Neither would I warble of Titans, nor of Ossa

spiked onto Olympus,

Nor of causeways over Pelion,

Nor of Thebes in its ancient respectability,

nor of Homer’s reputation in Pergamus,

Nor of Xerxes’ two-barreled kingdom, nor of Remus and his royal family,

Nor of dignified Carthaginian characters,

Nor of Welsh mines and the profit Marus had out of them.

I should remember Caesar’s affairs ...

for a background,

Although Callimachus did without them,

and without Theseus,

Without an inferno, without Achilles attended of gods,

Without Ixion, and without the sons of Menoetius and the Argo and without Jove’s grave and the Titans.

And my ventricles do not palpitate to Caesarial ore rotundos,

Nor to the tune of the Phrygian fathers.

Sailor, of winds; a plowman, concerning his oxen;

Soldier, the enumeration of wounds; the sheep-feeder, of ewes;

We, in our narrow bed, turning aside from battles:

Each man where he can, wearing out the day in his manner.

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