English

What vast prerogatives, my Gallus, are
Accruing to the mighty man of war!
For, if into a lucky camp I light,
Tho' raw in arms, and yet afraid to fight,
Befriend me, my good stars, and all goes right:
One happy hour is to a soldier better,
Than Mother Juno's recommending letter,
Or Venus, when to Mars she would prefer
My suit, and own the kindness done to her.
See what our common privileges are:
As, first, no saucy citizen shall dare
To strike a soldier, nor, when struck, resent
The wrong, for fear of farther punishment:

Griev'd tho' I am an ancient friend to lose,
I like the solitary seat he chose,
In quiet Cumæ fixing his repose:
Where, far from noisy Rome, secure he lives,
And one more citizen to Sibyl gives;
The road to Bajæ, and that soft recess,
Which all the gods with all their bounty bless.
Tho' I in Prochyta with greater ease
Could live, than in a street of palaces.
What scene so desart, or so full of fright,
As tow'ring houses tumbling in the night,
And Rome on fire beheld by its own blazing light?

Some ask for Envy'd Pow'r; which publick Hate
Pursues, and hurries headlong to their Fate:
Down go the Titles; and the Statue Crown'd,
Is by base Hands in the next River Drown'd.
The Guiltless Horses, and the Chariot Wheel
The same Effects of Vulgar Fury feel:
The Smith prepares his Hammer for the Stroke,
While the Lung'd Bellows hissing Fire provoke;
Sejanus almost first of Roman Names,
The great Sejanus crackles in the Flames:
Form'd in the Forge, the Pliant Brass is laid
On Anvils; and of Head and Limbs are made,

In Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth,
There was that thing called chastity on earth;
When in a narrow cave, their common shade,
The sheep, their shepherds and their gods were laid:
When reeds and leaves, and hides of beasts were spread
By mountain huswives for their homely bed,
And mossy pillows raised, for the rude husband's head.
Unlike the niceness of our modern dames
(Affected nymphs with new affected names),
The Cynthias and the Lesbias of our years,
Who for a sparrow's death dissolve in tears,

I grew a rose once more to please mine eyes.
All things to aid it--dew, sun, wind, fair skies--
Were kindly; and to shield it from despoil,
I fenced it safely in with grateful toil.
No other hand than mine shall pluck this flower, said I,
And I was jealous of the bee that hovered nigh.
It grew for days; I stood hour after hour
To watch the slow unfolding of the flower,
And then I did not leave its side at all,
Lest some mischance my flower should befall.
At last, oh joy! the central petals burst apart.

The wind fills her embroidery loom with willow catkins,
and pairs of purple swallows come flying in.
Now, when she rests her needle, is the moment she really enjoys:
wetting a piece of wool in her mouth,
she spits it out the window!

Thy beauty hangs around thee like
Splendour around the moon--
Thy voice, as silver bells that strike

Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.

On the unfrosted pool the pillared pines
Lay their long shafts of shadow: the small rill,
Singing a pleasant song of summer still,
A line of silver, down the hill-slope shines.

Hushed the bird-voices and the hum of bees,
In the thin grass the crickets pipe no more;
But still the squirrel hoards his winter store,

Buy, buy, buy,
Is the Peace-markt cry:
And the nations are our brothers
If they buy, buy, buy.

Honour's but a windy bag,
And History's a lie;
Nobility's at purchase,
And we'll buy, buy, buy.

The Synagogue's in Parliament;
The Jews are in the sty;
Salaam unto the guinea,
And we'll buy, buy, buy.

Young May is in December's bed;
Jack Horner eats his pie;
The Beauty goes to auction,
And we'll buy, buy, buy.

Religion sleeps on its old rags,
The world is all awry,