But God has, wisely, hid from human sight
The dark decrees of future fate,
And sown their seeds in depth of night:
He laughs at all the giddy turns of state,
When mortals search too soon, and fear too
late.

The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd;

Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, tho' in rags, will keep me

warm.

VII

X

What is 't to me,

89

Who never sail in her unfaithful sea,
If storms arise, and clouds grow black;
If the mast split, and threaten wreck ?
Then let the greedy merchant fear
For his ill-gotten gain;

And pray to gods that will not hear, While the debating winds and billows bear His wealth into the main.

For me, secure from Fortune's blows,
(Secure of what I cannot lose,)
In my small pinnace I can sail,
Contemning all the blust'ring roar; 100

And running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek,
Within some little winding creek;
And see the storm ashore.

HORACE

THE SECOND EPODE

"How happy in his low degree,
How rich in humble poverty, is he,
Who leads a quiet country life;
Discharg'd of business, void of strife,
And from the griping scrivener free!
(Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown,
Liv'd men in better ages born,
Who plow'd with oxen of their own
Their small paternal field of corn.)
Nor trumpets summon him to war,
Nor drums disturb his morning sleep,
Nor knows he merchants' gainful care,

Nor fears the dangers of the deep.
The clamors of contentious law,

10

And court and state, he wisely shuns, Nor brib'd with hopes, nor dar'd with

Or shears his overburden'd sheep,
Or mead for cooling drink prepares,
Of virgin honey in the jars.
Or, in the now declining year,
When bounteous Autumn
head,

He joys to pull the ripen'd pear,

rears

his

30

And clust'ring grapes with purple spread. The fairest of his fruit he serves, Priapus, thy rewards: Sylvanus too his part deserves, Whose care the fences guards. Sometimes beneath an ancient oak

Or on the matted grass he lies: No god of sleep he need invoke;

The stream, that o'er the pebbles flies,
With gentle slumber crowns his eyes. 40
The wind, that whistles thro' the sprays,
Maintains the consort of the song;
And hidden birds, with native lays,

The golden sleep prolong.
But when the blast of winter blows,
And hoary frost inverts the year,
Into the naked woods he goes,

And seeks the tusky boar to rear,
With well-mouth'd hounds and pointed

spear;

Or spreads his subtile nets from sight, With twinkling glasses, to betray The larks that in the meshes light,

Or makes the fearful hare his prey. Amidst his harmless easy joys

No anxious care invades his health, Nor love his peace of mind destroys, Nor wicked avarice of wealth. But if a chaste and pleasing wife, To ease the business of his life, Divides with him his household care, Such as the Sabine matrons were, Such as the swift Apulian's bride,

Sunburnt and swarthy tho' she be, Will fire for winter nights provide, And without noise will oversee His children and his family; And order all things till he come, Sweaty and overlabor'd, home; If she in pens his flocks will fold,

And then produce her dairy store, With wine to drive away the cold,

And unbought dainties of the poor; Not oysters of the Lucrine lake

My sober appetite would wish, Nor turbet, or the foreign fish That rolling tempests overtake,

And hither waft the costly dish.

50

60

70

Not heathpout, or the rarer bird
Which Phasis or Ionia yields,
More pleasing morsels would afford
Than the fat olives of my fields;
Than shards or mallows for the pot,
That keep the loosen'd body sound,
Or than the lamb, that falls by lot

To the just guardian of my ground.
Amidst these feasts of happy swains,
The jolly shepherd smiles to see
His flock returning from the plains;
The farmer is as pleas'd as he
To view his oxen, sweating smoke,
Bear on their necks the loosen'd yoke:
To look upon his menial crew,

That sit around his cheerful hearth, And bodies spent in toil renew

80

90

With wholesome food and country mirth." This Morecraft said within himself, Resolv'd to leave the wicked town, And live retir'd upon his own.

He call'd his money in;

But the prevailing love of pelf Soon split him on the former shelf, And put it out again.

A NEW SONG

100

THE FAIR STRANGER

[The following song was first printed in A New Miscellany of Original Poems. London, printed for Peter Buck. . . and George Strahan

...

1701, where it is ascribed to Dryden. Derrick stated, in his edition of Dryden (1760), that these verses celebrated the arrival in England in 1670, in the suite of the Duchess of Orleans, of Louise de Kéroualle, afterwards mistress of Charles II and Duchess of Portsmouth. This assertion has been often repeated by editors of Dryden. Christie notes that the poem would apply equally well to the Duchess of Mazarin, who arrived in England in January, 1676; but he adds pertinently: "There is no proof that the song was composed in honor of any great lady."]