Classic Poem

How happy in his low degree,
How rich, in humble poverty, is he,
Who leads a quiet country life;
Discharg'd of business, void of strife,
And from the griping scrivener free!
Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,
Liv'd men in better ages born,
Who plow'd, with oxen of their own,
Their small paternal field of corn.
Nor trumpets summon him to war,
Nor drums disturb his morning sleep,
Nor knows he merchants' gainful care,
Nor fears the dangers of the deep.
The clamors of contentious law,
And court and state he wisely shuns,
Nor brib'd with hopes, nor dar'd with awe,
To servile salutations runs;
But either to the clasping vine
Does the supporting poplar wed,
Or with his pruning hook disjoin
Unbearing branches from their head,
And grafts more happy in their stead;
Or climbing to a hilly steep,
He views his buds in vales afar,
Or shears his overburden'd sheep,
Or mead for cooling drink prepares
Or virgin honey in the jars,
Or, in the now declining year,
When beauteous Autumn rears his head,
He joys to pull the ripen'd pear,
And clust'ring grapes with purple spread.
Sometimes beneath an ancient oak,
Or on the matted grass he lies:
No God of Sleep he need invoke;
The stream, that o'er the pebble flies,
With gentle slumber crowns his eyes,
The wind, that whistles through the sprays,
Maintains the concert of the song:
And hidden birds with native lays,
The golden sleep prolong.
But when the blast of winter blows,
And hoary frost invests the year,
Into the naked woods he goes,
And seeks the tusky boar to rear,
With well-mouth'd hounds and pointed spear!
Or spreads his subtle nets from sight,
With twinkling glasses, to betray
The larks that in the meshes light,
Or makes the fearful bear his prey.
Amidst his harmless, easy joys,
No anxious care invades his health,
Nor love his peace of mind destroys,
Nor wicked avarice of wealth.
But, if a chaste and pleasing wife,
To ease the business of his life,
Divides with him his household care,
Such as the Sabine matrons were,
Such as the swift Apulian's bride,
Sunburnt and swarthy though she be,
Will fire for winter nights provide,
And--without noise--will oversee
His children and his family:
And order all things till he come,
Sweaty and overlabor'd home;
If she in pens his flocks will fold,
And then produce her dairy store
With wine to drive away the cold,
And unbought dainties for the poor;
Not oysters of the Lucrine lake
My sober appetite would wish,
Nor turbot, or the foreign fish
That rolling tempests overtake,
And hither waft the costly dish.
Not heathpoult, or the rarer bird,
Which Phasis or Ionia yields
More pleasing morsels would afford
Than the fat olives of my fields;
Than shards or mallows for the pot,
That keep the loosened body sound,
Or than the lamb, that falls by lot
To the just guardian of my ground.
Amidst these feasts of happy swains,
The jolly shepherd smiles to see
His flock returning from the plains;
The farmer is as pleas'd as he,
To view his oxen sweating smoke,
Bear on their necks the loosen'd yoke:
To look upon his menial crew,
That sit around his cheerful hearth,
And bodies spent in toil renew
With wholesome food and country mirth.

This Alphius said within himself;
Resolv'd to leave the wicked town,
And live retir'd upon his own,
He call'd his money in:
But the prevailing love of pelf,
Soon split him on the former shelf,--
He put it out again.