Upon an Eunuch: A Poet

translation of a Latin poem by Marvell

Cut off from women, and from virgin wheat
Estranged, your sickle dulled in harvest heat,
You think yourself a fruitless, sterile man
Because you cannot sin the way we can.
But always potent in your poet's field,
You'll make Fame pregnant always, who will yield...
Your name. Oh, you will ravish every Muse
Who wrestles with your restless, virile thews.
And Echo, banged and banged again, shall bring
Forth every lyric line your verses sing.

Copyright © 2004 Len Krisak All rights reserved
from If Anything
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Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission