And I shall follow the camp, I shall be duly celebrated,

for singing the affairs of your cavalry.

May the fates watch over my day.

2

Yet you ask on what account I write so many love-lyrics

And whence this soft book comes into my mouth.

Neither Calliope nor Apollo sung these things into my ear,

My genius is no more than a girl.

If she with ivory fingers drive a tune through the lyre,

We look at the process

How easy the moving fingers; if hair is mussed on her forehead,

If she goes in a gleam of Cos, in a slither of dyed stuff,

There is a volume in the matter; if her eyelids sink into sleep,

There are new jobs for the author,

And if she plays with me with her shirt off,

We shall construct many Iliads.

And whatever she does or says

We shall spin long yarns out of nothing,

Thus much the fates have allotted me, and if, Maecenas,

I were able to lead heroes into armour, I would not,

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