Congratulatory Horatian Ode to a Friend, on his Forthcoming Employment

Our youth by now appears, at last
Forward, in musing on the past,
And for his shady song
A fee recoups ere long.

His time at hand to sheathe his blade
To daub the dusty pages, paid,
By flying from retreat,
Onto some fiscal street.

So lang’rous Samuel ceased to stay
The darling of that pixelled fray
But prowess stooped to shirk
Essaying actual work.

And like the pitiless awlpike,
Skewering the bold if unclad tyke,
Did past his own sworn knight
His steely path endite.

For there’s a difference to be found
‘Twixt mercenary and vassal sound
Which is – the one doth charge
A bill, but not a targe.

And hurling thus through Holland Park
For Lannister abandoning Stark
The shud’ring Moors he leaves
Gasping at their reprieves.

‘Tis all too sane to sway and praise
In Mammon’s mines, Munera’s days,
But if you’d have me lie
I’ll undertake to try.

He left a garden, be it said –
A mossy hut, a feateous bed,
Where, from this calm redoubt
Swayed realms and crowns in bout –

He left it now, he left it then
For laddered slavery, but when
Set in some harder shape
He stayed true to escape.

If fate feels cheated of her due,
- That’s called coincidence, to you –
She should yet call to mind
Her minion left behind.

Labour’s envy of otherness
Her each intrinsic new duress
Passes indifferent by
What I mean when I sigh.

Was there a time we did not laugh
On each and every lost behalf
In resignation and
Contumely to command?

When, dull, or not so dull, indeed,
You’d too much gaiety to heed
An arbitrary list
Of whom I hadn’t kissed –

This is King Charles’s time to strut,
A sentiment I’d thought to cut,
As what is in my heart
Is not a speaking part.

But I must let you (plural, now)
Know what I think about and how
She is the sort of broad
Eight lines can hardly hoard.

It seems she brings the comic vein
Out in this work – but then again
The hour I waste on this
I’d so much rather miss -

‘She stormed and conquered by assault
And I surrendered by default’
A couplet with some wit
And nothing else to it –

She makes me staccato with care
Of every sort; a mental stare
Wears down my mind’s eyelid
Compels my (I s’pose) id.

Where was I? Harrington’s? Ah, quite -
- if not to be confused at night –
A most congenial mob
If one must have a job.

No doubt of it, they’ll take to you;
A not so unexpected coup -
Blanche’s English disease
Your charm will let you please.

You might even get good at things
Which margin sticks, which cover clings
And if you don’t, you’ve luck
And make mother hens cluck.

And should you meet the baronet
(Ass’nance just passes banneret)
You’ll know to tell him what
Destiny you have got.

Then when his bored neighbour enquires
‘Those dreamy Jays from dreaming spires
Still on the bloody dole?’
Sir Charles regards the prole,

(A stockbroker, or worse still, banks,
Who thinks the gentry owe him thanks –
(Though Charles once wrote accounts,
It’s Ponsonby what counts.))

And takes up that abandoned gage
To succour his now slandered page –
‘The tall one without tact
Now works in books, in fact.’

‘Oh? Publishing? They take ‘em young,
To help hold Kindle’s flamey tongue…’
‘No, not that sort of place,
Nothing so very base.’

‘A book dealer’s you know, old ones,
First eds, signatures, rare print runs,
Where you might take your aunt
More Heywood Hill than Daunt.’

There’s something in Horatian schemes
That tends towards Caroline themes.
As Marvell’s King and Martyr
Made Cromwell a non-starter –

Just so, perhaps, you have been swept
Out of the frame, while she is kept
Encased among the knives,
Where only Sir Charles thrives.

We shared an immaterial horse,
You leave me to tangible force.
Between the spur and hood,
I pick the hawk for good.