Classic Poem

Venus, again thou mov'st a war
Long intermitted, pray thee, pray thee spare:
I am not such, as in the reign
Of the good Cynara I was: refrain,
Sour mother of sweet loves, forbear
To bend a man now, at his fiftieth year,
Too stubborn for commands, so slack:
Go where youth's soft entreaties call thee back.
More timely hie thee to the house,
With thy bright swans, of Paulus Maximus:
There jest, and feast, make him thine host,
If a fit liver thou dost seek to toast;
For he's both noble, lovely, young,
And for the troubled client files his tongue;
Child of a hundred arts, and far
Will he display the ensigns of thy war.
And when he smiling finds his grace
With thee 'bove all his rivals' gifts take place,
He will thee a marble statue make
Beneath a sweetwood roof, near Alba lake;
There shall thy dainty nostril take
In many a gum, and for thy soft ear's sake
Shall verse be set to harp and lute,
And Phrygian hautboy, not without the flute.
There twice a day in sacred lays,
The youths and tender amids shall sing thy praise:
And in the Salian manner meet
Thrice 'bout thy altar with their ivory feet.
Me now, nor wench, nor wanton boy,
Delights, nor credulous hope of mutual joy,
Nor care I now healths to propound;
Or with fresh flowers to girt my temple round.
But, why, oh why, my Ligurine,
Flow my thin tears, down these pale cheeks of mine?
Or why, my well-graced words among,
With an uncomely silence fails my tongue?
Hard-hearted, I dream every night
I hold thee fast! But fled hence, with the light,
Whether in Mars his field thou be,
Or Tiber's winding streams, I follow thee.