What form of Death could him affright,

Secure those golden early joys, Who unconcerned, with stedfast sight,

That youth unsour'd with sorrow bears, Could view the surges mounting steep,

Ere withering Time the taste destroys, And monsters rolling in the deep!

With sickness and unwieldly years. Could through the ranks of ruin go,

For active sports, for pleasing rest, With storins above, and rocks below!

This is the time to be possest;
In vain did Nature's wise command

The best is but in season best.
Divide the waters from the land,
If daring ships and men prophane

Th' appointed hour of promis'd bliss, larade th' inviolable maiu;

* The pleasing whisper in the dark, Th' eternal fences over-leap,

The half unwilling willing kiss, And pass at will the boundless deep.

The laugh that guides thee to the mark, No toil , no bardship, can restrain

When the kind nymph would coyness feign, Ambitious man inur'd to pain ;

And hides but to be found again; The more confin'd, the more he tries,

These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain.
And at forbidden quarry flies.
Thus bold Prometheus did aspire,
And stole from Heaven the seeds of fire:
A train of ills, a ghastly crew,
The robber's blazing track pursue:

THE TWENTY-NINTH ODE
Fierce Famine with her meagre face,
And fevers of the fiery race,
lo swarms th' offending wretch surround,

HORACE,
All brooding on the blasted ground :
And limping Death, lash'd on by Fate,

Paraphras'd in Pindaric verse, and inscribed to Comes up to shorten half our date.

the Right Hon. Laurence earl of Rochester,
This made not Dædalus beware,
With borrow'd wings to sail in air:
To Hell Alcides forc'd his way,

DESCENDED of an ancient line,
Plung'd through the lake, and snatch'd the prey. That long the Tuscan sceptre sway'd,
Nay scarce the gods, or heavenly climes,

Make haste to meet the generous wine,
Are safe from our audacious crimes ;

Whose piercing is for thee delay'd; We reach at Jove's imperial crown,

The rosy wreath is ready made; And pull th' unwilling thunder down.

And artful hands prepare

[hair. The fragrant Syrian oil, that shall perfume thy

OF THE THIRD BOOK OP

OF

Those very shades and streams new shades and In my small pinnace I can sail, streams require,

[raging fire. Contemning all the blustering roar; And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the And, ruming with a merry gale,

With friendly stars my safety seek
Thou, what befits the new lord mayor,

Within some little winding creek :
And what the city factions dare,

And see the storm ashore.
And what the Gallic arms will do,
And what the quiver-bearing fve,

THE SECOND EPODE
Art anxiously inquisitive to know :
But God has, wisely, hid from human sight
The dark decrecs of future fate,

HORACE.
And sown their seeds in depth of night;
He laughs at all the giddy turns of state ;

How happy in his low degree,
When mortals search too soon, and fear too late. How rich in humble poverty, is he,

Who leads a quiet country life;

Discharg'd of business, void of strife,
Enjoy the present smiling hour,
And put it out of Fortune's power :

And from the griping scrivener free!

Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,
The tide of business, like the running stream,

Liv'd men in better ages born,
Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,
A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow,

Who plow'd with oxen of their own

Their small paternal field of corn.
And always in extreme.
Now with a noiseless gentle course

Nor trumpets summon him to war,

Nor drums disturb his morning sleep,
It keeps within the middle bed;

Nor knows he merchants' gainful care,
Anon it lifts aloft the head,
And bears down all before it with impetuous force; The clamours of contentious law,

Nor fears the dangers of the deep.
And trunks of trees come rolling down,

And court, and state, he wisely shuns,
Sheep and their folds together drown:
Both house and homestead into seas are borne, Nor, brib'd with hopes, nor dard with awe,

To servile salutations runs;
And rocks are from their old foundations torn,
And woods, made thin with winds, their scatter'd But either to the clasping vine
honours mourn.

Does the supporting poplar wed,
Or with his pruning-hook disjoin

Unbearing branches from their head,
Happy the man, and happy he alone,

And grafts more happy in their stead.
He who can call to-day his own :

Or, climbing to a hilly steep,
He who, secure within, can say, [day;

He views his herds in vales afar,
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-Or sheers his overbarthen'd sheep,
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,

Or mead for cooling drink prepares,
The joys I have possess'd, in spite of Fate are

Of virgin honey in the jars.
mine,

Or in the now-declining year,
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power;

When bounteous autumn rears his head, But what has been, has been, and I have had my He joys to pull the ripen'd pear, hour.

And clustering grapes with purple spread.

Tbe fairest of his fruit he serves,
Fortune, that, with malicious joy,

Priapus, thy rewards:
Does man her slave oppress,

Sylvanus too his part deserves,
Proud of her office to destroy,

Whose care the fences guards,
Is seldom pleas'd to bless :

Sometimes beneath an ancient oak,
Still various and unconstant still,

Or on the matted grass, he lies;
But with an inclination to be ill,

No god of sleep he need invoke ;
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,

The stream that o'er the pebbles flies
And makes a lottery of life.

With gentle slumber crowns his eyes.
I can enjoy her while she's kind;

The wind that whistles through the sprays But when she dances in the wind,

Maintains the concert of the song;
And shakes the wings and will not stay, And hidden birds with native lays
I puff the prostitute away:

[sign'd:

The golden sleep prolong.
The little or the much she gave, is quietly re- But, when the blast of winter blows,
Content with poverty, my soul larm;

And hoary frost inverts the year,
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm. Into the naked woods he goes,

And seeks the tusky boar to rear,
What is't to me,

With well-mouth'd hounds and pointed spear!
Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,

Or spreads his subtle nets from sight
If storms arise, and clouds grow black;

With twinkling glasses, to betray
If the mast split, and threaten wreck? The larks that in the meshes light,
Then let the greedy merchant fear

Or makes the fearful bare his prey.
For his ill-gotten gain;

Amidst his harmless easy joys
And pray to gods that will not hear,

No anxious care invades his health,
While the debating winds and billows bear Nor love his peace of mind destroys,
His wealth into the main.

Nor wicked avarice of wealth.
For me, secure from Fortune's blows,

But if a chaste and pleasing wife,
Secure of what I cannot lose,

To ease the business of his life,

1

Divides with him his household care,

Than shards or mallows for the pot, Such as the Sabine matrons were,

That keep the loosen'd body sound, Such as the swift Apulian's bride,

Or than the lamb, that falls by lot
Sun-burnt and swarthy though she be,

To the just guardian of my ground. Will fire for winter-nights provide,

Amidst these feasts of happy swains,
And without noise will oversee

The jolly shepherd smiles to see
His children and his family ;

His flock returning from the plains;
And order all things till he come,

The farmer is as pleas'd as he Sweaty and overlabour'd, home;

To view his oxen sweating smoke,
If she in pens his flocks will fold,

Bear on their necks the loosen'd yoke:
And then produce her dairy store,

To look upon bis menial crew,
With wine to drive away the cold,

That sit around his cheerful hearth, And yubought dainties of the poor ;

And bodies spent in toil renew Not oysters of the Lucrine lake

With wholesome food and country mirth.
My sober appetite would wish,

This Morecraft said within himself,
Nor turbot, or the foreign fish

Resolv'd to leave the wicked town:
That rolling tampests overtake,

And live retir'd upon his own,
And hither waft the costly dish,

He call'd his money in;
Not heathpout, or the rarer bird,

But the prevailing love of pelf,
Which Phasis or lonia yields,

Soon split him on the former shelf,
More pleasing morsels would afford

He put it out again.
Than the fat olives of my fields;

THE

POEMS

OP

EDMUND SMITH.

B