The camps of gownéd war, nor do they live By rules or forms that many mad men give, Duty for nature’s bounty they repay, And her sole laws religiously obey. Some with bold labour plough the faithless main; Some rougher storms in princes’ courts sustain. Some swell up their slight sails with popular fame, Charmed with the foolish whistlings of a name. Some their vain wealth to earth again commit; With endless cares some brooding o’er it sit. Country and friends are by some wretches sold, To lie on Tyrian beds and drink in gold; No price too high for profit can be shown; Not brother’s blood, nor hazards of their own. Around the world in search of it they roam; It makes e’en their Antipodes their home. Meanwhile, the prudent husbandman is found In mutual duties striving with his ground; And half the year he care of that does take That half the year grateful returns does make Each fertile month does some new gifts present, And with new work his industry content: This the young lamb, that the soft fleece doth yield, This loads with hay, and that with corn the field: All sorts of fruit crown the rich autumn’s pride: And on a swelling hill’s warm stony side, The powerful princely purple of the vine, Twice dyed with the redoubled sun, does shine. In th’ evening to a fair ensuing day, With joy he sees his flocks and kids to play, And loaded kine about his cottage stand, Inviting with known sound the milker’s hand; And when from wholesome labour he doth come, With wishes to be there, and wished for home, He meets at door the softest human blisses, His chaste wife’s welcome, and dear children’s kisses. When any rural holydays invite His genius forth to innocent delight, On earth’s fair bed beneath some sacred shade, Amidst his equal friends carelessly laid, He sings thee, Bacchus, patron of the vine, The beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine, Not to the loss of reason or of strength. To active games and manly sport at length Their mirth ascends, and with filled veins they see, Who can the best at better trials be. Such was the life the prudent Sabine chose, From such the old Etrurian virtue rose. Such, Remus and the god his brother led, From such firm footing Rome grew the world’s head. Such was the life that even till now does raise The honour of poor Saturn’s golden days: Before men born of earth and buried there, Let in the sea their mortal fate to share, Before new ways of perishing were sought, Before unskilful death on anvils wrought. Before those beasts which human life sustain, By men, unless to the gods’ use, were slain. HORAT. EPODON. _Beatus ille qui procul_, _etc._