And apples, that in flavor and in smell
The boasted Picene equal or excel;
Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use,
For age has mellowed and improved their juice.
How homely this! and yet this homely fare
A senator would once have counted rare;
When the good Curius thought it no disgrace
O'er a few sticks a little pot to place,
With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied-
Food which the squalid wretch would now deride,
Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,
The tavern's savory dish remembers yet!
Time was, when on the rack a man would lay
The seasoned flitch against a solemn day;
And think the friends who met with decent mirth
To celebrate the hour which gave him birth,
On this, and what of fresh the altars spared
(For altars then were honored), nobly fared.
Some kinsman, who had camps and senates swayed,
Had thrice been Consul, once Dictator made,
From public cares retired, would gayly haste,
Before the wonted hour, to such repast.
Shouldering the spade, that with no common toil,
Had tamed the genius of the mountain-soil.
Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame,
And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,
The Scauran and Fabrician; when they saw
A Censor's rigor e'en a Censor awe,
No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern,
Or worth a moment's serious care to learn,
What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,
Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed.
His bed was small, and did no signs impart
Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,
Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,
Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass;
An uncouth brute, round with his children played,
And laughed and jested at the face it made! -
Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,
Were uniformly plain, and simply good.
Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece
To hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece,
If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils
(Proof of his power, and guerdon of his toils),
Some antique vase of master-hands were found,
Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;
That in new forms the molten fragments drest
Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest
(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe),
The mighty Sire, with glittering shield and spear
Hovering enamored o'er the sleeping fair;
The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild,
And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.
Thus, all the wealth these simple times could boast –
Small wealth! their horses and their arms engrossed;
The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,
Cooked without art, was served in earthenware:
Yet worthy all our envy, were the breast
But with one spark of noble spleen possest.
Then shone the fanes with majesty divine;
A present god was felt at every shrine!
And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls,
At midnight's solemn hours, announced the Gaul,
Now rushing from the main; while prompt to save,
Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!
Yet when he thus revealed the will of Fate,
And watched attentive o'er the Latian state,
His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mold,
Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.
Those good old times no foreign tables sought;
From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought,
When withering limbs declared its pith unsound,
Or winds uptore and stretched it on the ground.
But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,
They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,
Suspect no flowers a sickly scent exhale,
And think the venison rank, the turbot stale,
Unless wide-yawning panthers towering high,
Enormous pedestals of ivory,
Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends,
Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian vends,
Or those which now, too heavy for the head,
The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed,
The spacious orbs support; - then they can feed,
And every dish is delicate indeed;
For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn,
As iron rings upon the finger worn.
My feast to-day shall other joys afford: Hushed as we sit around the frugal board, Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll,
And mighty Maro elevate the soul;
Maro, who, warmed with all a poet's fire,
Disputes the palm of victory with his sire.
Nor fear my rustic clerk; read as they will,
The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still.
Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,
And quit awhile your business and your care.
The day is all our own; come and forget
Bonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt.
Yes, at my threshold tranquillize your breast;
There leave the thoughts of home, and what the haste
Of heedless slaves may in
your absence waste;
what the generous spirit most offends Oh, more than all, leave, thee, ungrateful friends.
TERRORS OF CONSCIENCE.
THE Spartan rogue, who, boldly bent on fraud,
Dared ask the god to sanction and applaud,
And sought for counsel at the Pythian shrine,
Received for answer from the lips divine,
"That he who doubted to restore his trust,
And reasoned much, reluctant to be just,
Should for those doubts and that reluctance prove
The deepest vengeance of the powers above."
The tale declares that not pronounced in vain
Came forth the warning from the sacred fane:
Ere long no branch of that devoted race
Could mortal man on soil of Sparta trace!
Thus but intended mischief, stayed in time,
Had all the mortal guilt of finished crime.
If such his fate who yet but darkly dares,
Whose guilty purpose yet no act declares,
What were it, done! Ah! now farewell to peace!
Ne'er on this earth his soul's alarms shall cease!
Held in the mouth that languid fever burns,
His tasteless food he indolently turns;
On Alba's oldest stock his soul shall pine!
Forth from his lips he spits the joyless wine!
Nor all the nectar of the hills shall now
Or glad the heart, or smooth the wrinkled brow!
While o'er the couch his aching limbs are cast,
If care permit the brief repose at last,
Lo! there the altar and the fane abused!
Or darkly shadowed forth in dream confused,
While the damp brow betrays the inward storm,
Before him flits thy aggravated form!
Then as new fears o'er all his senses press,
Unwilling words the guilty truth confess!
These, these be they whom secret terrors try,
When muttered thunders shake the lurid sky;
Whose deadly paleness now the gloom conceals
And now the vivid flash anew reveals.
No storm as Nature's casualty they hold,
They deem without an aim no thunders rolled;
Where'er the lightning strikes, the flash is thought
Judicial fire, with Heaven's high vengeance fraught.
Passes this by, with yet more anxious ear
And greater dread, each future storm they fear;
In burning vigil, deadliest foe to sleep,
In their distempered frame if fever keep,
Or the pained side their wonted rest prevent,
Behold some incensed god his bow has bent!
All pains, all aches, are stones and arrows hurled
At bold offenders in this nether world!
From them no crested cock acceptance meets!
Their lamb before the altar vainly bleats!
Can pardoning Heaven on guilty sickness smile?
Or is there victim than itself more vile?
Where steadfast virtue dwells not in the breast,
Man is a wavering creature at the best!
PARENTAL INFLUENCE.
LET naught which modest eyes or ears would shun
Approach the precincts that protect thy son!
Far be the revel from thy halls away,
And of carousing guests the wanton lay:
His child's unsullied purity demands
The deepest reverence at a parent's hands!
Quit for his sake thy pleasant vice in time,
Nor plunge thy offspring in the lore of crime;
For if the laws defied at length requite
His guilty course, and angry censors smite,
Thy moral likeness if the world shall see,
And sins made worse by practice, taught by thee,
Then shalt thou sharply, in thy wrath, declare
Thy canceled will, and him no longer heir!
What! dost assume the grave parental face,
Thou, whom persistive vices still disgrace?
Thou, from whose head, where endless follies reign,
The void cucurbit were a needful drain?
Expects thy dwelling soon a stranger guest?
Behold! not one of all thy menials rest;
Down comes the spider, struggling in his loom,
O'er walls and pavements moves the active broom;
This brings the pail, to that the brush assigned,
While storms the master with his whip behind!
Wretch art thou troubled lest thy friend descry
Some unswept corner with too curious eye?
Lest marks unseemly at thy porch be seen,
Which sawdust and a slave may quickly clean?
And is it nothing, nothing, that thy child
Should see thy house with vices undefiled,
From moral stains immaculate and free,
The home of righteousness and sanctity?
Yes! if thou rear'st thy son to till the soil,
To bear the patriot's or the statesman's toil,
Then from thy grateful country claim thy meed,
A good and useful citizen indeed!
But ere she thank thee, let that country know
From early care of thine what virtues flow!
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