Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/145

"I thank you, no." "Your boys won't like you less
For taking home a sack of them, I guess."
"I could not thank you more if I took all."
"Ah well, if you won't eat them, the pigs shall."
'Tis silly prodigality, to throw
Those gifts broadcast whose value you don't know:
Such tillage yields ingratitude, and will,
While human nature is the soil you till.
A wise good man has ears for merit's claim,
Yet does not reckon brass and gold the same.
I also will "assume desert," and prove
I value him whose bounty speaks his love.
If you would keep me always, give me back
My sturdy sides, my clustering locks of black,
My pleasant voice and laugh, the tears I shed
That night when Cinara from the table fled.
A poor pinched field-mouse chanced to make its way
Through a small rent in a wheat-sack one day,
And, having gorged and stuffed, essayed in vain
To squeeze its body through the hole again:
"Ah!" cried a weasel, "wait till you get thin;
Then, if you will, creep out as you crept in."
Well, if to me the story folks apply,
I give up all I've got without a sigh:
Not mine to cram down guinea-fowls, and then
Heap praises on the sleep of labouring men;
Give me a country life and leave me free,
I would not choose the wealth of Araby.