Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/65

"No need to take you such a round: I go
To visit an acquaintance you don't know:
Poor man! he's ailing at his lodging, far
Beyond the bridge, where Caesar's gardens are."
"O, never mind: I've nothing else to do,
And want a walk, so I'll step on with you."
Down go my ears, in donkey-fashion, straight;
You've seen them do it, when their load's too great.
"If I mistake not," he begins, "you'll find
Viscus not more, nor Varius, to your mind:
There's not a man can turn a verse so soon,
Or dance so nimbly when he hears a tune:
While, as for singing—ah! my forte is there:
Tigellius' self might envy me, I'll swear."
He paused for breath: I falteringly strike in:
"Have you a mother? have you kith or kin
To whom your life is precious?" "Not a soul:
My line's extinct: I have interred the whole."
O happy they! (so into thought I fell)
After life's endless babble they sleep well:
My turn is next: dispatch me: for the weird
Has come to pass which I so long have feared,
The fatal weird a Sabine beldame sung,
All in my nursery days, when life was young:
"No sword nor poison e'er shall take him off,
Nor gout, nor pleurisy, nor racking cough:
A babbling tongue shall kill him: let him fly
All talkers, as he wishes not to die."
We got to Vesta's temple, and the sun
Told us a quarter of the day was done.