 | A Lost Epic and Other Poems |  |
Thus wrote to Pericles from Lampsacus
The poet Cleon; and the Master's words,
Wherein he spoke of change unchangeable,
Hold good for great things but hold ill for small;
For lo! six hundred fateful years have sped
And Greece is but a Roman province now,
Whereas through those six centuries, year by year
When summer and the sun brought back the time,
The lads and lasses, free of task and school,
Have held their revelry in Lampsacus,—
A fact so ripe with grave moralities,
That I, Diogenes, have deemed it fit
To note in my “De Vita et Moribus.”
The poet Cleon; and the Master's words,
Wherein he spoke of change unchangeable,
Hold good for great things but hold ill for small;
For lo! six hundred fateful years have sped
And Greece is but a Roman province now,
Whereas through those six centuries, year by year
When summer and the sun brought back the time,
31
Have held their revelry in Lampsacus,—
A fact so ripe with grave moralities,
That I, Diogenes, have deemed it fit
To note in my “De Vita et Moribus.”
| A Lost Epic and Other Poems | |