Fuscus, take a tip from me:
This here job's no bed of roses,
Not the cinch it seems to be,
Not the pipe that one supposes.
What care I, tho’, if I may
Lallygag with Lalage.
Every day there's ink to spill,
Tho’ I may not feel like working.
Every day a hole to fill;
One must plug it — there's no shirking.
Oh, that I might all the day
Lallygag with Lalage!
People say, “Gee! what a snap,
Turning paragraphs and verses.
He's the band on Fortune's cap,
Gets a barrel of ses-terces.”
Let them gossip, while I play
Hide and seek with Lalage.
People hand me out advice:
“Hod, you're doing too much drivel.
Write us something sweet and nice.
Stow the satire, chop the frivol.”
But we have the rent to pay,
Lalage; eh, Lalage?
Ladies shy the saving sense
Write me patronizing letters;
And there are the writing gents,
Always out to knock their betters.
What cares Flaccus if he may
Lallygag with Lalage!
No, old top, the writing lay's
Not a bed of sweet geranium.
Brickbats mingle with bouquets
Shied at my devoted cranium.
Does it peeve yours truly? Nay.
Nothing can — with Lalage.
Paste this, Fuscus, in your hat:
Not a pesky thing can peeve me.
Take it, too, from Horace flat,
She's some gal, is Lal, believe me.
So I coin this word to-day,
“Lallygag” — from Lalage.