To Catullus

Would that you were alive today, Catullus!

Truth ’tis, there is a filthy skunk amongst us,

A rank musk-idiot, the filthiest skunk,

Of no least sorry use on earth, but only

Fit in fancy to justify the outlay

Of your most horrible vocabulary.

My Muse, all innocent as Eve in Eden,

Would yet wear any skins of old pollution

Rather than celebrate the name detested.

Ev’n now might he rejoice at our attention,

Guess'd he this little ode were aiming at him.

O! were you but alive again, Catullus!

For see, not one among the bards of our time

With their flimsy tackle was out to strike him;

Not those two pretty Laureates of England,

Not Alfred Tennyson nor Alfred Austin.