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Title: Horace, Ode XI. Lib. II
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
FREELY TRANSLATED BY THE PRINCE REGENT.[1]
Come, Yarmouth, my boy, never trouble your brains,
About what your old crony,
The Emperor Boney,
Is doing or brewing on Muscovy's plains;
Nor tremble, my lad, at the state of our granaries:
Should there come famine,
Still plenty to cram in
You always shall have, my dear Lord of the Stannaries.
Brisk let us revel, while revel we may;
For the gay bloom of fifty soon passes away,
And then people get fat,
And infirm, and--all that,
And a wig (I confess it) so clumsily sits,
That it frightens the little Loves out of their wits;
Thy whiskers, too, Yarmouth!--alas, even they,
Tho' so rosy they burn,
Too quickly must turn
(What a heart-breaking change for thy whiskers!) to Grey.
Then why, my Lord Warden, oh! why should you fidget
Your mind about matters you don't understand?
Or why should you write yourself down for an idiot,
Because "_you_," forsooth, "_have the pen in your hand_!"
Think, think how much better
Than scribbling a letter,
(Which both you and I
Should avoid by the by,)
How much pleasanter 'tis to sit under the bust
Of old Charley,[2] my friend here, and drink like a new one;
While Charley looks sulky and frowns at me, just
As the Ghost in the Pantomime frowns at Don Juan.
To Crown us, Lord Warden,
In Cumberland's garden
Grows plenty of _monk's hood_ in venomous sprigs:
While Otto of Roses
Refreshing all noses
Shall sweetly exhale from our
whiskers and wigs.
What youth of the Household will cool our Noyau
In that streamlet delicious,
That down midst the dishes,
All full of gold fishes,
Romantic doth flow?--
Or who will repair
Unto Manchester Square,
And see if the gentle _Marchesa_ be there?
Go--bid her haste hither,
And let her bring with her
The newest No-Popery Sermon that's going--
Oh! let her come, with her dark tresses flowing,
All gentle and juvenile, curly and gay,
In the manner of--Ackerman's Dresses for May!
NOTES:
[1] This and the following are extracted from a Work, which may, some time or other, meet the eye of the Public--entitled "Odes of Horace, done into English by several Persons of Fashion."
[2] Charles Fox.
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Horace, Ode XI. Lib. II
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