Short Poems

She did not answer when I wrote,
Refusal must be meant;
And yet I know she read the note —
And silence gives consent.

You disappoint no creditor, you say?
True, no one ever thought that you would pay.

T HERE'S nothing that you do not buy? Ah well,
Soon there'll be nothing that you do not sell.

My work's uneven, you protest
And sometimes falls beneath my best;
A compliment, say I:
Dull bards on level plains that grope
Shall never err — or soar — with Pope,
Although they shine with Pye.

Go happy rose, let thy soft petals bind
Those locks now bright, and if, when they are white
With Time's chill snows, thou still thereon art twined,
May fate be kind, and Venus never slight
The flower she choose, the flower of her delight.

Your few quatrains are not amiss,
Your couplets too are neat; for this
You earn a mild regard,
But little fame, for many men
Can write good verses now and then —
To make a book is hard.

My portrait painted by a cunning hand
Shall follow you, my little book, but go
To subject Ister and the Getic land,
For there Secundus rules the conquered foe.
Well shall he love your petty worth, and know
You show him Martial as no picture may:
No Time nor Chance shall mar your brightness, though
Apelles' work has mouldered in decay.

His face is so vast that his barber aghast
Perceived, ere his shaving was done,
A new crop had appeared; there were whiskers and beard
On the side where his task had begun.

Y OU'VE read my poems and condemn
Some thirty, so you say, of them:
The book's a good one I submit,
If there are thirty good in it.

He gave Consular wine when he asked me to dine,
" What! Opimius' vintage?" you say,
" 'Tis a brand of renown." Nay, my host laid it down,
And he was made consul to-day.