John Dryden long ago received the bid
To translate Virgil’s stately Æneid
From freely flowing Latin lyric verse
To courser English lines, both crude and terse.
He bravely strode ahead and did his part –
Translation’s not a science, but an art.
So, to preserve the meaning, I suppose
He could have brought the work to us in prose.
Instead of this, the scholar took the time
To render it for us in rhythmic rhyme.
He showed amazing and persistent strength,
Under such constraints and at such length,
To bring the poem to English readers whole,
Preserving its heroic, epic soul
Across the gulfs of language, time, and space,
Into its current standard-setting place.

Among those English readers, I’m now one.
I bore the task of reading it for fun,
Trying to appreciate today
In my very simple, humble way,
A building block of culture, ages old
Whose influence cannot be fully told.
The lines of Dryden’s Virgil filled my head,
Yet soon I found that I had lost the thread.
The poets’ rhythm pounded through my brain,
Intensely, not far short of causing pain.
Even when I’d set the book aside,
The rhythm’s power could not be denied.
My words and thoughts, obedient, fell in line,
Until they were no longer really mine.
How long until this passes, no one knows.
Until then, though, I cannot write in prose!