“What Flavour?”

Horace: Book III, Ode 13

“O fons Bandusiæ, splendidior vitro——”

Worthy of flowers and syrups sweet,
O fountain of Bandusian onyx,
To-morrow shall a goatling’s bleat
Mix with the sizz of thy carbonics.

A kid whose budding horns portend
A life of love and war—but vainly!
For thee his sanguine life shall end—
He’ll spill his blood, to put it plainly.

And never shalt thou feel the heat
That blazes in the days of Sirius,
But men shall quaff thy soda sweet,
And girls imbibe thy drinks delirious.

Fountain whose dulcet cool I sing,
Be thou immortal by this Ode (a
Not wholly meretricious thing),
Bandusian fount of ice-cream soda!