In Other Words/Craving Your Attention

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New York: Doubleday, Page & Company page vii

2897097In Other Words — Craving Your AttentionFranklin P. Adams

Craving Your Attention

Horace: Book I, Ode 32.
“Poscimur. Si quid vacui sub umbra—”
AD LYRAM

Help me, my lute, if we have ever made
Some deathless ode, some song to live forever,
A verse to make them say: “Some serenade,
Believe me, this her Flaccus guy is clever”—
Come, Lesbian lyre, assist me with the verses
To bring thee fame, to garner me sesterces.

Stalling his motor-boat close to the shore,
Thine erstwhile owner smote the strings to Bacchus
And sang to Venus, in the midst of war,
Be thou as kind to Mr. Q. H. Flaccus.
Dear lute, I beg, implore, invoke thee do it;
Give me thine aid, o lute! . . . Come, let’s go to it.