Book X, Epigram 5: In maledicum Poetam

Who so by impious verse in all the Towne
Scandals the Senators or Matrons gown,
Which rather ought be worshipp'd: Let him bee
Bannish'd through all the seats of beggerie.
And let him from the Dogs bespeak their meat
Be his December long, his winter wet,
Let his shut Vault prolong the frost most sad,
And let him cry such happy that are dead
On hellish-bedsteads carried to their grave,
And when his last threds their fulfilling have,
And the slow day shall come, ô let him see
Himself the strife of Dogs, and his limbes bee
The prey of ravenous Birds, nor let his pains
End in the simple crack of his heart's veins,
But feeling the strict doom of Aeacus,
One while let him relieve old Sisyphus,
Then scortch in Tantalus his dry desire,
And all the fables of the Poets tyre,
And when the truth the Furies shall demand,
May his false conscience cry this was the hand.