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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  To Lesbia, I

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

To Lesbia, I

By Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 B.C.)
 
(Translated by George Lamb, 1821)

LOVE, my Lesbia, while we live,
  Value all the cross advice
That the surly greybeards give
  At a single farthing’s price.
 
Suns that set again may rise;        5
  We, when once our fleeting light,
Once our day in darkness dies,
  Sleep in one eternal night.
 
Give me kisses thousand-fold,
  Add to them a hundred more;        10
Other thousands still be told
  Others hundreds o’er and o’er.
 
But, with thousands when we burn,
  Mix, confuse the sums at last,
That we may not blushing learn        15
  All that have between us past.
 
None shall know to what amount
  Envy’s due for so much bliss;
None—for none shall ever count
  All the kisses we will kiss.        20