Portrait of a Classicist

     Commenting on Longinus’ Sublime
     Or Plato’s vision of the Good and Fairest;
     Correcting Homer’s hypermetric line
     While meditating on the second aorist;

     Perusing a palimpsest, or perhaps
     Puttying out lacunae with conjectures;
     Writing a learnèd note to fill some gaps
     In what we know of Philo’s Attic Lectures . . .

     Such is your life: a fat Germanic tome
     Massive with erudition’s weighty sentence.
     You breathe the air of Greece, the smoke of Rome,
     The fumes of Bacchic wine without repentance.

     But when you’ve slipped to Hades, cold and black,
     No Orpheus will go to beg you back.

Joseph S. Salemi teaches in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College, CUNY.  He has published several books of poetry, and is a regular contributor to the website The Society of Classical Poets.

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