Poem

L UPERCUS from afar cries: — Poet dear,
Thy latest Epigram is wondrous fine; —
Wilt thou not lend me all thy works divine?
My slave will call for them when morning's here.

— Ah, no. He limps, he pants, he's old and sere;
My stairs are steep, my house remote from thine;
Dost thou not live close by the Palatine?
Atrectus in the Argiletum's near —

At Forum's corner, where he'll sell to us
The dead and living: Virgil, Silius,
Terence and Pliny, Phaedrus and the rest;

There, on a shelf, and one not very high,
Pounced, robed in purple, and in cedar nest,
Martial's for sale at five denarii.