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Poems 1918-21 :

including three portraits and four cantos
  
  
  
  
  
  

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1

NOW if ever it is time to cleanse Helicon;
to lead Emathian horses afield,
And to name over the census of my chiefs in the Roman camp.
If I have not the faculty, "The bare attempt would be praise-worthy."
"In things of similar magnitude
the mere will to act is sufficient."
The primitive ages sang Venus,
the last sings of a tumult,
And I also will sing war when this matter of a girl is exhausted.

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I with my beak hauled ashore would proceed in a more stately manner,
My Muse is eager to instruct me in a new gamut, or gambetto,
Up, up my soul, from your lowly cantilation,
put on a timely vigour,
Oh august Pierides! Now for a large-mouthed product.
Thus:
"The Euphrates denies its protection to the Parthian
and apologizes for Crassus,"
And "It is, I think, India which now gives necks to your triumph,"
And so forth, Augustus. "Virgin Arabia shakes in her inmost dwelling."
If any land shrink into a distant seacoast,
it is a mere postponement of your domination,
And I shall follow the camp, I shall be duly celebrated,
for singing the affairs of your cavalry.
May the fates watch over my day.