Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/186

With flowers and wine the Genius, who repeats
That life is short, and so should have its sweets.
'Twas hence Fescennia's privilege began,
Where wit had licence, and man bantered man;
And the wild sport, though countrified and rough,
Passed off each year acceptably enough;
Till jokes grew virulent, and rabid spite
Ran loose through houses, free to bark and bite.
The wounded shrieked; the unwounded came to feel
That things looked serious for the general weal:
So laws were passed with penalties and pains
To guard the lieges from abusive strains,
And poets sang thenceforth in sweeter tones,
Compelled to please by terror for their bones.
Greece, conquered Greece, her conqueror subdued,
And Rome grew polished, who till then was rude;
The rough Saturnian measure had its day,
And gentler arts made savagery give way:
Yet traces of the uncouth past lived on
For many a year, nor are they wholly gone,
For 'twas not till the Punic wars were o'er
That Rome found time Greek authors to explore,
And try, by digging in that virgin field,
What Sophocles and Æschylus could yield.
Nay, she essayed a venture of her own,
And liked to think she'd caught the tragic tone;
And so she has:—the afflatus comes on hot;
But out, alas! she deems it shame to blot.
'Tis thought that comedy, because its source