| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| For the Eighth of December |
| | | George Meason Whicher |
| | | | | (The Birthday of Horace) |
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| THIS festal day, two thousand times returning, | |
| Should light fresh fires on all the altar-sods. | |
| His natal day! we should set incense burning, | |
| And call—if gods there were—upon the gods. | |
| We, his good friends, right joyous should demean us, | 5 |
| Like Horace on the birthday of Mæcenas. | |
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| Eheu! we lack all Persian apparatus— | |
| The wine, the nard, the rose’s tardy bloom; | |
| No troops of saucy home-bred slaves await us, | |
| Nor polished silver in the fire-lit room; | 10 |
| And as for lyres and lutes of sound convention, | |
| The H. C. L. forbids their very mention. | |
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| Around our board what cronies he’d find missing: | |
| No Tyndaris, no Cyrus—and no quarrel! | |
| No Telephus with his tantalizing kissing, | 15 |
| No Cervius droning his long-winded moral. | |
| No Thaliarch to push the lagging Massic! | |
| What in our party, then, would he find classic? | |
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| There is one thing would save us from disaster, | |
| And make our feast right worthy of the day; | 20 |
| A fitting tribute to the lyric master— | |
| I mean, of course, an Ode by F. P. A. | |
| Give us but that; ’twere the whole celebration | |
In Horace’s and in our estimation.
The Nation | |
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