"With what I have completely blest,
My happy little Sabine nest"—
Odes, II. 18.
are the words in which he contrasts his own entire happiness with the restless misery of a millionaire in the midst of his splendour. Again, in one of his Odes to Maecenas (III. 16) he takes up and expands the same theme.
"In my crystal stream, my woodland, though its acres are but few,
And the trust that I shall gather home my crops in season due,
Lies a joy, which he may never grasp, who rules in gorgeous state
Fertile Africa's dominions. Happier, happier far my fate!
Though for me no bees Calabrian store their honey, nor doth wine
Sickening in the Laestrygonian amphora for me refine;
Though for me no flocks unnumbered, browsing Gallia's pastures fair,
Pant beneath their swelling fleeces, I at least am free from care;
Haggard want with direful clamour ravins never at my door,
Nor wouldst thou, if more I wanted, oh my friend, deny me more.
Appetites subdued will make me richer with my scanty gains,
Than the realms of Alyattes wedded to Mygdonia's plains.
Much will evermore be wanting unto those who much demand;
Blest, whom Jove with what sufficeth dowers, but dowers with sparing
hand."
It is the nook of earth which, beyond all others, has a charm for him,—the one spot where he is all his own. Here, as Wordsworth beautifully says, he
"Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch
For the dear blessings of a lowly couch,
A natural meal, days, months from Nature's hand,
Time, place, and business all at his command,"
It is in this delightful retreat that, in one of his most graceful Odes,
he thus invites the fair Tyndaris to pay him a visit (I. 17):—
"My own sweet Lucretilis ofttime can lure
From his native Lycaeus kind Faunus the fleet,
To watch o'er my flocks, and to keep them secure
From summer's fierce winds, and its rains, and its heat.
"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:—