Deepest and lividest lie, the swallow of hollow voracious.Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babeTwo-year-old and a-sleep on trembling forearm of father.He though, wedded to girl in greenest bloom of her youth-tide,(Bride-wife daintier bred than ever was delicate kidlet,Worthier diligent watch than grape-bunch blackest and ripest)Suffers her sport as she please nor rates her even at hair's worth,Nowise 'stirring himself, but lying log-like as alderFelled and o'er floating the fosse of safe Ligurian woodsman,Feeling withal, as though such spouse he never had own'd; So this marvel o' mine sees naught, and nothing can hear he,What he himself, an he be or not be, wholly unknowing.Now would I willingly pitch such wight head first fro' thy bridge,Better a-sudden t'arouse that numskull's stolid old senses,Or in the sluggish mud his soul supine to deposit Even as she-mule casts iron shoe where quagmire is stiffest.
TO PRIAPUS, THE GARDEN-GOD
This grove to thee devote I give, Priapus!Who home be Lampsacus and holt, Priapus!For thee in cities worship most the shoresOf Hellespont the richest oystery strand.