What joy, amidst such feasts, to see the sheep,

Full of the pasture, hurrying homewards come,

To see the wearied oxen, as they creep, Dragging the upturned ploughshare slowly home!

Or, ranged around the bright and blazing hearth,

To see the hinds, a house's surest wealth,

Beguile the evening with their simple mirth,

And all the cheerfulness of rosy health! -THEORDORE MARTIN.

TOWN AND COUNTRY

[From the Satires II, 6]

Should someone be unwise enough to praise

Arellius' toilsome wealth, he straightway says:

"One day a country mouse in his poor home

Received an ancient friend, a mouse from Rome:

The host, though close and careful, to a guest

Could open still: so now he did his best. He spares not oats or vetches: in his chaps

Raisins he brings and nibbled baconscraps,

Hoping by varied dainties to entice
His town-bred guest, so delicate and nice,
Who condescended graciously to touch
Thing after thing, but never would take
much,

While he, the owner of the mansion, sate On threshed-out straw, and spelt and darnels ate.

At length the townsman cries: 'I wonder how

You can live here, friend, on this hill's rough brow:

Take my advice, and leave these ups and downs,

This hill and dale, for humankind and

towns.

Come now, go home with me; remember, all

Who live on earth are mortal, great and small:

Then take, good sir, your pleasure while

you may;

With life so short, 'twere wrong to lose a day.'

This reasoning made the rustic's head turn round;

Forth from his hole he issues with a bound,

And they two make together for their mark,

In hopes to reach the city during dark. The midnight sky was bending over all, When they set foot within a stately hall, Where couches of wrought ivory had been spread

With gorgeous coverlets of Tyrian red, And viands piled up high in baskets lay, The relics of a feast of yesterday.

The townsman does the honours, lays his guest

At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed,

Then nimbly moves in character of host, And offers in succession boiled and roast; Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents,

And tastes before the tit-bits he presents. The guest, rejoicing in his altered fare, Assumes in turn a genial diner's air, When hark! a sudden banging of the door:

Each from his couch is tumbled on the floor:

Half dead, they scurry round the room, poor things,

While the whole house with barking mastiffs rings.

Then says the rustic: 'It may do for

you,

This life, but I don't like it; so adieu:

charms.'"

-JOHN CONINGTON.

space

Do not protracted hopes of life embrace: Whilst we are talking, envious time doth

HOR.

LYD.

HOR.

LYD.

sound;

In name I went all names before, The Roman Ilia was not more

renown'd.

'Tis true, I'm Thracian Chloe's I, Who sings so sweet, and with such cunning plays,

As, for her, I'd not fear to die, So fate would give her life, and longer days.

And I am mutually on fire With gentle Calais, Thurine Ornith's son,

For whom I doubly would expire,

So fate would let the boy a long thread run.

But say old love return should make,

And us disjoin'd force to her brazen yoke;

That I bright Chloe off should shake,

And to left Lydia now the gate stood ope?

Though he be fairer than a star; Thou lighter than the bark of any tree,

And than rough Adria angrier far;

Yet would I wish to love, live, die with thee.

-BEN JONSON.

WINTER

[Odes I, 9]

Behold yon mountain's hoary height Made higher with new mounts of snow; Again behold the winter's weight

Oppress the lab'ring woods below: And streams, with icy fetters bound, Benumb'd and crampt to solid ground.

And feed the genial hearth with fires; Produce the wine that makes us bold,

And sprightly wit and love inspires:
For what hereafter shall betide,
God, if 'tis worth his care, provide.

Let him alone, with what he made,

To toss and turn the world below; At his command the storms invade;

The winds by his commission blow; Till with a nod he bids them cease, And then the calm returns, and all is peace.

To-morrow and her works defy,

Lay hold upon the present hour, And snatch the pleasures passing by,

To put them out of fortune's power: Nor love, nor love's delights disdain; Whate'er thou get'st to-day, is gain.

Secure those golden early joys,

That youth unsour'd with sorrows
bears,

Ere with'ring time the taste destroys,
With sickness and unwiedly years.
This is the time to be possest;
The best is but in season best.

Th' appointed hour of promis'd bliss,
The pleasing whisper in the dark,
The half unwilling willing kiss,

The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness feign,

And hides but to be found again; These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain.