Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows,

Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast, Time hath once shut in those

Dark annals of the Past.

Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue
And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest,
Her, who breathed love, who drew

My heart out of my breast?

Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face Ranked next to Cinara's. But to Cinara fate

Gave but a few years' grace;

And lets live, all too late,

Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow:

That fiery youth may see with scornful brow

The torch that long ago

Beamed bright, a cinder now.

EPODE 2.

"HAPPY-who far from turmoil, like the men

That lived in days gone by,

With his own oxen ploughs his native glen,
Nor dreams of usury!

Him the fierce clarion summons not to war;

He dreads not angry seas:

The courts-the stately citizens' proud door-
He gets him far from these.
His maiden-vines it is his gentle craft

With poplars tall to wed:

Or the rank outgrowth lopping off, ingraft

Fair branches in its stead;

To watch his kine, that wander, lowing, far
Into the valley deep:

Store the prest honey in the taintless jar,
Or shear his tender sheep.

And soon as Autumn, with fair fruitage tricked,

Peeps o'er the fallows bare;

Then with what glee his purpling grape is picked,

And newly-grafted pear,

For you, Priapus and Silvanus-strict

Guard of his land-to share.

-Now 'neath an ancient oak, entangled now

In green grass, will he lie;

Where streams go by bank-hidden; from the bough
Is heard the wood-birds' cry;

And brawls the clear brook, as if seeking how
To sing him lullaby.

-But when the wintry skies Jove's thunder rives,
And down the snow-storms pour;

Towards the set pit-fall, doubling oft, he drives
The hound-encompassed boar:

Or with smooth rods his web of nets prepares,
The fat thrush to surprise;

Or nooses stranger cranes, or frightened hares-
Either a glorious prize!

Who, with such pleasures round him, for the cares That fret a lover sighs?

"Does a pure wife his household cares divide, Watch his sweet little ones ;

(The Sabine's thus and swift Apulian's bride Toiled 'neath Apulia's suns ;)

N

The sacred hearth with seasoned faggots heap,

When her tired lord draws nigh;

And hurdling, nothing loth, her folded sheep,

Drain their great udders dry:

Then the last vintage draw from the sweet cask,

To grace the home-made feast ?

For Lucrine purple-fish I shall not ask,

Nor turbots from the East:

Not char, which-thundering first o'er other seas—

Storms carried to our shore,

Not woodcocks from Ionia would please,

Or hens from Guinea, more

My taste; than oil that, in the rich boughs hid,

Her hands did thence obtain;

And meadow-dock, and mallow that can rid

Our suffering frames from pain,

With lamb that bled for Terminus; and kid
By wolves so nearly slain!

"So banqueting, how sweet to notice how
The fed ewes homeward fare:

How oxen, half asleep, the inverted plough
On drooping shoulders bear;

And slaves-sure signs of wealth-ranged idle now,

Swarm round the glad hearth's glare!"

So did the money-lender Appius speak,

Resolved to be a swain,

And got his money in. Within a week
Would put it out again.