Book III, Elegy 2

Meanwhile let us return to our wonted round of song; let the heart of my mistress be moved with joy at the old familiar music. They say that Orpheus with his Thracian lyre tamed wild beasts and stayed rushing rivers, and that Cithaeron's rocks were driven to Thebes by the minstrel's art and of their own will gathered to frame a wall. Nay, Galatea too beneath wild Etna turned her steeds that dripped with brine to the sound of thy songs, Polyphemus.

What marvel, when Bacchus and Apollo smile on me, that a host of maidens should adore my words? My house is not stayed on Taenarian columns; I have no ivory chamber with gilded beams; no orchards have I to vie with Phaeacia's trees, nor hath art built me grottoes watered by the Marcian fount. But the Muses are my comrades, and my songs are dear to them that read, nor ever is Calliope aweary with my dancing.

Happy she that book of mine hath praised! My songs shall be so many memorials of thy beauty. For neither the Pyramids built skyward at such cost, nor the house of Jove at Elis that matches heaven, nor the wealth of Mausolus' tomb are exempt from the end imposed by death. Their glory is stolen away by fire or rain, or the strokes of time whelm them to ruin crushed by their own weight. But the fame that my wit hath won shall never perish: for wit renown endureth deathless.