To One who had scoffed at the Poet’s Poverty

From the Latin by Charles Abraham Elton YES,—I am poor, Callistratus! I own; And so was ever; yet not quite unknown, Graced with a knight’s degree; nor this alone: But through the world my verse is often sung; And “That is he!” sounds buzzed from every tongue; And what to few, when dust, the Fates assign, In bloom and freshness of my days is mine. Thy ceilings on a hundred columns rest; Wealth as of upstart freedman bursts thy chest; Nile flows in fatness o’er thy ample fields; Cisalpine Gaul thy silky fleeces yields. Lo! Such thou art, and such am I: like me, Callistratus! thou canst not hope to be; A hundred of the crowd resemble thee!