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151

EPODE II. THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

A happy man is he,
From business far and free,
Like mortals in the golden days;
With steers at his command,
To till his father's land,
Whom int'rest neither plagues nor sways.
Him no dread trump alarms,
To take the soldiers arms,
Nor need he fear the stormy main;
The noisy bar he shuns,
Nor to the levy runs
Of men, whose station makes them vain.
Wherefore he rather joins,
The marriageable vines,
To poplars tall in many a row;
Or prunes each fruitless shoot,
That springs to bear no fruit,
And bids the happier tendrils grow.
Or takes a distant gaze
Of lowing herds, that graze
As in the valley's mead they roam;
Or steer his tender flock,
Or in the cleanly crock,
Lays up press'd honey from the comb.
153

But when Autumnus comes,
With apples mild and plumbs,
That his delightful aspect crown;
What joy to pluck the pear,
He grafted with such care,
And grape of more than purple down.
With gifts select as these,
Priapus to appease,
Or Sylvan, that his bounds defends;
Now thrown beneath a bough
Of aged oak, and now
On matted grass his limbs extends.
Mean while the streams beside,
In their deep channel glide,
And birds within the leafy glade
Upon the branches sing,
With bubbling fountains spring,
The gentlest slumbers to persuade.
But when the troubled air
Is alter'd, to prepare
The seasons of the snows and wet;
With hounds on ev'ry hand,
The wild boar is trepann'd,
Into the interruping net.
Or with smooth-shaven stakes,
A slender toil he makes,
Where greedy thrushes are his prey;
Or tim'rous hare is ginn'd,
Or stranger cranes are thinn'd
The pleasant prizes of the day.
155

'Mong'st joys so sweet to thought,
Who does not set at nought,
All love's anxieties and cares;
But chiefly if a wife,
Of chaste and virtuous life,
Help in the family affairs.
Such as the Sabine dames,
Or tann'd by solar flames,
Such as the swift Apulian's spouse;
Soon as her lord returns,
Fatigu'd with what he earns,
On sacred dearth the fire to rouse.
And when the kine she's got,
Within the hurdled spot,
She milks their swelling udders dry;
And bringing this year's wine,
From hogshead sweet and fine,
A gratis feast she can supply.
Not oysters fetch'd from far,
Or turbot or the scar,
If a bad wind so well should blow;
To send them from the East,
To deck a Roman feast,
And on our shores their shoals bestow.
Not bustards, or the game
Of Asia would I claim,
In preference my taste to please;
As olives, nicely chose
From out the special rows
Of fittest and most healthy trees:
157

Or sorrel, goodly weed,
That loves the verdant mead,
Or mallow sov'reign cure esteem'd;
Or lamb, which on the day
Of Terminus we slay,
Or kid just from the wolf redeem'd.
How sweet, amidst this cheer,
To see the sheep appear,
Return'd and sated to the full;
Th'inverted plough to see,
Which oxen o'er the lea,
With languid neck at leisure pull.
To see the servants swarm,
As into ranks they form,
To keep the merry house alive;
The smiling gods to bless
For all this good success,
By which they and their master thrive.
This speech when Alphius made,
That, broker of such trade,
Commencing rustic without doubt;
For all his cash he drew
Then the first wind that blew,
He chang'd his mind and put it out.
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