Classic Poem

It was the very noon of night,
The stars were softly shining;
And radiant in the amorous light,
Your arms about me twining,
You swore, " While tempests goad the seas,
While wolf and sheep are enemies,
I will be yours, though Hades freeze
And Heaven starts declining. "

Oh fair but still more fickle love,
Oh beautiful and blind one,
You are a maid unworthy of
A lover and a kind one.
Think you that Horace will give place
To him now wrapped in your embrace?
Nay, he will seek a fairer face
And, bless you, he will find one.

And as for him, whoe'er he be,
Who views my plight with laughter,
So wealthy that his granary
Is filled from pit to rafter,
He in his turn, as I of old,
Will watch your love grow strangely cold.
And all of this I shall behold —
And smile in silence after.


Translated by Louis Untermeyer