Explore "Horace II, 20" by Eugene Field on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Maecenas, I propose to fly / To realms beyond these human portals; / No common things shall be my wings, / But such as sprout upon immortals.
Of lowly birth, once shed of earth, / Your Horace, precious (so you've told him), / Shall soar away -- no tomb of clay / Nor Stygian prison house shall hold him.
Upon my skin feathers begin / To warn the songster of his fleeting; / But never mind -- I leave behind / Songs all the world shall keep repeating.
Lo, Boston girls with corkscrew curls, / And husky westerns, wild and woolly, / And southern climes shall vaunt my rhymes -- / And all profess to know me fully.
Methinks the west shall know me best / And therefore hold my memory dearer, / For by that lake a bard shall make / My subtle, hidden meanings clearer.
So cherished, I shall never die -- / Pray, therefore, spare your dolesome praises, / Your elegies and plaintive cries, / For I shall fertilize no daisies!