Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/180

Soon found that envy, worse than all beside,
Could only be extinguished when he died.
He that outshines his age is like a torch,
Which, when it blazes high, is apt to scorch:
Men hate him while he lives: at last, no doubt,
He wins affection—when his light is out.
You, while in life, are honoured as divine,
And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine;
So Rome pays homage to her man of men,
Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again.
But this wise nation, which for once thinks true,
That nought in Greece or here can rival you,
To all things else a different test applies,
And looks on living worth with jaundiced eyes:
While, as for ancient models, take the code
Which to the ten wise men our fathers owed,
The treaties made 'twixt Gabii's kings and Home's,
The pontiffs' books, the bards' forgotten tomes,
They'll swear the Muses framed them every one
In close divan on Alba's Helicon.
But what's the argument? the bards of Greece
And those of Rome must needs be of a piece;
As there the oldest hold the foremost place,
So here, 'twould seem, the same will be the case.
Is this their reasoning? they may prove as well
An olive has no stone, a nut no shell.
Soon, flattered by such dexterous logic, we
Shall think we've gained the summit of the tree;
In art, in song our rivals we outdo,
And, spite of all their oil, in wrestling too.