The seven poems just described contain many beautiful passages, but they show us Catullus chiefly as the learned, skillful, and successful imitator of Alexandrian Greek models. [Sidenote: The short poems.] His real genius appears in the shorter poems, which deal with the feelings of his own heart. In these also he is an imitator, so far as his metres are concerned, but the feelings are his own, and he expresses them in words that burn. No translation can do justice to the sharp, quick strokes of his invectives or to the passionate outpourings of his love. One of his favorite metres is the “hendecasyllable” or eleven syllable verse, which, by its quick movement, helps to create an impression of great swiftness of thought and flashing outbursts of emotion. At the same time, the numerous diminutive suffixes employed give a light and graceful, almost playful, tone to the verse. Some of the lines directed against those whom Catullus hated or despised, are scurrilous and indecent; but that is the fault of the age rather than of the poet himself. In general the thoughts and emotions expressed range from passionate love to violent invective, while through many of the poems there runs a vein of half satirical playfulness. Some of the qualities of Catullus’ poetry may be made clear by translations of a few of the short poems. The first shows at once his passionate love for Lesbia, and something of his half-satirical humor: My Lesbia, let us live and love, Nor let us count it worth above A single farthing if the old And carping greybeards choose to scold. The suns that set and fade away May rise again another day. When once has set our little light We needs must sleep one endless night. A thousand kisses give me, then A hundred, then a thousand, when I bid you give a hundred more; When many thousands o’er and o’er We’ve kissed, we’ll mix them, so that we Shall lose the count, and none shall be Aroused to evil envious hate Through knowing that the sum’s so great.[36] A well-known and especially attractive poem is the playful lament for the sparrow: Let mourning fill the realms of Love; Wail, men below and Powers above! The joy of my beloved has fled, The Sparrow of her heart is dead— The Sparrow that she used to prize As dearly as her own bright eyes. As knows a girl her mother well, So knew the pretty bird my belle, And ever hopping, chirping round, Far from her lap was never found. Now wings it to that gloomy bourne From which no travellers return. Accurs’d be thou, infernal lair! Devourer dark of all things fair, The rarest bird to thee is gone; Take thou once more my malison. How swollen and red with weeping, see, My fair one’s eyes, and all through thee.[37]