You ask me, friend, Why I don't send The long since due-and-paid-for numbers-- Why, songless, I As drunken lie Abandoned to Lethæan slumbers. Long time ago (As well you know) I started in upon that carmen; My work was vain-- But why complain? When gods forbid, how helpless are men! Some ages back, The sage Anack Courted a frisky Samian body, Singing her praise In metered phrase As flowing as his bowls of toddy. 'Till I was hoarse Might I discourse Upon the cruelties of Venus-- 'Twere waste of time As well of rhyme, For you've been there yourself, Maecenas! Perfect your bliss, If some fair miss Love you yourself and _not_ your minæ; I, fortune's sport, All vainly court The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne! HORACE I, 23. Chloe, you shun me like a hind That, seeking vainly for her mother, Hears danger in each breath of wind And wildly darts this way and t'other. Whether the breezes sway the wood Or lizards scuttle through the brambles, She starts, and off, as though pursued, The foolish, frightened creature scrambles. But, Chloe, you're no infant thing That should esteem a man an ogre-- Let go your mother's apron-string And pin your faith upon a toga! A PARAPHRASE. How happens it, my cruel miss, You're always giving me the mitten? You seem to have forgotten this: That you no longer are a kitten! A woman that has reached the years Of that which people call discretion Should put aside all childish fears And see in courtship no transgression. A mother's solace may be sweet, But Hymen's tenderness is sweeter, And though all virile love be meet, You'll find the poet's love is metre. A PARAPHRASE BY CHAUCER. Syn that you, Chloe, to your moder sticken, Maketh all ye yonge bacheloures full sicken; Like as a lyttel deere you been y-hiding Whenas come lovers with theyre pityse chiding, Sothly it ben faire to give up your moder For to beare swete company with some oder; Your moder ben well enow so farre shee goeth, But that ben not farre enow, God knoweth; Wherefore it ben sayed that foolysh ladyes That marrye not shall leade an aype in Hayde; But all that do with gode men wed full quicklye When that they be on dead go to ye seints full sickerly. HORACE I, 5. What perfumed, posie-dizened sirrah, With smiles for diet, Clasps you, O fair but faithless Pyrrha, On the quiet? For whom do you bind up your tresses, As spun-gold yellow-- Meshes that go with your caresses, To snare a fellow?