Gaze on that woman by the train. With curves like gunpowder that will shoot fireworks again. As her and I once were.
Since then, of women, I've abstained. My chest is a pyre to the damsel I couldn't retain; fondness that wonβt expire.
You say I could never attain and imply I'm a liar!? Or you think either me insane or least she's miswired?
The evidence on my brain - melancholy, ire - the despondent husk that remains, need you more enquire?
...True, of her, no displays of pain; eyes that jolt not tire, poker voice tipping no disdain, legs that feed desire!
For her, gone love is not a chain hidden by attire or flushed down a forgotten drain. It merely retired.
Love like hers was the wind and rain to my earth and fire.
"My woman says that she prefers to marry no one over me, not even if Jupiter himself should seek her. She says (these things), but what a woman says to her desirous lover is fitting to write on the wind and on fast-flowing water." Poem 70 - Catullus