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A Tardy Apology

You ask me, friend,
Why I don’t send
The long since due-and-paid-for numbers;
Why, songless, I
As drunken lie
Abandoned to Lethean slumbers.
 
Long time ago
(As well you know)
I started in upon that carmen;
My work was vain,—
But why complain?
When gods forbid, how helpless are men!
 
Some ages back,
The sage Anack
Courted a frisky Samian body,
Singing her praise
In metered phrase
As flowing as his bowls of toddy.
 
Till I was hoarse
Might I discourse
Upon the cruelties of Venus;
'T were waste of time
As well of rhyme,
For you’ve been there yourself, Maecenas!
 
Perfect your bliss
If some fair miss
Love you yourself and _not_ your minae;
I, fortune’s sport,
All vainly court
The beauteous, polyandrous Phryne!
Other works by Eugene Field...



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