IX. Fortune, that, with malicious joy, I can enjoy her while she's kind; But when she dances in the wind, And shakes the wings and will not stay, I puff the prostitute away: The little or the much she gave, is quietly refign'd; Content with poverty, my foul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm, X. What is't to me, Who never fail in her unfaithful fea, For his ill-gotten gain; And pray to Gods that will not hear, While the debating winds and billows bear For me, fecure from fortune's blows, In my small pinnace I can fail, And, running with a merry gale, And see the storm afhore. THE SECOND EPODE OF HORACE. HOW happy in his low degree, How rich in humble poverty, is he, Who leads a quiet country life; Nor drums difturb his morning fleep, And court, and ftate, he wifely fhuns, But either to the clafping vine Does the fupporting poplar wed, Or with his pruning-hook disjoin Uue Unbearing branches from their head, And grafts more happy in their stead : Or, climbing to a hilly steep, He views his herds in vales afar, Or mead for cooling drink prepares, When bounteous autumn rears his head, He joys to pull the ripen'd pear, And clustering grapes with purple spread. Or on the matted grass, he lies; No God of fleep he need invoke ; The ftream that o'er the pebbles flies But, when the blafts of winter blows, And hoary froft inverts the year, Into the naked woods he goes, And feeks the tufty boar to rear, With well-mouth'd hounds and pointed spear! Or Or fpreads his fubtle nets from fight Or makes the fearful hare his prey. No anxious care invades his health, But if a chafte and pleafing wife, And then produce her dairy ftore, And unbought dainties of the poor; And hither waft the coftly dish. More More pleafing morfels would afford Than the fat olives of my fields; Than fhards or mallows for the pot, That keep the loosen'd body found, To the just guardian of my ground. That fit around his chearful hearth, And bodies spent in toil renew With wholesome food and country mirth. This Morecraft said within himself, Refolv'd to leave the wicked town: And live retir'd upon He call'd his money in; his own, But the prevailing love of pelf, Soon fplit him on the former shelf, He put it out again. CON |