Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/86

Then stop your ears to sloth's enchanting voice,
Or give up your best hopes: there lies your choice.
H. Good Damasippus, may the immortals grant,
For your sage counsel, the one thing you want,
A barber! but pray tell me how you came
To know so well what scarce is known to fame?
D. Why, ever since my hapless all went down
'Neath the mid arch, I go about the town,
And make my neighbours' matters my sole care,
Seeing my own are damaged past repair.
Once I was anxious on a bronze to light
Where Sisyphus had washed his feet at night;
Each work of art I criticized and classed,
Called this ill chiselled, that too roughly cast;
Prized that at fifty thousand: then I knew
To buy at profit grounds and houses too,
With a sure instinct: till the whole town o'er
"The pet of Mercury" was the name I bore.
H. I know your case, and am surprised to see
So clear a cure of such a malady.
D. Ay, but my old complaint (though strange, 'tis true)
Was banished from my system by a new:
Just as diseases of the side or head
Fly to the stomach or the chest instead,
Like your lethargic patient, when he tears
Himself from bed, and at the doctor squares.
H. Spare me but that, I'll trust you.
D.Don't be blind;