[21]
A WISE old proverb advises all
To catch my last if my first should fall.
A poet, who with genius glowed,
Wrote to my whole a famous ode.
[22]
MY last are celebrated, noted, learned:
Some will not come for years, and some are gone—
Ah, never to return. And only one
We may with truthfulness assert, exists.
And yet my first can buy them, eat them too,
And set them if he choose; and upon one
Of them he may perhaps send forth my whole;
Or on it may perhaps inscribe my whole;
Or on my whole he may inscribe my last.
[23]
WHETHER in winter’s cold or summer’s heat
My lady trails my first along the street.
My second figures in a certain nine;
One of a celebrated Roman line.