"There the mates of a lord of too pungent a fragrance Securely through brake and o'er precipice climb, And crop, as they wander in happiest vagrance, The arbutus green, and the sweet-scented thyme. "Nor murderous wolf nor green snake may assail My innocent kidlings, dear Tyndaris, when His pipings resound through Ustica's low vale, Till each mossed rock in music makes answer again. "The muse is still dear to the gods, and they shield Me, their dutiful bard; with a bounty divine They have blessed me with all that the country can yield; Then come, and whatever I have shall be thine! "Here screened from the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe herself by its spell. "Here cups shalt thou sip, 'neath the broad-spreading shade Of the innocent vintage of Lesbos at ease; No fumes of hot ire shall our banquet invade, Or mar that sweet festival under the trees. "And fear not, lest Cyrus, that jealous young bear, On thy poor little self his rude fingers should set-- Should pluck from thy bright locks the chaplet, and tear Thy dress, that ne'er harmed him nor any one yet." Had Milton this Ode in his thought, when he invited his friend Lawes to a repast, "Light and choice, Of Attic taste with wine, whence we may rise, To hear the lute well touched, and artful voice Warble immortal notes, and Tuscan air"? The reference in the last verse to the violence of the lady's lover--a violence of which ladies of her class were constantly the victims--rather suggests that this Ode, if addressed to a real personage at all, was meant less as an invitation to the Sabine farm than as a balm to the lady's wounded spirit. In none of his poems is the poet's deep delight in the country life of his Sabine home more apparent than in the following (Satires, II. 6), which, both for its biographical interest and as a specimen of his best manner in his Satires, we give entire:--