Nor are my caverns stuffed stiff with a Marcian vintage,

(My cellar does not date from Numa Pompilius,

Nor bristle with wine jars)

Yet the companions of the Muses

will keep their collective nose in my books,

And weary with historical data, they will turn to my dance tune.

Happy who are mentioned in my pamphlets, the songs shall be a fine tomb-stone over their beauty.

But against this?

Neither expensive pyramids scraping the stars in their route,

Nor houses modelled upon that of Jove in East Elis,

Nor the monumental effigies of Mausolus,

are a complete elucidation of death.

Flame burns, rain sinks into the cracks

And they all go to rack ruin beneath the thud of the years.

Stands genius a deathless adornment,

a name not to be worn out with the years.

II

I HAD been seen in the shade, recumbent on cushioned Helicon,

I

the water dripping from Bellerophon’s horse,

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