F thou in thy Liburnians go

Amid the bulwark'd galleys of the foe,
Resolved, my friend Mæcenas, there
All Cæsar's dangers as thine own to share,
What shall we do, whose life is gay
Whilst thou art here, but sad with thee away?

Obedient to thy will, shall we

Seek ease, not sweet, unless 'tis shared by thee?
Or shall we with such spirit share

Thy toils, as men of gallant heart should bear?
Bear them we will; and Alpine peak
Scale by thy side, or Caucasus the bleak;
Or follow thee with dauntless breast

Into the farthest ocean of the West.

And shouldst thou ask, how I could aid
Thy task, unwarlike I, and feebly made?
Near thee my fears, I answer, would
Be less, than did I absent o'er them brood;
As of her young, if they were left,
The bird more dreads by snakes to be bereft,

Than if she brooded on her nest,

Although she could not thus their doom arrest.
Gladly, in hopes your grace to gain,
I'll share in this or any fresh campaign!
Not, trust me, that more oxen may,
Yoked in my ploughshares, turn the yielding clay,
Nor that, to 'scape midsummer's heat,
My herds may to Leucanian pastures sweet
From my Calabrian meadows change;
Nor I erect upon the sunny range

A

Of Tusculum, by Circe's walls,

gorgeous villa's far-seen marble halls! Enough and more thy bounty has

Bestow'd on me; I care not to amass

Wealth, either, like old Chremes in the play,

To hide in earth; or fool, like spendthrift heir, away!

EPODE II.

ALPHIUS.

APPY the man, in busy schemes unskill'd, Who, living simply, like our sires of old, Tills the few acres, which his father till❜d, Vex'd by no thoughts of usury or gold ;*

The shrilling clarion ne'er his slumber mars,
Nor quails he at the howl of angry seas;
He shuns the forum, with its wordy jars,
Nor at a great man's door consents to freeze.

The tender vine-shoots, budding into life,
He with the stately poplar-tree doth wed,
Lopping the fruitless branches with his knife,
And grafting shoots of promise in their stead;

*Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis,
Quem non mendaci resplendens gloria fuco
Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus,
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, et paupere cultu
Exigit innocuæ tranquilla silentia vitæ.
Fracastorius.

Happy the man, and to the gods akin,

Whom dazzling glory with its treacherous glare,

And luxury's harmful joys disquiet never;

But who, in settled low humility,

Lets all his days glide noiselessly away,

And moves, with soul serene, amid the nooks

And silent byways of a blameless life.

Or in some valley, up among the hills,

Watches his wandering herds of lowing kine, Or fragrant jars with liquid honey fills,

Or shears his silly sheep in sunny shine;

Or when Autumnus o'er the smiling land
Lifts up his head with rosy apples crown'd,
Joyful he plucks the pears, which erst his hand
Graff'd on the stem, they're weighing to the ground;

Plucks grapes in noble clusters purple-dyed,

A gift for thee, Priapus, and for thee,
Father Sylvanus, where thou dost preside,
Warding his bounds beneath thy sacred tree.

Now he may stretch his careless limbs to rest,
Where some old ilex spreads its sacred roof;
Now in the sunshine lie, as likes him best,
On grassy turf of close elastic woof.

And streams the while glide on with murmurs low,
And birds are singing 'mong the thickets deep,
And fountains babble, sparkling as they flow,
And with their noise invite to gentle sleep.

But when grim winter comes, and o'er his grounds
Scatters its biting snows with angry roar,
He takes the field, and with a cry of hounds

Hunts down into the toils the foaming boar;

Or seeks the thrush, poor starveling, to ensnare,
In filmy net with bait delusive stored,
Entraps the travell'd crane, and timorous hare,

Rare dainties these to glad his frugal board.

Who amid joys like these would not forget

The pangs which love to all its victims bears, The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret,

And all the heart's lamentings and despairs?

But if a chaste and blooming wife, beside,

The cheerful home with sweet young blossoms fills, Like some stout Sabine, or the sunburnt bride

Of the lithe peasant of the Apulian hills,

Who piles the hearth with logs well dried and old
Against the coming of her wearied lord,

And, when at eve the cattle seek the fold,

Drains their full udders of the milky hoard;

And bringing forth from her well-tended store
A jar of wine, the vintage of the year,
Spreads an unpurchased feast,-oh then, not more
Could choicest Lucrine oysters give me cheer,

Or the rich turbot, or the dainty char,
If ever to our bays the winter's blast
Should drive them in its fury from afar;
Nor were to me a welcomer repast

The Afric hen or the Ionic snipe,

Than olives newly gather'd from the tree, That hangs abroad its clusters rich and ripe, Or sorrel, that doth love the pleasant lea,

Or mallows wholesome for the body's need,
Or lamb foredoom'd upon some festal day
In offering to the guardian gods to bleed,

Or kidling which the wolf hath mark'd for prey.