Aeneas and After

Constituit et lacrimans "quis iam locus" inquit "Achate,
Quae regio in terns nostri non plena laboris?"

Horace Bids Farewell to Virgil

                                 (Odes I. iii)

I trust, friend, you appreciate
the nervous cost to one who hates
the sea and loves late drink
of standing on the brink

while your unnecessary boat
drifts fainter in a queasy float
into liver-spotted mist.
A poet who's half-pissed

and whose scalp and wit are frozen
can't deliver a few well-chosen
words, sublime or droll.
...