Gaze on that woman by the train.
With curves like gunpowder
that will shoot fireworks again.
As her and I once were.
Since then, of women, I've abstained.
My chest is a pyre
to the damsel I couldn't retain;
fondness that won’t expire.
You say I could never attain
and imply I'm a liar!?
Or you think either me insane
or least she's miswired?
The evidence on my brain -
melancholy, ire -
the despondent husk that remains,
need you more enquire?
...True, of her, no displays of pain;
eyes that jolt not tire,
poker voice tipping no disdain,
legs that feed desire!
For her, gone love is not a chain
hidden by attire
or flushed down a forgotten drain.
It merely retired.
Love like hers was the wind and rain
to my earth and fire.
"My woman says that she prefers to marry no one
over me, not even if Jupiter himself should seek her.
She says (these things), but what a woman says to her desirous lover
is fitting to write on the wind and on fast-flowing water."
Poem 70 - Catullus