To Pompeius Varus

Eugene Field 1850 (St. Louis) – 1895 (Chicago)



Pompey, what fortune gives you back
To the friends and the gods who love you?
Once more you stand in your native land,
With your native sky above you.
Ah, side by side, in years agone,
We've faced tempestuous weather,
And often quaffed
The genial draught
From the same canteen together.

When honor at Philippi fell
A prey to brutal passion,
I regret to say that my feet ran away
In swift Iambic fashion.
You were no poet; soldier born,
You stayed, nor did you wince then.
Mercury came
To my help, which same
Has frequently saved me since then.

But now you're back, let's celebrate
In the good old way and classic;
Come, let us lard our skins with nard,
And bedew our souls with Massic!
With fillets of green parsley leaves
Our foreheads shall be done up;
And with song shall we
Protract our spree
Until the morrow's sun-up.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
77

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCBDECXE XDXDDDFFD XXXAXGHHG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 805
Words 153
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 9, 9, 9

Eugene Field

Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. more…

All Eugene Field poems | Eugene Field Books

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