I now am Thracian Chloe's slave, With hand and voice that charm the air, For whom even death itself I'd brave, INTACTIS OPULENTIOR. THOUGH India's virgin mine, And wealth of Araby be thine; Though thy wave-circled palaces Usurp the Tyrrhene and Apulian seas, When on thy devoted head The iron hand of Fate has laid The symbols of eternal doom, What power shall loose the fetters of the dead? Happy the nomad tribes whose wains To whom unmeasured fields afford And yield to other hands the unexhausted soil. The tender-hearted stepdame there Nurtures with all a mother's care The maiden's dower is purity, Breathes there a patriot, brave and strong, Would heal her wounds and quell her rage? Let him, with noble daring, first Curb Faction's tyranny accurst, So may some future age Grave on his bust with pious hand, The Father of his Native Land. Virtue yet living we despise, Adore it lost, and vanished from our eyes. Cease idle wail! The sin unpunished, what can sighs avail? A second sin is thine! The sand Forth! 'mid a shouting nation bring Thy vile, unprofitable gold. Repent, and from thy bosom tear The sordid shame that festers there. Bid thy degenerate sons to learn The high-born youth, mature in vice, His perjured sire, with jealous care, THE LIVELY CIT TURNED FARMER. PHILIP, the famous counsel, on a day (A burly man, and wilful in his way) From court returning, somewhere about two, And grumbling for his years were far from few That his home in Ship-Street was so distant, though But from the Forum half a mile or so, Descried a fellow in a barber's booth All by himself, his chin shaved fresh and smooth, "An auction-crier, Volteius Mena, sir, "I'd like to hear all from himself. Bid him come dine with me--at once Mena some trick in the request divines, Turns it all ways, then civilly declines. Away! to-day!" "What! says me nay?" ""T is, even so, sir,—why, Can't say. Dislikes you, or, more likely, shy." Next morning Philip searches Mena out, And finds him vending to a rabble rout His services else he would by dawn have paid "On one condition I accept your plea. You come this afternoon and dine with me." "Yours to command." "Be there, then, sharp at four. Now go, work hard, and make your little more!" At dinner Mena rattled on, expressed What e'er came uppermost, then home to rest. Philip himself one holiday drove him down. So Philip sees his fish is fairly caught, And smiles with inward triumph at the thought; Several hundred pounds he gives him there and then, Proffers on easy terms as much again; And so persuades him that, with tastes like his, Fe ought to buy a farm. So bought it is. Not to detain you longer than enough, The dapper cit becomes a farmer bluff. But when his sheep are stolen, when murrains smite Stung with his losses, up one night from bed VOL. XIL -5 All wrath to Philip's house, by break of day. Oh by the Genius, by the gods that be If for the worse you find you've changed your place, On your own last take care to fit your shoe. A VALETUDINARIAN'S INQUIRIES. WHICH place is best supplied with corn, d'ye think? Have they rain water or fresh springs to drink? Their wines I care not for; when at my farm, I can drink any sort without much harm; But at the sea I need a generous kind To warm my veins and pass into my mind, Enrich me with new hopes, choice words supply, Which tract is best for game? On which sea-coast That so, when I return, my friends may see A sleek Phæacian come to life in me: These things you needs must tell me, Vala dear, And I no less must act on what I hear. THE COMMON LOT. LET not the frowns of fate Disquiet thee, my friend, Nor when she smiles on thee, do thou elate With vanishing thoughts ascend Beyond the limits of becoming mirth, For Dellius, thou must die, become a clod of earth. Thy woods, thy treasured pride, Thy mansion's pleasant seat, Thy lawns washed by the Tiber's yellow tide, Each favorite retreat, Thou must leave us all - all, and thine heir shall run In riot through the wealth thy years of toil have won. |