William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.
For the Eighth of December
T
Should light fresh fires on all the altar-sods.
His natal day! we should set incense burning,
And call—if gods there were—upon the gods.
We, his good friends, right joyous should demean us,
Like Horace on the birthday of Mæcenas.
The wine, the nard, the rose’s tardy bloom;
No troops of saucy home-bred slaves await us,
Nor polished silver in the fire-lit room;
And as for lyres and lutes of sound convention,
The H. C. L. forbids their very mention.
No Tyndaris, no Cyrus—and no quarrel!
No Telephus with his tantalizing kissing,
No Cervius droning his long-winded moral.
No Thaliarch to push the lagging Massic!
What in our party, then, would he find classic?
And make our feast right worthy of the day;
A fitting tribute to the lyric master—
I mean, of course, an Ode by F. P. A.
Give us but that; ’twere the whole celebration
In Horace’s and in our estimation.