TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS

Fuscus, take a tip from me:

This here job's no bed of roses,

Not the cinch it seems to be,

Not the pipe that one supposes.

What care I, tho’, if I may

Lallygag with Lalage.

Every day there's ink to spill,

Tho’ I may not feel like working.

Every day a hole to fill;

One must plug it — there's no shirking.

Oh, that I might all the day

Lallygag with Lalage!

People say, “Gee! what a snap,

Turning paragraphs and verses.

He's the band on Fortune's cap,

Gets a barrel of ses-terces.”

Let them gossip, while I play

Hide and seek with Lalage.

People hand me out advice:

“Hod, you're doing too much drivel.

Write us something sweet and nice.

Stow the satire, chop the frivol.”

But we have the rent to pay,

Lalage; eh, Lalage?

Ladies shy the saving sense

Write me patronizing letters;

And there are the writing gents,

Always out to knock their betters.

What cares Flaccus if he may

Lallygag with Lalage!

No, old top, the writing lay's

Not a bed of sweet geranium.

Brickbats mingle with bouquets

Shied at my devoted cranium.

Does it peeve yours truly? Nay.

Nothing can — with Lalage.

Paste this, Fuscus, in your hat:

Not a pesky thing can peeve me.

Take it, too, from Horace flat,

She's some gal, is Lal, believe me.

So I coin this word to-day,

“Lallygag” — from Lalage.