Horace 4.1

Interrupt, Cytherean, this corrupt generative impulse in my senile heart

Be not, boorish, like Mars, bruising kairos- that 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

For I, Horace, am abject, in hyperdulia!