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Wednesday 16 October 2024

Horace 4.1


Interrupt, Cytherean, this corrupt generative impulse in my senile heart
Be not, boorish, like Mars, bruising kairos- the bitter soul of Art
I am not what I was when sweet Cynara softly reigned
& for Cupid- Savage Mother!- wounds we yet feigned
& breath upon breath, drew, swearing, upon Thee, to die
For Tenderness, too, calcifies as five decades go by.


Yet, pray I must, so magnanimous Jove, as Joy's Magnificat, overflow
& Thy babe, take a more vernally worshipful target for his bow
I say it should be Paul upon whom the e'er Virgin Mother & Child
So visit their wrath that Greek grate & Latin is beguiled.
Now tears alone tell what is beyond my tongue's abulia
Horace, thy Carmen's more abject in hyperdulia!

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