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, running 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 foe,
Art anxiously inquisitive to know :

THE SECOND EPODE
But God has, wisely, hid from human sight
The dark decrees of future fate,

HORACE.
And sown their seeds in depth of night;

How He laughs at all the giddy turns of state ;

w 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!
The tide of business, like the running stream,

Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,

Liv'd men in better ages born,
Is sometimes high, and sometimes low,

Who plowd with oxen of their own
A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow,
And always in extreme.

Their small paternal field of corn.
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 dar'd 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 overburthend 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;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my He joys to pull the ripen’d pear,

When bounteous autumn rears his head, hour.

And clustering grapes with purple spread.

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

Priapus, thy rewards :
Does man ber 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 streain 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 spearl 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,

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 Sen-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 his 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 ovsters 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 sp him on the former shelf, More pleasing morsels would afford

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

THE

POEMS

OF

EDMUND SMITH.