Explore "Horace I, 33" by Eugene Field on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Not to lament that rival flame / Wherewith the heartless Glycera scorns you, / Nor waste your time in maudlin rhyme, / How many a modern instance warns you.
Fair-browed Lycoris pines away / Because her Cyrus loves another; / The ruthless churl informs the girl / He loves her only as a brother.
For he, in turn, courts Pholoe -- / A maid unscotched of love's fierce virus -- / Why, goats will mate with wolves they hate / Ere Pholoe will mate with Cyrus!
Ah, weak and hapless human hearts -- / By cruel Mother Venus fated / To spend this life in hopeless strife, / Because incongruously mated!
Such torture, Albius, is my lot; / For, though a better mistress wooed me, / My Myrtale has captured me / And with her cruelties subdued me!