I _met a little Roman maid_;
S_he was just sixteen (she said)_,
A_nd O! but she was sore afraid_,
A_nd hung her modest head_.
A _little fawn, you would have vowed_,
T_hat sought her mother's side_,
A_nd wandered lonely as a cloud_
U_pon the mountain wide_.
W_hene'er the little lizards stirred_
S_he started in her fear_;
I_n every rustling bush she heard_
S_ome awful monster near_.
"I_'m not a lion; fear not so_;
S_eek not your timid dam_."--
B_ut Chloe was afraid, and O!_
S_he knows not what I am_:
A creature quite too bright and good
To be so much misunderstood.
Again, in Austin Dobson's exquisite _Triolet_, whether the inspiration
of the poem itself is in Horace, or the inspiration, so far as Horace is
concerned, lies in the choice of title after the verses were written, we
must in either case confess a debt of great delight to the author of the
_Ars Poetica_: