Читать книгу Something Else Again - Franklin P. Adams - Страница 29

"Carminis interea nostri redæmus in orbem——"

Let us return, then, for a time,

To our accustomed round of rhyme;

And let my songs' familiar art

Not fail to move my lady's heart.

They say that Orpheus with his lute

Had power to tame the wildest brute;

That "Variations on a Theme"

Of his would stay the swiftest stream.

They say that by the minstrel's song

Cithæron's rocks were moved along

To Thebes, where, as you may recall,

They formed themselves to frame a wall.

And Galatea, lovely maid,

Beneath wild Etna's fastness stayed

Her horses, dripping with the mere,

Those Polypheman songs to hear.

What marvel, then, since Bacchus and

Apollo grasp me by the hand,

That all the maidens you have heard

Should hang upon my slightest word?

Tænerian columns in my home

Are not; nor any golden dome;

No parks have I, nor Marcian spring,

Nor orchards—nay, nor anything.

The Muses, though, are friends of mine;

Some readers love my lyric line;

And never is Calliope

Awearied by my poetry.

O happy she whose meed of praise

Hath fallen upon my sheaf of lays!

And every song of mine is sent

To be thy beauty's monument.

The Pyramids that point the sky,

The House of Jove that soars so high,

Mausolus' tomb—they are not free

From Death his final penalty.

For fire or rain shall steal away

The crumbling glory of their day;

But fame for wit can never die,

And gosh! I was a gay old guy!