'Well, well, I'll try.' 'You can with ease Arrange it, if you only please.' Close on eight years it now must be, Since first Maecenas numbered me Among his friends, as one to take Out driving with him, and to make The confidant of trifles, say, Like this, 'What is the time of day?' 'The Thracian gladiator, can One match him with the Syrian?' 'These chilly mornings will do harm, If one don't mind to wrap up warm;' Such nothings as without a fear One drops into the chinkiest ear. Yet all this tune hath envy's glance On me looked more and more askance. From mouth to mouth such comments run: 'Our friend indeed is Fortune's son. Why, there he was, the other day, Beside Maecenas at the play; And at the Campus, just before, They had a bout at battledore.' Some chilling news through lane and street Spreads from the Forum. All I meet Accost me thus--'Dear friend, you're so Close to the gods, that you must know: About the Dacians, have you heard Any fresh tidings? Not a word!' 'You're always jesting!' 'Now may all The gods confound me, great and small, If I have heard one word!' 'Well, well, But you at any rate can tell, If Caesar means the lands, which he Has promised to his troops, shall be Selected from Italian ground, Or in Trinacria be found?' And when I swear, as well I can, That I know nothing, for a man Of silence rare and most discreet They cry me up to all the street. Thus do my wasted days slip by, Not without many a wish and sigh, When, when shall I the country see, Its woodlands green,--oh, when be free, With books of great old men, and sleep, And hours of dreamy ease, to creep Into oblivion sweet of life, Its agitations and its strife? [1] When on my table shall be seen Pythagoras's kinsman bean, And bacon, not too fat, embellish My dish of greens, and give it relish! Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine, When, with the friends I love, I dine At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat! No stupid laws our feasts control, But each guest drains or leaves the bowl, Precisely as he feels inclined. If he be strong, and have a mind For bumpers, good! if not, he's free To sip his liquor leisurely. And then the talk our banquet rouses! But not about our neighbours' houses, Or if 'tis generally thought That Lepos dances well or not? But what concerns us nearer, and Is harmful not to understand, By what we're led to choose our friends,-- Regard for them, or our own ends? In what does good consist, and what Is the supremest form of that? And then friend Cervius will strike in With some old grandam's tale, akin To what we are discussing. Thus, If some one have cried up to us Arellius' wealth, forgetting how Much care it costs him, 'Look you now, Once on a time,' he will begin, 'A country mouse received within His rugged cave a city brother,