Some with bold labour plow the faithless main,
Some rougher storms in princes' courts sustain:
Some swell up their slight sails with popular fame,
Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name:
Some their vain wealth to earth again commit;
With endless cares some brooding o'er it sit :
Country and friends are by some wretches sold,
To lie on Tyrian beds, and drink in gold;
No price too high for profit can be shown;
Not brothers' blood, nor hazards of their own:
Around the world in search of it they roam,
It makes ev'n their antipodes their home;
Meanwhile, the prudent husbandman is found,
In mutual duties striving with his ground,
And half the year he care of that does take,
That half the year grateful returns does make.
Each fertile month does some new gifts present,
And with new work his industry content.
This the young lamb, that the soft fleece, doth yield;
This loads with hay, and that with corn, the field;
All sorts of fruit crown the rich autumn's pride:
And on a swelling hill's warm stony side,
The powerful princely purple of the vine,
Twice dy'd with the redoubled sun, does shine.
In th' evening to a fair ensuing day,
With joy he sees his flocks and kids to play :
And loaded kine about his cottage stand,
Inviting with known sound the milker's hand;
And when from wholesome labour he doth come,
With wishes to be there, and wish'd-for home,
He meets at door the softest human blisses,
His chaste wife's welcome, and dear children's kisses. When any rural holidays invite
His genius forth to innocent delight,
On earth's fair bed, beneath some sacred shade,
Amidst his equal friends carelessly laid,
He sings thee, Bacchus, patron of the vine;
The beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine,
Not to the loss of reason, or of strength:
To active games and manly sport, at length,
Their mirth ascends, and with fill'd veins they see
Who can the best at better trials be.
From such the old Hetrurian virtue rose ;
Such was the life the prudent Sabins chose :
Such, Remus, and the god, his brother, led;
From such firm footing Rome grew the world's head.
Such was the life that, ev'n till now, does raise
The honour of poor Saturn's golden days:
Before men, born of earth, and buried there,
Let-in the sea their mortal fate to share:
Before new ways of perishing were sought;
Before unskilful death on anvils wrought;
Before those beasts, which human life sustain,
By men, unless to the gods' use, were slain.
HAPPY the man, whom bounteous gods allow With his own hands paternal grounds to plough! Like the first golden mortals happy, he, From business and the cares of money free! No human storms break off at land his sleep; No loud alarms of Nature, on the deep: From all the cheats of law he lives secure, Nor does th' affronts of palaces endure. Sometimes the beauteous, marriageable vine He to the lusty bridegroom elm does join; Sometimes he lops the barren trees around, And grafts new life into the fruitful wound; Sometimes he shears his flock, and sometimes he Stores up the golden treasures of the bee. He sees his lowing herds walk o'er the plain, Whilst neighbouring hills low back to them again; And when the season, rich as well as gay, All her autumnal bounty does display, How is he pleas'd th' increasing use to see Of his well-trusted labours bend the tree! Of which large shares, on the glad sacred days, He gives to friends, and to the gods repays. With how much joy does he, beneath some shade By aged trees' reverend embraces made, His careless head on the fresh green recline, His head uncharg'd with fear or with design! ....
By him a river constantly complains,
The birds above rejoice with various strains,
And in the solemn scene their orgies keep,
Like dreams, mix'd with the gravity of sleep;
Sleep, which does always there for entrance wait,
And nought within against it shuts the gate.
Nor does the roughest season of the sky,
Or sullen Jove, all sports to him deny.
He runs the mazes of the nimble hare,
His well-mouth'd dogs' glad concert rends the air; Or with game bolder, and rewarded more,
He drives into a toil the foaming boar ;
Here flies the hawk t' assault, and there the net
To intercept, the travailing fowl, is set ;
And all his malice, all his craft, is shown
In innocent wars on beasts and birds alone.
This is the life from all misfortunes free,
From thee, the great one, tyrant Love, from thee;
And, if a chaste and clean, though homely, wife
Be added to the blessings of this life,-
Such as the ancient sun-burnt Sabins were,
Such as Apulia, frugal still, does bear,-
Who makes her children and the house her care,
And joyfully the work of life does share,
Nor thinks herself too noble or too fine
To pin the sheepfold or to milk the kine;
Who waits at door against her husband come
From rural duties, late and wearied, home,
Where she receives him with a kind embrace,
A cheerful fire, and a more cheerful face;
And fills the bowl up to her homely lord,
And with domestick plenty loads the board;
Not all the lustful shell-fish of the sea,
Dress'd by the wanton hand of luxury,
Not ortolans, nor godwits, nor the rest
Of costly names that glorify a feast,
Are at the princely tables better cheer,
Than lamb and kid, lettuce and olives, here.
A Paraphrase upon Horace, Book II. Sat. vi.
AT the large foot of a fair hollow tree,
Close to plough'd ground, seated commodiously,
His ancient and hereditary house,
There dwelt a good substantial country mouse;
Frugal, and grave, and careful of the main,
Yet one who once did nobly entertain
A city mouse, well-coated, sleek, and gay,
A mouse of high degree, which lost his way,
Wantonly walking forth to take the air,
And arriv'd early, and belighted, there,
For a day's lodging: the good hearty host
(The ancient plenty of his hall to boast)
Did all the stores produce that might excite,
With various tastes, the courtier's appetite:
Fitches and beans, peason and oats, and wheat,
And a large chesnut, the delicious meat
Which Jove himself, were he a mouse, would eat.
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