One simple trick I note in you,
That when I read a verse or two,
You instantly begin to quote
Catullus or some bard of note;
You mean to compliment my verse
Perhaps by citing something worse,
And though the contrast flatters me
With its inferiority —
Assuming this intent alone,
'Twere better you should quote your own.

All dinner invitations grieve you?
I'm sorry, sir, I can't believe you.
The famous epicures of Rome
Were always pleased to dine from home.
Why, if it bores you, should you go?
" I must," you say — Ah yes, we know
All parasites that plea advance.
But if you're serious, now's your chance:
Friend Melior bids you dine to-day,
So play the man and say him nay.

Call it not pride, no longer I
Can greet you as your thrall.
I've won the cap of liberty,
Although it cost mine all.

The man whose mean desires accord
With all that masters crave
Must cringe; but he shall need no lord
Who doth not need a slave.

Whenever I meet you, wherever I go,
Ten times in one hour it is — " How do you do?"
That " How do you do?" is your first word each day:
It is plain that there is not much doing your way.

Because one curl had come unbound
I hear you took your glass
And called your maid, and to the ground
Struck down the hapless lass.

Cease, madam, pray, your hair to tire
And fill your girls with terror.
A razor is what you require
To make you like your mirror.

Why should they your caprice obey,
And to your fancies pander.
Cut all those cruel locks away,
Or touch a salamander.

" WHY does friend Johnson wear that gloomy look?"
" Good cause," you say, " this very morn I took
My wife's corpse to the grave." " Oh dear, oh dear,
Your rich old wife, no more we'll see her here.
And all her money now is yours to spend!
I am indeed distressed, my worthy friend."

Once at the Bar a longing look you cast,
Anon 'twas rhetoric you thought inspiring,
Now you are Nestor's age, and nearly past
The time when others think about retiring.
Begin, if rhetoric attracts you greatly,
There's room for teachers — three have died just lately.

But should you think you lack the teacher's skill
Or spirit, or are doubtful of succeeding,
The courts have seethed with litigants, until
The Marsyas himself might turn to pleading.
Delay no more — we're growing tired of waiting —
Or you are like to die, still hesitating.

Your capital was always small,
Yet in the mart you gave
The thousand pounds that made your all
To buy a pretty slave.

For love that price was high to pay
E'en with a bulging purse.
What's that? You're not in love you say —
That makes the matter worse.

My lad, it's a captain's good lady you're meeting,
Though you think if you're caught you'll get off with a beating.
He's a sword and he'll use it. " Not legal" — you say.
Well, are they quite legal, your goings-on, pray?

You know my name, " The little feasting hall"?
Take roses, unguents, wine, and feast withal;
But gaze with me at Caesar's dome which saith,
" A God was I — and died! Forget not death."