To judge no man by outside view, Is good advice, though not quite new. Some time ago a mouse's fright Upon this moral shed some light. I have for proof at present, With, Aesop and good Socrates,[12] Of Danube's banks a certain peasant, Whose portrait drawn to life, one sees, By Marc Aurelius, if you please. The first are well known, far and near: I briefly sketch the other here. The crop upon his fertile chin Was anything but soft or thin; Indeed, his person, clothed in hair, Might personate an unlick'd bear. Beneath his matted brow there lay An eye that squinted every way; A crooked nose and monstrous lips he bore, And goat-skin round his trunk he wore, With bulrush belt. And such a man as this is Was delegate from towns the Danube kisses, When not a nook on earth there linger'd By Roman avarice not finger'd. Before the senate thus he spoke:-- 'Romans and senators who hear, I, first of all, the gods invoke, The powers whom mortals justly fear, That from my tongue there may not fall A word which I may need recall. Without their aid there enters nought To human hearts of good or just: Whoever leaves the same unsought, Is prone to violate his trust; The prey of Roman avarice, Ourselves are witnesses of this. Rome, by our crimes, our scourge has grown, More than by valour of her own. Romans, beware lest Heaven, some day, Exact for all our groans the pay, And, arming us, by just reverse, To do its vengeance, stern, but meet, Shall pour on you the vassal's curse, And place your necks beneath our feet! And wherefore not? For are you better Than hundreds of the tribes diverse Who clank the galling Roman fetter? What right gives you the universe? Why come and mar our quiet life? We till'd our acres free from strife; In arts our hands were skill'd to toil, As well as o'er the generous soil. What have you taught the Germans brave? Apt scholars, had but they Your appetite for sway, They might, instead of you, enslave, Without your inhumanity. That which your praetors perpetrate On us, as subjects of your state, My powers would fail me to relate. Profaned their altars and their rites, The pity of your gods our lot excites. Thanks to your representatives, In you they see but shameless thieves, Who plunder gods as well as men. By sateless avarice insane, The men that rule our land from this Are like the bottomless abyss. To satisfy their lust of gain, Both man and nature toil in vain. Recall them; for indeed we will Our fields for such no longer till. From all our towns and plains we fly For refuge to our mountains high.