Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/248

 “Prentice then began his badinage,” he continues, “and spurred me about presuming to think I was a poet, and finally defied me to write something off-hand and prove to his friends that I was not a pretender.

“I said, ‘All right; what shall I write about?’

“‘Oh,’ said Prentice, ‘write about anything—write about us, wine, feasting, fun, or philosophy.’

“I asked for paper, and it was furnished. I then turned around to a side table, pulled my memories together, thought of Horace, the Falernian wine poet, and one of his odes, where he speaks of people joining you when you laugh, but declining to cling to you when you weep. Then, too, the suggestions of Prentice and the surrounding scene anchored in my mind and inspired my lines.

“I immediately pulled a pencil from my pocket and wrote the following verses inside of fifteen minutes, while my companions were dumping down wine with hilarious vociferation:

“I threw these lines to Prentice. He read them to the revelers and then exclaimed: ‘Sir,’