Classic Poem

Now autumn is here I yearn for a Roman villa
(A villa and peace!)
With mosaics of grapevines twined with the leopards of Bacchus
And a bronze fawn from Greece
Standing jocund and drunk in the midst of a modest mountain
Where the slow-moving carp
Nose the water to circles of ripples as thin and as silver
As the strings of a harp.

How pleasant to sit in a peristyle wide to the sun
But walled from the breeze,
And to smell the fragrance of grapes welling sweet from the press
And see over the trees
An arrow of wild geese flying—how pleasant to smile,
And sighing, note down
A word of regret and content, engraved on wax tablets
To some friend in the town.