Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 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.) |
| | From the Latin by Charles Abraham Elton
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; | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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! | | | | |
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