AEH (the older Alfred Edward Housman)

… Here is Horace at the age of fifty pretending not to mind, verse 29, me nec femina nec puer, iam nec spes animi credula mutui - where’s the verb? anyone? iuvat, thank you, it delights me not, what doesn’t? - neither woman nor boy, nor the spec credula, the credulous hope, animi mutui - the trusting hope of love returned, nec, nor, that’s four necs and a fifth to come before the ‘but’, that’s why we call it poetry -nec certare iuvat mero - yes, to compete in wine, that’ll do for the moment, and nec - what? - nec vincire novis tempora floribus, rendered by Mr Howard as to tie new flowers to my head, Tennyson would hang himself - never mind, here is Horace not minding: I take no pleasure in woman or boy, nor the trusting hope of love returned, nor matching drink for drink, nor binding fresh-cut flowers around my brow -but - sed - cur heu, Ligurine, cur - 

    Jackson is seen as a runner running towards us from the dark, getting no closer.

- but why, Ligurinus, alas why this unaccustomed tear trickling down my cheek? - why does my glib tongue stumble to silence as I speak? At night I hold you fast in my dreams, I run after you across the Field of Mars, I follow you into the tumbling waters, and you show no pity.

    Blackout.