How happy in his low degree, How rich in humble poverty, is he, Who leads a quiet country life, Discharged of business, void of strife, And from the griping scrivener free? Thus, ere the seeds of vice were sown, Lived men in better ages born, Who ploughed, 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 clamours of contentious law, And court and state, he wisely shuns, Nor bribed with hopes, nor dared with awe, To servile salutations runs; But either to the clasping vine Does the supporting poplar wed, Or with his pruning-hook disjoin Unbearing branches from their head, And grafts more happy in their stead: Or, climbing to a hilly steep, He views his herds in vales afar, Or sheers his overburthened sheep, Or mead for cooling drink prepares, Or virgin honey in the jars. Or in the now declining year, When bounteous autumn rears his head, He joys to pull the ripened pear, And clustering 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. The wind, that whistles through the sprays, Maintains the concert 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-mouthed hounds and pointed spear: Or spreads his subtle 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, Sun-burnt and swarthy though 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 overlaboured, 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 turbot, or the foreign fish That rolling tempests overtake,