Classic Poem

Unhappy girls to love cannot give play,
Nor with sweet wine can wash their woes away,
Or, if they do, must faint with fear
An uncle's stinging tongue to hear.

Thee Cytherea's winged boy despoils
Of work-bag: loom and all Minerva's toils
Hebrus of Lipara's radiant grace
Ousts, Neobule, from their place,

When he with shoulders washed in Tiber clean
From oil comes forth, horseman excelling e'en
Bellerophon, not one to quail
In boxing, or in foot-race fail;

To shoot withal in open glade expert
Deer that in frightened herd fly past, alert
To spear the boar when from amid
The copse he breaks, where he lay hid.