Anthony Hecht




The Whirligig of Time

Horace 1:25*

They are fewer these days, those supple, suntanned boys
Whose pebbles tapped at your window, and your door
Swings less and less on its obliging hinges
For wildly importunate suitors. Fewer the cries
Of “Lydia, how can you sleep when I’ve got the hots?
I won’t last out the night; let me get my rocks off.”
Things have moved right along, and behold, it’s you
Who quails, like a shriveled whore, as they scorn and dodge you,
And the wind shrieks like a sex-starved thing in heat
As the moon goes dark and the mouth of your old dry vulva
Rages and hungers, and your worst, most ulcerous pain
Is knowing those sleek-limbed boys prefer the myrtle,
The darling buds of May, leaving dried leaves
To cluster in unswept corners, fouling doorways.

* Horace 1.25
The bold young men less often shake
your joined windows with frequent throwings,
nor do they steal slumbers from you, and the door
loves the threshold,

which earlier was moving its hinges more
easily. You hear less and less now:
"With me wasting away long nights for you,
Lydia, you sleep?"

In turn a weak old woman you will cry for
arrogant adulterers in a lonely alley,
with the Thracian wind reveling more
on moonless nights,

when love and desire blazes for you,
such as is accustomed to madden the mothers of horses,
it will rage around your inflamed liver,
not without complaint,

because happy youth rejoices with the green ivy
more than the somber myrtle,
and dedicates the dry leaves to Euro,
the companion of winter.