Yes, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgraceThe noblest qualities of birth and place;Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run,In one eternal stream, from sire to son.If, in destructive play, the senior waste5His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,Repeats, in miniature, the darling vice,Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,Who, trained by the gray epicure, his sire,10Has learned to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,To souse the becaficos, till they swim!—For take him, thus to early luxury bred,Ere twice four springs have blossomed o'er his head,And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age,15Inculcate temperance from the stoic page;His wish will ever be, in state to dine,And keep his kitchen's honor from decline!Does Rutilus inspire a generous mind,Prone to forgive, and to slight errors blind;20Instill the liberal thought, that slaves have powers,Sense, feeling, all, as exquisite as ours;Or fury? He, who hears the sounding thongWith far more pleasure than the Siren's song;Who, the stern tyrant of his small domain,25The Polypheme of his domestic train,Knows no delight, save when the torturer's handStamps, for low theft, the agonizing brand.—O, what but rage can fill that stripling's breast,Who sees his savage sire then only blest,30When his stretched ears drink in the wretches' cries,And racks and prisons fill his vengeful eyes!And dare we hope, yon girl, from Larga sprung,Will e'er prove virtuous; when her little tongueNe'er told so fast her mother's wanton train,35But that she stopped and breathed, and stopped again?Even from her tender years, unnatural trust!The child was privy to the matron's lust:—Scarce ripe for man, with her own hand, she writesThe billets, which the ancient bawd indites,40Employs the self-same pimps, and looks, ere long,To share the visits of the amorous throng!So Nature prompts: drawn by her secret tie,We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye;With fatal haste, alas! the example take,45And love the sin, for the dear sinner's sake.—One youth, perhaps, formed of superior clay,And warmed, by Titan, with a purer ray,May dare to slight proximity of blood,And, in despite of nature, to be good:50One youth—the rest the beaten pathway tread,And blindly follow where their fathers led.O fatal guides! this reason should sufficeTo win you from the slippery route of vice,This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue55The guilty track, thus plainly marked by you!For youth is facile, and its yielding willReceives, with fatal ease, the imprint of ill:Hence Catilines in every clime abound;But where are Cato and his nephew found!60Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell,Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel;The place is sacred: Far, far hence, remove,Ye venal votaries of illicit love!Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed,65And sell yourselves to infamy for bread!Reverence to children, as to heaven, is due:When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;And let the thought abate your guilty speed,70Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,In riper age, the law's avenging stroke(Since not alone in person and in face,75But even in morals, he will prove his race,And, while example acts with fatal force,Side, nay outstrip, you, in the vicious course),Vexed, you will rave and storm; perhaps, prepare,Should threatening fail, to name another heir!80—Audacious! with what front do you aspireTo exercise the license of a sire?When all, with rising indignation, viewThe youth, in turpitude, surpassed by you,By you, old fool, whose windy, brainless head,85Long since required the cupping-glass's aid!Is there a guest expected? all is haste,All hurry in the house, from first to last."Sweep the dry cobwebs down!" the master cries,Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes,90"Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;Scour you the figured silver; you, the plain!"O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,Lest the front hall, or gallery, daubed with soil(Which, yet, a little sand removes), offend95The prying eye of some indifferent friend?And do you stir not, that your son may seeThe house from moral filth, from vices free!True, you have given a citizen to Rome;And she shall thank you, if the youth become,100By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late,A useful member of the parent state:For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take,From the strong impress which, at first, you make;And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim,105His country's glory, or his country's shame.The stork, with snakes and lizards from the woodAnd pathless wild, supports her callow brood;And the fledged storklings, when to wing they take,Seek the same reptiles, through the devious brake.110The vulture snuffs from far the tainted gale,And, hurrying where the putrid scents exhale,From gibbets and from graves the carcass tears,And to her young the loathsome dainty bears;Her young, grown vigorous, hasten from the nest,115And gorge on carrion, with the parent's zest.While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood,Scours the wide champaign for untainted food,Bears the swift hare, or swifter fawn away,And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey;120Her nestlings hence, when from the rock they spring,And, pinched by hunger, to the quarry wing,Stoop only to the game they tasted first,When, clamorous, from the shell, to light they burst.Centronius planned and built, and built and planned;125And now along Cajeta's winding strand,And now amid Præneste's hills, and nowOn lofty Tibur's solitary brow,He reared prodigious piles, with marble broughtFrom distant realms, and exquisitely wrought:130Prodigious piles! that towered o'er Fortune's shrine,As those of gelt Posides, Jove, o'er thine!While thus Centronius crowded seat on seat,He spent his cash, and mortgaged his estate;Yet left enough his family to content:135Which his mad son, to the last farthing, spent,While, building on, he strove, with fond desire,To shame the stately structures of his sire!Sprung from a father who the sabbath fears,There is, who naught but clouds and skies reveres;140And shuns the taste, by old tradition led,Of human flesh, and swine's, with equal dread:—This first: the prepuce next he lays aside,And, taught the Roman ritual to deride,Clings to the Jewish, and observes with awe145All Moses bade in his mysterious law:And, therefore, to the circumcised aloneWill point the road, or make the fountain known;Warned by his bigot sire, who whiled away,Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day.150But youth, so prone to follow other ills,Are driven toAVARICE, against their wills;For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,Seems Virtue's self, to undiscerning eyes.The miser, hence, a frugal man, they name;155And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.—Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,The worthy, in the wealthy, man behold;160And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!And true, indeed, it is—suchMASTERSraiseImmense estates; no matter, by what ways;But raise they do, with brows in sweat still dyed,165With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.The father, by the love of wealth possest,Convinced—the covetous alone are blest,And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knewA poor man happy—bids his son pursue170The paths they take, the courses they affect,And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;These, he inculcates first: anon, impartsThe petty tricks of saving; last, inspires,175Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires.—Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,The flinty fragments of his vinewed bread.180In dog-days, when the sun, with fervent power,Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dishOf sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,And half a stinking shad, and a few strings185Of a chopped leek—all told, like sacred things,And sealed with caution, though the sight and smellWould a starved beggar from the board repel.But why this dire avidity of gain?This mass collected with such toil and pain?190Since 'tis the veriest madness, to live poor,And die with bags and coffers running o'er.Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,For thirst of wealth still grows with wealth increast,195And they desire it less, who have it least.—Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;Still "cribbed confined," he spurns the narrow bounds,And turns an eye on every neighbor's grounds:200There all allures; his crops appear a foilTo the rich produce of their happier soil."And this, I'll purchase, with the grove," he cries,"And that fair hill, where the gray olives rise."Then, if the owner to no price will yield205(Resolved to keep the hereditary field),Whole droves of oxen, starved to this intent,Among his springing corn, by night, are sent,To revel there, till not a blade be seen,And all appear like a close-shaven green.210"Monstrous!" you say—And yet, 'twere hard to tell,What numbers, tricks like these have forced to sell.But, sure, the general voice has marked his name,And given him up to infamy and shame:—"And what of that?" he cries. "I valued more215A single lupine, added to my store,Than all the country's praise; if cursed by fateWith the scant produce of a small estate."—'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy,But nights of peace succeed to days of joy,220If more of ground to you alone pertain,Than Rome possessed, in Numa's pious reign!Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was gored,By the fierce Pyrrhic, or Molossian sword,Hardly received for all his service past,225And all his wounds,TWO ACRESat the last;The meed of toil and blood! yet never thoughtHis country thankless, or his pains ill bought.For then, this little glebe, improved with care,Largely supplied, with vegetable fare,230The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,And four hale boys, that round the cottage played,Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,235Hungry and tired, expected from the plow.—Two acreswill not now, so changed the times,Afford a garden plot:—and hence our crimes!For not a vice that taints the human soul,More frequent points the sword, or drugs the bowl,240Than the dire lust of an "untamed estate"—Since, he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:Law threatens, Conscience calls—yet on he hies,And this he silences, and that defies,Fear, Shame—he bears down all, and, with loose rein,245Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain!"Let us, my sons, contented with our lot,Enjoy, in peace, our hillock and our cot"(The good old Marsian to his children said),"And from our labor seek our daily bread.250So shall we please the rural Powers, whose care,And kindly aid, first taught us to prepareThe golden grain, what time we ranged the wood,A savage race, for acorns, savage food!The poor who, with inverted skins, defy255The lowering tempest and the freezing sky,Who, without shame, without reluctance go,In clouted brogues, through mire and drifted snow,Ne'er think of ill: 'tis purple, boys, alone,Which leads to guilt—purple, to us unknown."260Thus, to their children, spoke the sires of yore.Now, autumn's sickly heats are scarcely o'er,Ere, while deep midnight yet involves the skies,The impatient father shakes his son, and cries,"What, ho, boy, wake! Up; pleas, rejoinders draw,265Turn o'er the rubric of our ancient law;Up, up, and study: or, with brief in hand,Petition Lælius for a small command,A captain's!—Lælius loves a spreading chest,Broad shoulders, tangled locks, and hairy breast:270The British towers, the Moorish tents destroy,And the rich Eagle, at threescore, enjoy!""But if the trump, prelusive to the fight,And the long labors of the camp affright,Go, look for merchandise of readiest vent,275Which yields a sure return of cent. per cent.Buy this, no matter what; the ware is good,Though not allowed on this side Tiber's flood:Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things,And gain smells sweet, from whatsoe'er it springs.280This golden sentence, which the Powers of heaven,Which Jove himself, might glory to have given,Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust—None question whence it comes; but come it must."This, when the lisping race a farthing ask,285Old women set them, as a previous task;The wondrous apophthegm all run to get,And learn it sooner than their alphabet.But why this haste? Without your care, vain fool!The pupil will, ere long, the tutor school:290Sleep, then, in peace; secure to be outdone,Like Telamon, or Peleus, by your son.O, yet indulge awhile his tender years:The seeds of vice, sown by your fostering cares,Have scarce ta'en root; but they will spring at length,295"Grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength."Then, when the firstlings of his youth are paid,And his rough chin requires the razor's aid,Then he will swear, then to the altar come,And sell deep perjuries for a paltry sum!—300Believe your step-daughter already dead,If, with an ample dower, she mount his bed:Lo! scarcely laid, his murderous fingers creep,And close her eyes in everlasting sleep.For that vast wealth which, with long years of pain,305You thought would be acquired by land and main,He gets a readier way: the skill's not great,The toil not much, to make a knave complete.But you will say hereafter, "I am free:He never learned those practices of me."310Yes, all of you:—for he who, madly blind,Imbues with avarice his children's mind,Fires with the thirst of riches, and applaudsThe attempt, to double their estate by frauds,Unconscious, flings the headlong wheels the rein,315Which he may wish to stop, but wish in vain;Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise,Thus, and no farther, may ye step in vice;320But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free pace,Scour far and wide the interdicted space.So, when you tell the youth, thatFOOLSaloneRegard a friend's distresses as their own;You bid the willing hearer riches raise,325By fraud, by rapine, by the worst of ways;Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest,Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast;Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave(If Greece say true), her sacred walls to save.330Thebes, where, impregned with serpents' teeth, the earthPoured forth a marshaled host, prodigious birth!Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,Nor asked the trumpet's signal, to engage.—But mark the end! the fire, derived, at first,335From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,And wraps you in the universal blaze.So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore.340"Tush! I am safe," you cry; "Chaldæan seersHave raised my Scheme, and promised length of years."But has your son subscribed? will he awaitThe lingering distaff of decrepit Fate?No; his impatience will the work confound,345And snap the vital thread, ere half unwound.Even now your long and stag-like age annoysHis future hopes, and palls his present joys.Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepareAn antidote, if life be worth your care;350If you would see another autumn close,And pluck another fig, another rose:—Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,AFATHER, you? and without medicine eat!Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view355A scene more comic than the stage e'er knew.Lo! with what toil, what danger, wealth is sought,And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;SinceMars the avengerslumbered, to his cost,And, with his helmet, all his credit lost!360Quit then the plays! theFARCE OF LIFEsuppliesA scene more comic in the sage's eyes.For who amuses most?—the man who springs,Light, through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings;Or he, who, to a fragile bark confined,365Dwells on the deep, the sport of wave and wind?Fool-hardy wretch! scrambling for every baleOf stinking merchandise, exposed to sale;And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,And jars, the fellow-citizens of Jove!370Thatskips along the rope, with wavering tread,Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;Thisventures life, for wealth too vast to spend,Farm joined to farm, and villas without end!Lo! every harbor thronged and every bay,375And half mankind upon the watery way!For, where he hears the attractive voice of gain,The merchant hurries, and defies the main.—Nor will he only range the Libyan shore,But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore;380See Phœbus, sinking in the Atlantic, laveHis fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.And all for what? O glorious end! to come,His toils o'erpast, with purse replenished, home,And, with a traveler's privilege, vent his boasts,385Of unknown monsters seen on unknown coasts.What varying forms in madness may we trace!—Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,And flash their bloody torches in his eyes;390While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,Hears Agamemnon or Ulysses low:And surely he (though, haply, he forbear,Like these, his keeper and his clothes to tear)Is just as mad, who to the water's brim395Loads his frail bark—a plank 'twixt death and him!When all this risk is but to swell his storeWith a few coins, a few gold pieces more.Heaven lowers, and frequent, through the muttering air,The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare:400"Weigh! weigh!" the impatient man of traffic cries,"These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the skies,Are but the pageants of a sultry day;A thunder shower, that frowns, and melts away."Deluded wretch! dashed on some dangerous coast,405This night, this hour, perhaps, his bark is lost;While he still strives, though whelmed beneath the wave,His darling purse with teeth or hand to save.Thus he, who sighed, of late, for all the goldDown the bright Tagus and Pactolus rolled,410Now bounds his wishes to one poor request,A scanty morsel and a tattered vest;And shows, where tears, where supplications fail,A daubing of his melancholy tale!Wealth, by such dangers earned, such anxious pain,415Requires more care to keep it, than to gain:Whate'er my miseries, make me not, kind Fate,The sleepless Argus of a vast estate!The slaves of Licinus, a numerous band,Watch through the night, with buckets in their hand,420While their rich master trembling lies, afraidLest fire his ivory, amber, gold, invade,The naked Cynic mocks such restless cares,His earthen tub no conflagration fears;If cracked, to-morrow he procures a new,425Or, coarsely soldering, makes the old one do.Even Philip's son, when, in his little cellContent, he saw the mighty master dwell,Owned, with a sigh, that he, who naught desired,Was happier far, than he who worlds required,430And whose ambition certain dangers brought,Vast, and unbounded, as the object sought.—Fortune, advanced to heaven by fools alone,Would lose, were wisdom ours, her shadowy throne."What call I, then,ENOUGH?" What will afford435A decent habit, and a frugal board;What Epicurus' little garden bore,And Socrates sufficient thought, before:These squared by Nature's rules their blameless life—Nature and Wisdom never are at strife.440You think, perhaps, these rigid means too scant,And that I ground philosophy on want;Take then (for I will be indulgent now,And something for the change of times allow),As much as Otho for a knight requires:—445If this, unequal to your wild desires,Contract your brow; enlarge the sum, and takeAs much as two—as much as three—will make.If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,Your craving bosom yawn, unfilled, for more,450Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increastBy all the treasures of the gorgeous East,Will not content you; no, nor all the goldOf that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controlled,Who swayed the Emperor, and whose fatal word455Plunged in the Empress' breast the lingering sword!
Yes, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgraceThe noblest qualities of birth and place;Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run,In one eternal stream, from sire to son.If, in destructive play, the senior waste5His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,Repeats, in miniature, the darling vice,Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,Who, trained by the gray epicure, his sire,10Has learned to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,To souse the becaficos, till they swim!—For take him, thus to early luxury bred,Ere twice four springs have blossomed o'er his head,And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age,15Inculcate temperance from the stoic page;His wish will ever be, in state to dine,And keep his kitchen's honor from decline!Does Rutilus inspire a generous mind,Prone to forgive, and to slight errors blind;20Instill the liberal thought, that slaves have powers,Sense, feeling, all, as exquisite as ours;Or fury? He, who hears the sounding thongWith far more pleasure than the Siren's song;Who, the stern tyrant of his small domain,25The Polypheme of his domestic train,Knows no delight, save when the torturer's handStamps, for low theft, the agonizing brand.—O, what but rage can fill that stripling's breast,Who sees his savage sire then only blest,30When his stretched ears drink in the wretches' cries,And racks and prisons fill his vengeful eyes!And dare we hope, yon girl, from Larga sprung,Will e'er prove virtuous; when her little tongueNe'er told so fast her mother's wanton train,35But that she stopped and breathed, and stopped again?Even from her tender years, unnatural trust!The child was privy to the matron's lust:—Scarce ripe for man, with her own hand, she writesThe billets, which the ancient bawd indites,40Employs the self-same pimps, and looks, ere long,To share the visits of the amorous throng!So Nature prompts: drawn by her secret tie,We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye;With fatal haste, alas! the example take,45And love the sin, for the dear sinner's sake.—One youth, perhaps, formed of superior clay,And warmed, by Titan, with a purer ray,May dare to slight proximity of blood,And, in despite of nature, to be good:50One youth—the rest the beaten pathway tread,And blindly follow where their fathers led.O fatal guides! this reason should sufficeTo win you from the slippery route of vice,This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue55The guilty track, thus plainly marked by you!For youth is facile, and its yielding willReceives, with fatal ease, the imprint of ill:Hence Catilines in every clime abound;But where are Cato and his nephew found!60Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell,Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel;The place is sacred: Far, far hence, remove,Ye venal votaries of illicit love!Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed,65And sell yourselves to infamy for bread!Reverence to children, as to heaven, is due:When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;And let the thought abate your guilty speed,70Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,In riper age, the law's avenging stroke(Since not alone in person and in face,75But even in morals, he will prove his race,And, while example acts with fatal force,Side, nay outstrip, you, in the vicious course),Vexed, you will rave and storm; perhaps, prepare,Should threatening fail, to name another heir!80—Audacious! with what front do you aspireTo exercise the license of a sire?When all, with rising indignation, viewThe youth, in turpitude, surpassed by you,By you, old fool, whose windy, brainless head,85Long since required the cupping-glass's aid!Is there a guest expected? all is haste,All hurry in the house, from first to last."Sweep the dry cobwebs down!" the master cries,Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes,90"Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;Scour you the figured silver; you, the plain!"O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,Lest the front hall, or gallery, daubed with soil(Which, yet, a little sand removes), offend95The prying eye of some indifferent friend?And do you stir not, that your son may seeThe house from moral filth, from vices free!True, you have given a citizen to Rome;And she shall thank you, if the youth become,100By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late,A useful member of the parent state:For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take,From the strong impress which, at first, you make;And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim,105His country's glory, or his country's shame.The stork, with snakes and lizards from the woodAnd pathless wild, supports her callow brood;And the fledged storklings, when to wing they take,Seek the same reptiles, through the devious brake.110The vulture snuffs from far the tainted gale,And, hurrying where the putrid scents exhale,From gibbets and from graves the carcass tears,And to her young the loathsome dainty bears;Her young, grown vigorous, hasten from the nest,115And gorge on carrion, with the parent's zest.While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood,Scours the wide champaign for untainted food,Bears the swift hare, or swifter fawn away,And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey;120Her nestlings hence, when from the rock they spring,And, pinched by hunger, to the quarry wing,Stoop only to the game they tasted first,When, clamorous, from the shell, to light they burst.Centronius planned and built, and built and planned;125And now along Cajeta's winding strand,And now amid Præneste's hills, and nowOn lofty Tibur's solitary brow,He reared prodigious piles, with marble broughtFrom distant realms, and exquisitely wrought:130Prodigious piles! that towered o'er Fortune's shrine,As those of gelt Posides, Jove, o'er thine!While thus Centronius crowded seat on seat,He spent his cash, and mortgaged his estate;Yet left enough his family to content:135Which his mad son, to the last farthing, spent,While, building on, he strove, with fond desire,To shame the stately structures of his sire!Sprung from a father who the sabbath fears,There is, who naught but clouds and skies reveres;140And shuns the taste, by old tradition led,Of human flesh, and swine's, with equal dread:—This first: the prepuce next he lays aside,And, taught the Roman ritual to deride,Clings to the Jewish, and observes with awe145All Moses bade in his mysterious law:And, therefore, to the circumcised aloneWill point the road, or make the fountain known;Warned by his bigot sire, who whiled away,Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day.150But youth, so prone to follow other ills,Are driven toAVARICE, against their wills;For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,Seems Virtue's self, to undiscerning eyes.The miser, hence, a frugal man, they name;155And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.—Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,The worthy, in the wealthy, man behold;160And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!And true, indeed, it is—suchMASTERSraiseImmense estates; no matter, by what ways;But raise they do, with brows in sweat still dyed,165With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.The father, by the love of wealth possest,Convinced—the covetous alone are blest,And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knewA poor man happy—bids his son pursue170The paths they take, the courses they affect,And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;These, he inculcates first: anon, impartsThe petty tricks of saving; last, inspires,175Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires.—Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,The flinty fragments of his vinewed bread.180In dog-days, when the sun, with fervent power,Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dishOf sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,And half a stinking shad, and a few strings185Of a chopped leek—all told, like sacred things,And sealed with caution, though the sight and smellWould a starved beggar from the board repel.But why this dire avidity of gain?This mass collected with such toil and pain?190Since 'tis the veriest madness, to live poor,And die with bags and coffers running o'er.Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,For thirst of wealth still grows with wealth increast,195And they desire it less, who have it least.—Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;Still "cribbed confined," he spurns the narrow bounds,And turns an eye on every neighbor's grounds:200There all allures; his crops appear a foilTo the rich produce of their happier soil."And this, I'll purchase, with the grove," he cries,"And that fair hill, where the gray olives rise."Then, if the owner to no price will yield205(Resolved to keep the hereditary field),Whole droves of oxen, starved to this intent,Among his springing corn, by night, are sent,To revel there, till not a blade be seen,And all appear like a close-shaven green.210"Monstrous!" you say—And yet, 'twere hard to tell,What numbers, tricks like these have forced to sell.But, sure, the general voice has marked his name,And given him up to infamy and shame:—"And what of that?" he cries. "I valued more215A single lupine, added to my store,Than all the country's praise; if cursed by fateWith the scant produce of a small estate."—'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy,But nights of peace succeed to days of joy,220If more of ground to you alone pertain,Than Rome possessed, in Numa's pious reign!Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was gored,By the fierce Pyrrhic, or Molossian sword,Hardly received for all his service past,225And all his wounds,TWO ACRESat the last;The meed of toil and blood! yet never thoughtHis country thankless, or his pains ill bought.For then, this little glebe, improved with care,Largely supplied, with vegetable fare,230The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,And four hale boys, that round the cottage played,Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,235Hungry and tired, expected from the plow.—Two acreswill not now, so changed the times,Afford a garden plot:—and hence our crimes!For not a vice that taints the human soul,More frequent points the sword, or drugs the bowl,240Than the dire lust of an "untamed estate"—Since, he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:Law threatens, Conscience calls—yet on he hies,And this he silences, and that defies,Fear, Shame—he bears down all, and, with loose rein,245Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain!"Let us, my sons, contented with our lot,Enjoy, in peace, our hillock and our cot"(The good old Marsian to his children said),"And from our labor seek our daily bread.250So shall we please the rural Powers, whose care,And kindly aid, first taught us to prepareThe golden grain, what time we ranged the wood,A savage race, for acorns, savage food!The poor who, with inverted skins, defy255The lowering tempest and the freezing sky,Who, without shame, without reluctance go,In clouted brogues, through mire and drifted snow,Ne'er think of ill: 'tis purple, boys, alone,Which leads to guilt—purple, to us unknown."260Thus, to their children, spoke the sires of yore.Now, autumn's sickly heats are scarcely o'er,Ere, while deep midnight yet involves the skies,The impatient father shakes his son, and cries,"What, ho, boy, wake! Up; pleas, rejoinders draw,265Turn o'er the rubric of our ancient law;Up, up, and study: or, with brief in hand,Petition Lælius for a small command,A captain's!—Lælius loves a spreading chest,Broad shoulders, tangled locks, and hairy breast:270The British towers, the Moorish tents destroy,And the rich Eagle, at threescore, enjoy!""But if the trump, prelusive to the fight,And the long labors of the camp affright,Go, look for merchandise of readiest vent,275Which yields a sure return of cent. per cent.Buy this, no matter what; the ware is good,Though not allowed on this side Tiber's flood:Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things,And gain smells sweet, from whatsoe'er it springs.280This golden sentence, which the Powers of heaven,Which Jove himself, might glory to have given,Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust—None question whence it comes; but come it must."This, when the lisping race a farthing ask,285Old women set them, as a previous task;The wondrous apophthegm all run to get,And learn it sooner than their alphabet.But why this haste? Without your care, vain fool!The pupil will, ere long, the tutor school:290Sleep, then, in peace; secure to be outdone,Like Telamon, or Peleus, by your son.O, yet indulge awhile his tender years:The seeds of vice, sown by your fostering cares,Have scarce ta'en root; but they will spring at length,295"Grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength."Then, when the firstlings of his youth are paid,And his rough chin requires the razor's aid,Then he will swear, then to the altar come,And sell deep perjuries for a paltry sum!—300Believe your step-daughter already dead,If, with an ample dower, she mount his bed:Lo! scarcely laid, his murderous fingers creep,And close her eyes in everlasting sleep.For that vast wealth which, with long years of pain,305You thought would be acquired by land and main,He gets a readier way: the skill's not great,The toil not much, to make a knave complete.But you will say hereafter, "I am free:He never learned those practices of me."310Yes, all of you:—for he who, madly blind,Imbues with avarice his children's mind,Fires with the thirst of riches, and applaudsThe attempt, to double their estate by frauds,Unconscious, flings the headlong wheels the rein,315Which he may wish to stop, but wish in vain;Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise,Thus, and no farther, may ye step in vice;320But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free pace,Scour far and wide the interdicted space.So, when you tell the youth, thatFOOLSaloneRegard a friend's distresses as their own;You bid the willing hearer riches raise,325By fraud, by rapine, by the worst of ways;Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest,Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast;Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave(If Greece say true), her sacred walls to save.330Thebes, where, impregned with serpents' teeth, the earthPoured forth a marshaled host, prodigious birth!Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,Nor asked the trumpet's signal, to engage.—But mark the end! the fire, derived, at first,335From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,And wraps you in the universal blaze.So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore.340"Tush! I am safe," you cry; "Chaldæan seersHave raised my Scheme, and promised length of years."But has your son subscribed? will he awaitThe lingering distaff of decrepit Fate?No; his impatience will the work confound,345And snap the vital thread, ere half unwound.Even now your long and stag-like age annoysHis future hopes, and palls his present joys.Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepareAn antidote, if life be worth your care;350If you would see another autumn close,And pluck another fig, another rose:—Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,AFATHER, you? and without medicine eat!Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view355A scene more comic than the stage e'er knew.Lo! with what toil, what danger, wealth is sought,And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;SinceMars the avengerslumbered, to his cost,And, with his helmet, all his credit lost!360Quit then the plays! theFARCE OF LIFEsuppliesA scene more comic in the sage's eyes.For who amuses most?—the man who springs,Light, through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings;Or he, who, to a fragile bark confined,365Dwells on the deep, the sport of wave and wind?Fool-hardy wretch! scrambling for every baleOf stinking merchandise, exposed to sale;And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,And jars, the fellow-citizens of Jove!370Thatskips along the rope, with wavering tread,Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;Thisventures life, for wealth too vast to spend,Farm joined to farm, and villas without end!Lo! every harbor thronged and every bay,375And half mankind upon the watery way!For, where he hears the attractive voice of gain,The merchant hurries, and defies the main.—Nor will he only range the Libyan shore,But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore;380See Phœbus, sinking in the Atlantic, laveHis fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.And all for what? O glorious end! to come,His toils o'erpast, with purse replenished, home,And, with a traveler's privilege, vent his boasts,385Of unknown monsters seen on unknown coasts.What varying forms in madness may we trace!—Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,And flash their bloody torches in his eyes;390While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,Hears Agamemnon or Ulysses low:And surely he (though, haply, he forbear,Like these, his keeper and his clothes to tear)Is just as mad, who to the water's brim395Loads his frail bark—a plank 'twixt death and him!When all this risk is but to swell his storeWith a few coins, a few gold pieces more.Heaven lowers, and frequent, through the muttering air,The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare:400"Weigh! weigh!" the impatient man of traffic cries,"These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the skies,Are but the pageants of a sultry day;A thunder shower, that frowns, and melts away."Deluded wretch! dashed on some dangerous coast,405This night, this hour, perhaps, his bark is lost;While he still strives, though whelmed beneath the wave,His darling purse with teeth or hand to save.Thus he, who sighed, of late, for all the goldDown the bright Tagus and Pactolus rolled,410Now bounds his wishes to one poor request,A scanty morsel and a tattered vest;And shows, where tears, where supplications fail,A daubing of his melancholy tale!Wealth, by such dangers earned, such anxious pain,415Requires more care to keep it, than to gain:Whate'er my miseries, make me not, kind Fate,The sleepless Argus of a vast estate!The slaves of Licinus, a numerous band,Watch through the night, with buckets in their hand,420While their rich master trembling lies, afraidLest fire his ivory, amber, gold, invade,The naked Cynic mocks such restless cares,His earthen tub no conflagration fears;If cracked, to-morrow he procures a new,425Or, coarsely soldering, makes the old one do.Even Philip's son, when, in his little cellContent, he saw the mighty master dwell,Owned, with a sigh, that he, who naught desired,Was happier far, than he who worlds required,430And whose ambition certain dangers brought,Vast, and unbounded, as the object sought.—Fortune, advanced to heaven by fools alone,Would lose, were wisdom ours, her shadowy throne."What call I, then,ENOUGH?" What will afford435A decent habit, and a frugal board;What Epicurus' little garden bore,And Socrates sufficient thought, before:These squared by Nature's rules their blameless life—Nature and Wisdom never are at strife.440You think, perhaps, these rigid means too scant,And that I ground philosophy on want;Take then (for I will be indulgent now,And something for the change of times allow),As much as Otho for a knight requires:—445If this, unequal to your wild desires,Contract your brow; enlarge the sum, and takeAs much as two—as much as three—will make.If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,Your craving bosom yawn, unfilled, for more,450Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increastBy all the treasures of the gorgeous East,Will not content you; no, nor all the goldOf that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controlled,Who swayed the Emperor, and whose fatal word455Plunged in the Empress' breast the lingering sword!
Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend,The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend?—The snake-devouring ibis, these enshrine,Those think the crocodile alone divine;Others, where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground,5And shattered Memnon yields a magic sound,Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape,And bow before the image of an ape!Thousands regard the hound with holy fear,Not one, Diana: and 'tis dangerous here,10To violate an onion, or to stainThe sanctity of leeks with tooth profane.O holy nations! Sacro-sanct abodes!Where every garden propagates its gods!They spare the fleecy kind, and think it ill,15The blood of lambkins, or of kids, to spill:But, human flesh—O! that is lawful fare.And you may eat it without scandal there.When, at the amazed Alcinous' board, of old,Ulysses of so strange an action told,20He moved of some the mirth, of more the gall,And, for a lying vagrant, passed with all."Will no one plunge this babbler in the waves(Worthy a true Charybdis)—while he ravesOf monsters seen not since the world began,25Cyclops and Læstrigons, who feed on man!For me—I less should doubt of Scylla's train,Of rocks that float and jostle in the main,Of bladders filled with storms, of men, in fine,By magic changed, and driven to grunt with swine,30Than of his cannibals:—the fellow feigns,As if he thought Phæacians had no brains."Thus, one, perhaps, more sober than the rest,Observed, and justly, of their traveled guest,Who spoke of prodigies till then unknown;35Yet brought no attestation but his own.—I bring my wonders, too; and I can tell,When Junius, late, was consul, what befell,Near Coptus' walls; tell of a people stainedWith deeper guilt than tragedy e'er feigned:40For, sure, no buskined bard, from Pyrrha's time,E'er taxed a whole community with crime;Take then a scene yet to the stage unknown,And, by a nation, acted—IN OUR OWN!Between two neighboring towns a deadly hate,45Sprung from a sacred grudge of ancient date,Yet burns; a hate no lenients can assuage,No time subdue, a rooted, rancorous rage!Blind bigotry, at first, the evil wrought:For each despised the other's gods, and thought50Its own the true, the genuine, in a word,The only deities to be adored!And now the Ombite festival drew near:When the prime Tent'rites, envious of their cheer,Resolved to seize the occasion, to annoy55Their feast, and spoil the sacred week of joy.—It came: the hour the thoughtless Ombites greet,And crowd the porches, crowd the public street,With tables richly spread; where, night and day,Plunged in the abyss of gluttony, they lay:60(For savage as the nome appears, it viesIn luxury, if IMAY TRUST MY EYES,With dissolute Canopus:) Six were past,Six days of riot, and the seventh and lastRose on the feast; and now the Tent'rites thought,65A cheap, a bloodless victory might be bought,O'er such a helpless crew: nor thought they wrong,Nor could the event be doubtful, where a throngOf drunken revelers, stammering, reeling-ripe,And capering to a sooty minstrel's pipe.70Coarse unguents, chaplets, flowers, on this side fight,On that, keen hatred, and deliberate spite!At first both sides, though eager to engage.With taunts and jeers, the heralds of their rage,Blow up their mutual fury; and anon,75Kindled to madness, with loud shouts rush on;Deal, though unarmed, their vengeance blindly round,And with clenched fists print many a ghastly wound.Then might you see, amid the desperate fray,Features disfigured, noses torn away,80Hands, where the gore of mangled eyes yet reeks,And jaw-bones starting through the cloven cheeks!But this is sport, mere children's play, they cry—As yet beneath their feet no bodies lie,And, to what purpose should such armies fight85The cause of heaven, if none be slain outright?Roused at the thought, more fiercely they engage,With stones, the weapons of intestine rage;Yet not precisely such, to tell you true,As Turnus erst, or mightier Ajax, threw:90Nor quite so large as that two-handed stone,Which bruised Æneas on the huckle-bone;But such as men, in our degenerate days,Ah, how unlike to theirs! make shift to raise.Even in his time, Mæonides could trace95Some diminution of the human race:Now, earth, grown old and frigid, rears with painA pigmy brood, a weak and wicked train;Which every god, who marks their passions vile,Regards with laughter, though he loathes the while.100But to our tale. Enforced with armed supplies.The zealous Tent'rites feel their courage rise,And wave their swords, and, kindling at the sight,Press on, and with fell rage renew the fight.The Ombites flee; they follow:—in the rear,105A luckless wretch, confounded by his fear,Trips and falls headlong; with loud yelling cries,The pack rush in, and seize him as he lies.And now the conquerors, none to disappointOf the dire banquet, tear him joint by joint,110And dole him round; the bones yet warm, they gnaw,And champ the flesh that heaves beneath their jaw.They want no cook to dress it—'twould be long,And appetite is keen, and rage is strong.And here, Volusius, I rejoice at least,115That fire was unprofaned by this cursed feast,Fire, rapt from heaven! and you will, sure, agreeTo greet the element's escape, with me.—But all who ventured on the carcass, sworeThey never tasted—aught so sweet before!120Nor did the relish charm the first alone—Those who arrived too late for flesh, or bone,Stooped down, and scraping where the wretch had lain,With savage pleasure licked the gory plain!The Vascons once (the story yet is rife),125With such dire sustenance prolonged their life;But then the cause was different: Fortune, there,Proved adverse: they had borne the extremes of war,The rage of famine, the still-watchful foe,And all the ills beleaguered cities know.130(And nothing else should prompt mankind to useSuch desperate means.) May this their crime excuse!For after every root and herb were gone,And every aliment to hunger known;When their lean frames, and cheeks of sallow hue,135Struck even the foe with pity at the view,And all were ready their own flesh to tear,They first adventured on this horrid fare.And surely every god would pity grantTo men so worn by wretchedness and want,140And even the very ghosts of those they ate,Absolve them, mindful of their dreadful state!True, we are wiser; and, by Zeno taught,Know life itself may be too dearly bought;But the poor Vascon, in that early age,145Knew naught of Zeno, or the Stoic page.—Now, thanks to Greece and Rome, in wisdom's robeThe bearded tribes rush forth, and seize the globe;Already, learned Gaul aspires to teachYour British orators the Art of Speech,150And Thulé, blessings on her, seems to say,She'll hire a good grammarian, cost what may.The Vascons, then, who thus prolonged their breath,And the Saguntines, true, like them, to death,Brave too, like them, but by worse ills subdued,155Had some small plea for this abhorred food.Diana first (and let us doubt no moreThe barbarous rites we disbelieved of yore)Reared her dread altar near the Tauric flood,And asked the sacrifice of human blood:160Yet there the victim only lost his life,And feared no cruelty beyond the knife.Far, far more savage Egypt's frantic train,They butcher first, and then devour the slain!But say, what causa impelled them to proceed,165What siege, what famine, to this monstrous deed?What could they more, had Nile refused to rise,And the soil gaped with ever-glowing skies,What could they more, the guilty Flood to shame,And heap opprobrium on his hateful name!170Lo! what the barbarous hordes of Scythia, Thrace,Gaul, Britain, never dared—dared by a raceOf puny dastards, who, with fingers frail,Tug the light oar, and hoist the little sail,In painted pans! What tortures can the mind175Suggest for miscreants of this abject kind,Whom spite impelled worse horrors to pursue,Than famine, in its deadliest form, e'er knew!Nature, who gave us tears, by that aloneProclaims she made the feeling heart our own;180And 'tis her noblest boon: This bids us fly,To wipe the drops from sorrowing friendship's eye,Sorrowing ourselves; to wail the prisoner's state,And sympathize in the wronged orphan's fate,Compelled his treacherous guardian to accuse,185While many a shower his blooming cheek bedews,And through his scattered tresses, wet with tears,A doubtful face, or boy or girl's, appears.As Nature bids, we sigh, when some bright maidIs, ere her spousals, to the pyre conveyed;190Some babe—by fate's inexorable doom,Just shown on earth, and hurried to the tomb.For who, that to the sanctity aspiresWhich Ceres, for her mystic torch, requires,Feels not another's woes? This marks our birth;195The great distinction from the beasts of earth!And therefore—gifted with superior powers,And capable of things divine—'tis ours,To learn, and practice, every useful art;And, from high heaven, deduce that better part,200That moral sense, denied to creatures prone,And downward bent, and found with man alone!—For He, who gave this vast machine to roll,BreathedLIFEin them, in us aREASONING SOUL;That kindred feelings might our state improve,205And mutual wants conduct to mutual love;Woo to one spot the scattered hordes of men,From their old forest and paternal den;Raise the fair dome, extend the social line,And, to our mansion, those of others join,210Join too our faith, our confidence to theirs,And sleep, relying on the general cares:—In war, that each to each support might lend,When wounded, succor, and when fallen, defend;At the same trumpet's clangor rush to arms,215By the same walls be sheltered from alarms,Near the same tower the foe's incursions wait,And trust their safety to one common gate.—But serpents, now, more links of concord bind:The cruel leopard spares the spotted kind;220No lion spills a weaker lion's gore,No boar expires beneath a stronger boar;In leagues of friendship tigers roam the plain,And bears with bears perpetual peace maintain.While man, alas! fleshed in the dreadful trade,225Forges without remorse the murderous blade,On that dire anvil, where primæval skill,As yet untaught a brother's blood to spill,Wrought only what meek nature would allow,Goads for the ox, and coulters for the plow!230Even this is trifling: we have seen a rageToo fierce for murder only to assuage;Seen a whole state their victim piecemeal tear,And count each quivering limb delicious fare.O, could the Samian Sage these horrors see,235What would he say? or to what deserts flee?He, who the flesh of beasts, like man's, declined,And scarce indulged in pulse—of every kind!
Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend,The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend?—The snake-devouring ibis, these enshrine,Those think the crocodile alone divine;Others, where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground,5And shattered Memnon yields a magic sound,Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape,And bow before the image of an ape!Thousands regard the hound with holy fear,Not one, Diana: and 'tis dangerous here,10To violate an onion, or to stainThe sanctity of leeks with tooth profane.O holy nations! Sacro-sanct abodes!Where every garden propagates its gods!They spare the fleecy kind, and think it ill,15The blood of lambkins, or of kids, to spill:But, human flesh—O! that is lawful fare.And you may eat it without scandal there.When, at the amazed Alcinous' board, of old,Ulysses of so strange an action told,20He moved of some the mirth, of more the gall,And, for a lying vagrant, passed with all."Will no one plunge this babbler in the waves(Worthy a true Charybdis)—while he ravesOf monsters seen not since the world began,25Cyclops and Læstrigons, who feed on man!For me—I less should doubt of Scylla's train,Of rocks that float and jostle in the main,Of bladders filled with storms, of men, in fine,By magic changed, and driven to grunt with swine,30Than of his cannibals:—the fellow feigns,As if he thought Phæacians had no brains."Thus, one, perhaps, more sober than the rest,Observed, and justly, of their traveled guest,Who spoke of prodigies till then unknown;35Yet brought no attestation but his own.—I bring my wonders, too; and I can tell,When Junius, late, was consul, what befell,Near Coptus' walls; tell of a people stainedWith deeper guilt than tragedy e'er feigned:40For, sure, no buskined bard, from Pyrrha's time,E'er taxed a whole community with crime;Take then a scene yet to the stage unknown,And, by a nation, acted—IN OUR OWN!Between two neighboring towns a deadly hate,45Sprung from a sacred grudge of ancient date,Yet burns; a hate no lenients can assuage,No time subdue, a rooted, rancorous rage!Blind bigotry, at first, the evil wrought:For each despised the other's gods, and thought50Its own the true, the genuine, in a word,The only deities to be adored!And now the Ombite festival drew near:When the prime Tent'rites, envious of their cheer,Resolved to seize the occasion, to annoy55Their feast, and spoil the sacred week of joy.—It came: the hour the thoughtless Ombites greet,And crowd the porches, crowd the public street,With tables richly spread; where, night and day,Plunged in the abyss of gluttony, they lay:60(For savage as the nome appears, it viesIn luxury, if IMAY TRUST MY EYES,With dissolute Canopus:) Six were past,Six days of riot, and the seventh and lastRose on the feast; and now the Tent'rites thought,65A cheap, a bloodless victory might be bought,O'er such a helpless crew: nor thought they wrong,Nor could the event be doubtful, where a throngOf drunken revelers, stammering, reeling-ripe,And capering to a sooty minstrel's pipe.70Coarse unguents, chaplets, flowers, on this side fight,On that, keen hatred, and deliberate spite!At first both sides, though eager to engage.With taunts and jeers, the heralds of their rage,Blow up their mutual fury; and anon,75Kindled to madness, with loud shouts rush on;Deal, though unarmed, their vengeance blindly round,And with clenched fists print many a ghastly wound.Then might you see, amid the desperate fray,Features disfigured, noses torn away,80Hands, where the gore of mangled eyes yet reeks,And jaw-bones starting through the cloven cheeks!But this is sport, mere children's play, they cry—As yet beneath their feet no bodies lie,And, to what purpose should such armies fight85The cause of heaven, if none be slain outright?Roused at the thought, more fiercely they engage,With stones, the weapons of intestine rage;Yet not precisely such, to tell you true,As Turnus erst, or mightier Ajax, threw:90Nor quite so large as that two-handed stone,Which bruised Æneas on the huckle-bone;But such as men, in our degenerate days,Ah, how unlike to theirs! make shift to raise.Even in his time, Mæonides could trace95Some diminution of the human race:Now, earth, grown old and frigid, rears with painA pigmy brood, a weak and wicked train;Which every god, who marks their passions vile,Regards with laughter, though he loathes the while.100But to our tale. Enforced with armed supplies.The zealous Tent'rites feel their courage rise,And wave their swords, and, kindling at the sight,Press on, and with fell rage renew the fight.The Ombites flee; they follow:—in the rear,105A luckless wretch, confounded by his fear,Trips and falls headlong; with loud yelling cries,The pack rush in, and seize him as he lies.And now the conquerors, none to disappointOf the dire banquet, tear him joint by joint,110And dole him round; the bones yet warm, they gnaw,And champ the flesh that heaves beneath their jaw.They want no cook to dress it—'twould be long,And appetite is keen, and rage is strong.And here, Volusius, I rejoice at least,115That fire was unprofaned by this cursed feast,Fire, rapt from heaven! and you will, sure, agreeTo greet the element's escape, with me.—But all who ventured on the carcass, sworeThey never tasted—aught so sweet before!120Nor did the relish charm the first alone—Those who arrived too late for flesh, or bone,Stooped down, and scraping where the wretch had lain,With savage pleasure licked the gory plain!The Vascons once (the story yet is rife),125With such dire sustenance prolonged their life;But then the cause was different: Fortune, there,Proved adverse: they had borne the extremes of war,The rage of famine, the still-watchful foe,And all the ills beleaguered cities know.130(And nothing else should prompt mankind to useSuch desperate means.) May this their crime excuse!For after every root and herb were gone,And every aliment to hunger known;When their lean frames, and cheeks of sallow hue,135Struck even the foe with pity at the view,And all were ready their own flesh to tear,They first adventured on this horrid fare.And surely every god would pity grantTo men so worn by wretchedness and want,140And even the very ghosts of those they ate,Absolve them, mindful of their dreadful state!True, we are wiser; and, by Zeno taught,Know life itself may be too dearly bought;But the poor Vascon, in that early age,145Knew naught of Zeno, or the Stoic page.—Now, thanks to Greece and Rome, in wisdom's robeThe bearded tribes rush forth, and seize the globe;Already, learned Gaul aspires to teachYour British orators the Art of Speech,150And Thulé, blessings on her, seems to say,She'll hire a good grammarian, cost what may.The Vascons, then, who thus prolonged their breath,And the Saguntines, true, like them, to death,Brave too, like them, but by worse ills subdued,155Had some small plea for this abhorred food.Diana first (and let us doubt no moreThe barbarous rites we disbelieved of yore)Reared her dread altar near the Tauric flood,And asked the sacrifice of human blood:160Yet there the victim only lost his life,And feared no cruelty beyond the knife.Far, far more savage Egypt's frantic train,They butcher first, and then devour the slain!But say, what causa impelled them to proceed,165What siege, what famine, to this monstrous deed?What could they more, had Nile refused to rise,And the soil gaped with ever-glowing skies,What could they more, the guilty Flood to shame,And heap opprobrium on his hateful name!170Lo! what the barbarous hordes of Scythia, Thrace,Gaul, Britain, never dared—dared by a raceOf puny dastards, who, with fingers frail,Tug the light oar, and hoist the little sail,In painted pans! What tortures can the mind175Suggest for miscreants of this abject kind,Whom spite impelled worse horrors to pursue,Than famine, in its deadliest form, e'er knew!Nature, who gave us tears, by that aloneProclaims she made the feeling heart our own;180And 'tis her noblest boon: This bids us fly,To wipe the drops from sorrowing friendship's eye,Sorrowing ourselves; to wail the prisoner's state,And sympathize in the wronged orphan's fate,Compelled his treacherous guardian to accuse,185While many a shower his blooming cheek bedews,And through his scattered tresses, wet with tears,A doubtful face, or boy or girl's, appears.As Nature bids, we sigh, when some bright maidIs, ere her spousals, to the pyre conveyed;190Some babe—by fate's inexorable doom,Just shown on earth, and hurried to the tomb.For who, that to the sanctity aspiresWhich Ceres, for her mystic torch, requires,Feels not another's woes? This marks our birth;195The great distinction from the beasts of earth!And therefore—gifted with superior powers,And capable of things divine—'tis ours,To learn, and practice, every useful art;And, from high heaven, deduce that better part,200That moral sense, denied to creatures prone,And downward bent, and found with man alone!—For He, who gave this vast machine to roll,BreathedLIFEin them, in us aREASONING SOUL;That kindred feelings might our state improve,205And mutual wants conduct to mutual love;Woo to one spot the scattered hordes of men,From their old forest and paternal den;Raise the fair dome, extend the social line,And, to our mansion, those of others join,210Join too our faith, our confidence to theirs,And sleep, relying on the general cares:—In war, that each to each support might lend,When wounded, succor, and when fallen, defend;At the same trumpet's clangor rush to arms,215By the same walls be sheltered from alarms,Near the same tower the foe's incursions wait,And trust their safety to one common gate.—But serpents, now, more links of concord bind:The cruel leopard spares the spotted kind;220No lion spills a weaker lion's gore,No boar expires beneath a stronger boar;In leagues of friendship tigers roam the plain,And bears with bears perpetual peace maintain.While man, alas! fleshed in the dreadful trade,225Forges without remorse the murderous blade,On that dire anvil, where primæval skill,As yet untaught a brother's blood to spill,Wrought only what meek nature would allow,Goads for the ox, and coulters for the plow!230Even this is trifling: we have seen a rageToo fierce for murder only to assuage;Seen a whole state their victim piecemeal tear,And count each quivering limb delicious fare.O, could the Samian Sage these horrors see,235What would he say? or to what deserts flee?He, who the flesh of beasts, like man's, declined,And scarce indulged in pulse—of every kind!