Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/211

For what (said men) should jovial rustic, placed
At random 'mid his betters, know of taste?
So graceful dance went hand in hand with song,
And robes of kingly splendour trailed along:
So by the side of music words upgrew,
And eloquence came rolling, prompt and new:
Shrewd in things mundane, wise in things divine,
Its voice was like the voice of Delphi's shrine.
The aspiring bard who served the tragic muse,
A paltry goat the summit of his views,
Soon brought in Satyrs from the woods, and tried
If grave and gay could nourish side by side,
That the spectator, feasted to his fill,
Noisy and drunk, might ne'ertheless sit still.
Yet, though loud laugh and frolic jest commend
Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend,
Let not your heroes doff their robes of red
To talk low language in a homely shed,
Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high,
Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky.
Melpomene, when bidden to be gay,
Like matron dancing on a festal day,
Deals not in idle banter, nor consorts
Without reserve with Satyrs and their sports.
In plays like these I would not deal alone
In words and phrases trite and too well known,
Nor, stooping from the tragic height, drop down
To the low level of buffoon and clown,
As though pert Davus, or the saucy jade
Who sacks the gold and jeers the gull she made,