Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Booke, 230 Believe, or not, these are our final home; Though now Iërne tremble at our sway, And Britain, boastful of her length of day; Though the blue Orcades receive our chain, And isles that slumber in the frozen main. 235 But why of conquest boast? the conquered climes Are free, O Rome, from thy detested crimes. No;--one Armenian all our youth outgoes, And, with cursed fires, for a base tribune glows. True: such thy power, Example! He was brought 240 An hostage hither, and the infection caught.-- O, bid the striplings flee! for sensual art Here lurks to snare the unsuspecting heart; Then farewell, simple nature!--Pleased no more, With knives, whips, bridles (all they prized of yore), 245 Thus taught, and thus debauched, they hasten home, To spread the morals of Imperial Rome! SATIRE III. Grieved though I am to see the man depart, Who long has shared, and still must share, my heart, Yet (when I call my better judgment home) I praise his purpose; to retire from Rome, And give, on Cumæ's solitary coast, 5 The Sibyl--one inhabitant to boast! Full on the road to Baiæ, Cumæ lies, And many a sweet retreat her shore supplies-- Though I prefer ev'n Prochyta's bare strand To the Suburra:--for, what desert land, 10 What wild, uncultured spot, can more affright, Than fires, wide blazing through the gloom of night, Houses, with ceaseless ruin, thundering down, And all the horrors of this hateful town? Where poets, while the dog-star glows, rehearse, 15 To gasping multitudes, their barbarous verse! Now had my friend, impatient to depart, Consigned his little all to one poor cart: For this, without the town he chose to wait; But stopped a moment at the Conduit-gate.-- 20 Here Numa erst his nightly visits paid, And held high converse with the Egerian maid: Now the once-hallowed fountain, grove, and fane, Are let to Jews, a wretched, wandering train, Whose furniture's a basket filled with hay-- 25 For every tree is forced a tax to pay; And while the heaven-born Nine in exile rove, The beggar rents their consecrated grove! Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view The Egerian grots--ah, how unlike the true! 30 Nymph of the Spring; more honored hadst thou been, If, free from art, an edge of living green, Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone, And marble ne'er profaned the native stone. Umbritius here his sullen silence broke, 35 And turned on Rome, indignant, as he spoke. Since virtue droops, he cried, without regard, And honest toil scarce hopes a poor reward; Since every morrow sees my means decay, And still makes less the little of to-day; 40 I go, where Dædalus, as poets sing, First checked his flight, and closed his weary wing: While something yet of health and strength remains, And yet no staff my faltering step sustains; While few gray hairs upon my head are seen, 45 And my old age is vigorous still, and green. Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell-- Ah, mine no more!--there let Arturius dwell, And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite, Can white to black transform, and black to white, 50 Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold, Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold! ONCE they were trumpeters, and always found, With strolling fencers, in their annual round, While their puffed cheeks, which every village knew, 55 Called to "high feats of arms" the rustic crew: Now they give SHOWS themselves; and, at the will Of the base rabble, raise the sign--to kill, Ambitious of their voice: then turn, once more, To their vile gains, and farm the common shore! 60 And why not every thing?--since Fortune throws Her more peculiar smiles on such as those, Whene'er, to wanton merriment inclined, She lifts to thrones the dregs of human kind! But why, my friend, should I at Rome remain? 65 I can not teach my stubborn lips to feign; Nor, when I hear a great man's verses, smile, And beg a copy, if I think them vile. A sublunary wight, I have no skill To read the stars; I neither can, nor will, 70 Presage a father's death; I never pried, In toads, for poison, nor--in aught beside. Others may aid the adulterer's vile design, And bear the insidious gift, and melting line, Seduction's agents! I such deeds detest; 75 And, honest, let no thief partake my breast. For this, without a friend, the world I quit; A palsied limb, for every use unfit. Who now is loved, but he whose conscious breast Swells with dark deeds, still, still to be supprest? 80 He pays, he owes, thee nothing (strictly just), Who gives an honest secret to thy trust; But, a dishonest!--there, he feels thy power, And buys thy friendship high from hour to hour. But let not all the wealth which Tagus pours 85 In Ocean's lap, not all his glittering stores, Be deemed a bribe, sufficient to requite The loss of peace by day, of sleep by night:-- Oh take not, take not, what thy soul rejects, Nor sell the faith, which he, who buys, suspects! 90 The nation, by the GREAT, admired, carest, And hated, shunned by ME, above the rest, No longer, now, restrained by wounded pride, I haste to show (nor thou my warmth deride), I can not rule my spleen, and calmly see, 95 A GRECIAN CAPITAL, IN ITALY! Grecian? O no! with this vast sewer compared, The dregs of Greece are scarcely worth regard: Long since, the stream that wanton Syria laves Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves, 100 Its language, arts; o'erwhelmed us with the scum Of Antioch's streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum. Hie to the Circus! ye who pant to prove A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love; Hie to the Circus! there, in crowds they stand, 105 Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand. Thy rustic, Mars, the trechedipna wears, And on his breast, smeared with ceroma, bears A paltry prize, well-pleased; while every land, Sicyon, and Amydos, and Alaband, 110 Tralles, and Samos, and a thousand more, Thrive on his indolence, and daily pour Their starving myriads forth: hither they come, } And batten on the genial soil of Rome; } Minions, then lords, of every princely dome! } 115 A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race, Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face; A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call, Which shifts to every form, and shines in all: Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, 120 Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician, All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts; And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts! You smile--was't a barbarian, then, that flew? No, 'twas a Greek! 'twas an ATHENIAN, too! 125 --Bear with their state who will: for I disdain To feed their upstart pride, or swell their train: Slaves, that in Syrian lighters stowed, so late, With figs and prunes (an inauspicious freight), Already see their faith preferred to mine, 130 And sit above me! and before me sign!-- That on the Aventine I first drew air, And, from the womb, was nursed on Sabine fare, |