Corn on the Fourth of July

Wow, I was really getting pretty rootin'-tootin' Yankee Doodle in that last post. Geez. I knew I'd had some to drink, but still...


How about a little something to quash that enthusiasm down, huh? 

Little Soul

Hadrian, Translated by W.S. Merwin

Little soul little stray
little drifter
now where will you stay
all pale and all alone
after the way
you used to make fun of things




Pretty good for being written by the undisputed ruler of the Mediterranean. I'd love to see an anthology of poems by politicians - you'd start out with a few Greeks and Romans, maybe a few Scandinavian or Old English texts, then get a big spike around the Tudors. (When the ruling class sees falconry, fencing, music, poetry and wooing as part of its job, you're going to get a lot of polymaths and a lot of illegitimate children.)


It's interesting too how this is one of the only poems we have by the emperor Hadrian. It's almost certain he wrote much more, but this is one of the few complete works that's extant. He supposedly wrote it on his deathbed, which is also not a bad activity to engage in when the end is near.