To an Aged Cut-up
Horace: Book III, Ode 15
I
“Uxor pauperis Ibyci,
Tandem nequitiæ fige modum tuæ——”
IN CHLORIN
Dear Mrs. Ibycus, accept a little sound advice,
Your manners and your speech are over-bold;
To chase around the sporty way you do is far from nice;
Believe me, darling, you are growing old.
Now Pholoë may fool around (she dances like a doe!)
A débutante has got to think of men;
But you were twenty-seven over thirty years ago—
You ought to be asleep at half-past ten.
O Chloris, cut the ragging and the roses and the rum—
Delete the drink, or better, chop the booze!
Go buy a skein of yarn and make the knitting needles hum,
And imitate the art of Sister Suse.
II
Chloris, lay off the flapper stuff;
What’s fit for Pholoë, a fluff,
Is not for Ibycus’s wife—
A woman at your time of life!
Ignore, old dame, such pleasures as
The shimmy and “the Bacchus Jazz”;
Your presence with the maidens jars—
You are the cloud that dims the stars.
Your daughter Pholoë may stay
Out nights upon the Appian Way;
Her love for Nothus, as you know,
Makes her as playful as a doe.
No jazz for you, no jars of wine,
No rose that blooms incarnadine.
For one thing only are you fit:
Buy some Lucerian wool—and knit!