Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: IV. Thought: Poetry: Books

To One who had scoffed at the Poet’s Poverty

Martial (c. 40–c. 104 A.D.)

YES,—I am poor, Callistratus! I own;

And so was ever; yet not quite unknown,

Graced with a knight’s degree; nor this alone:

But through the world my verse is often sung;

And “That is he!” sounds buzzed from every tongue;

And what to few, when dust, the Fates assign,

In bloom and freshness of my days is mine.

Thy ceilings on a hundred columns rest;

Wealth as of upstart freedman bursts thy chest;

Nile flows in fatness o’er thy ample fields;

Cisalpine Gaul thy silky fleeces yields.

Lo! Such thou art, and such am I: like me,

Callistratus! thou canst not hope to be;

A hundred of the crowd resemble thee!