THE SIMPLE LIFE
Give, if thou wilt, for gold a life of toil!
Let endless acres claim thy care!
While sounds of war thy fearful slumbers spoil,
And far-off trumpets scare!
To me my poverty brings tranquil hours;
My lowly hearth-stone cheerly shines;
My modest garden bears me fruit and flowers,
And plenteous native wines.
I set my tender vines with timely skill,
Or pluck large apples from the bough;
Or goad my lazy steers to work my will,
Or guide my own rude plough.
Full tenderly upon my breast I bear
A lamb or small kid gone astray;
And yearly worship with my swains prepare,
The shepherd's ancient way.
I love those rude shrines in a lonely field
Where rustic faith the god reveres,
Or flower-crowned cross-road mile-stones, half concealed
By gifts of travellers.
Whatever fruit the kindly seasons show,
Due tribute to our gods I pour;
O'er Ceres' brows the tasseled wheat I throw,
Or wreathe her temple door.
My plenteous orchards fear no pelf or harm,
By red Priapus sentinelled;
By his huge sickle's formidable charm
The bird thieves are dispelled.
With offerings at my hearth, and faithful fires,
My Lares I revere: not now
As when with greater gifts my wealthier sires
Performed the hallowing vow.
No herds have I like theirs: I only bring
One white lamb from my little fold,
While my few bondmen at the altar sing
Our harvest anthems old.
Gods of my hearth! ye never learned to slight
A poor man's gift. My bowls of clay
To ye are hallowed by the cleansing rite,
The best, most ancient way.
If from my sheep the thief, the wolf, be driven,
If fatter flocks allure them more,
To me the riches to my fathers given
Kind Heaven need not restore.
My small, sure crop contents me; and the storm
That pelts my thatch breaks not my rest,
While to my heart I clasp the beauteous form
Of her it loves the best.
My simple cot brings such secure repose,
When so companioned I can lie,
That winds of winter and the whirling snows
Sing me soft lullaby.
This lot be mine! I envy not their gold
Who rove the furious ocean foam:
A frugal life will all my pleasures hold,
If love be mine, and home.
Enough I travel, if I steal away
To sleep at noon-tide by the flow
Of some cool stream. Could India's jewels pay
For longer absence? No!
Let great Messala vanquish land and sea,
And deck with spoils his golden hall!
I am myself a conquest, and must be
My Delia's captive thrall.
Be Delia mine, and Fame may flout and scorn,
Or brand me with the sluggard's name!
With cheerful hands I'll plant my upland corn,
And live to laugh at Fame.
If I might hold my Delia to my side,
The bare ground were a happier bed
Than theirs who, on a couch of silken pride,
Must mourn for love long dead.
Gilt couch, soft down, slow fountains murmuring song—
These bring no peace. Befooled by words
Was he who, when in love a victor strong,
Left it for spoils and swords.
For such let sad Cilicia's captives bleed,
Her citadels his legions hold!
And let him stride his swift, triumphal steed,
In silvered robes or gold!
These eyes of mine would look on only thee
In that last hour when light shall fail.
Embrace me, dear, in death! Let thy hand be
In my cold fingers pale!
With thine own arms my lifeless body lay
On that cold couch so soon on fire!
Give thy last kisses to my grateful clay,
And weep beside my pyre!
And weep! Ah, me! Thy heart will wear no steel
Nor be stone-cold that rueful day:
Thy faithful grief may all true lovers feel
Nor tearless turn away!
Yet ask I not that thou shouldst vex my shade
With cheek all wan and blighted brow:
But, O, to-day be love's full tribute paid,
While the swift Fates allow.
Soon Death, with shadow-mantled head, will come,
Soon palsied age will creep our way,
Bidding love's flatteries at last be dumb,
Unfit for old and gray.
But light-winged Venus still is smiling fair:
By night or noon we heed her call;
To pound on midnight doors I still may dare,
Or brave for love a brawl.
I am a soldier and a captain good
In love's campaign, and calmly yield
To all who hunger after wounds and blood,
War's trumpet-echoing field.
Ye toils and triumphs unto glory dear!
Ye riches home from conquest borne!
If my small fields their wonted harvest bear,
Both wealth and want I scorn!
ELEGY THE SECOND
LOVE AND WITCHCRAFT
Bring larger bowls and give my sorrows wine,
By heaviest slumbers be my brain possessed!
Soothe my sad brows with Bacchus' gift divine,
Nor wake me while my hapless passions rest!
For Delia's jealous master at her door
Has set a watch, and bolts it with stern steel.
May wintry tempests strike it o'er and o'er,
And amorous Jove crash through with thunder-peal!
My sighs alone, O Door, should pierce thee through,
Or backward upon soundless hinges turn.
The curses my mad rhymes upon thee threw,—
Forgive them!—Ah! in my own breast they burn!
May I not move thee to remember now
How oft, dear Door, thou wert love's place of prayer?
While with fond kiss and supplicating vow,
I hung thee o'er with many a garland fair?
In vain the prayer! Thine own resolve must break
Thy prison, Delia, and its guards evade.
Bid them defiance for thy lover's sake!
Be bold! The brave bring Venus to their aid.
'Tis Venus guides a youth through doors unknown;
'Tis taught of her, a maid with firm-set lips
Steals from her soft couch, silent and alone,
And noiseless to her tryst securely trips.
Her art it is, if with a husband near,
A lady darts a love-lorn look and smile
To one more blest; but languid sloth and fear
Receive not Venus' perfect gift of guile.
Trust Venus, too, t' avert the wretched wrath
Of footpad, hungry for thy robe and ring!
So safe and sacred is a lover's path,
That common caution to the winds we fling.
Oft-times I fail the wintry frost to feel,
And drenching rains unheeded round me pour,
If Delia comes at last with mute appeal,
And, finger on her lip, throws wide the door.
Away those lamps! Thou, man or maid, away!
Great Venus wills not that her gifts be scanned.
Ask me no names! Walk lightly there, I pray!
Hold back thy tell-tale torch and curious hand!
Yet fear not! Should some slave our loves behold,
Let him look on, and at his liking stare!
Hereafter not a whisper shall be told;
By all the gods our innocence he'll swear.
Or should one such from prudent silence swerve
The chatterer who prates of me and thee
Shall learn, too late, why Venus, whom I serve,
Was born of blood upon a storm-swept sea.
Nay, even thy husband will believe no ill.
All this a wondrous witch did tell me true:
One who can guide the stars to work her will,
Or turn a torrent's course her task to do.
Her spells call forth pale spectres from their graves,
And charm bare bones from smoking pyres away:
'Mid trooping ghosts with fearful shriek she raves,
Then sprinkles with new milk, and holds at bay.
She has the power to scatter tempests rude,
And snows in summer at her whisper fall;
The horrid simples by Medea brewed
Are hers; she holds the hounds of Hell in thrall.
For me a charm this potent witch did weave;
Thrice if thou sing, then speak with spittings three,
Thy husband not one witness will believe,
Nor his own eyes, if our embrace they see!
But tempt not others! He will surely spy
All else—to me, me only, magic-blind!
And, hark! the hag with drugs, she said, would try
To heal love's madness and my heart unbind.
One cloudless night, with smoky torch, she burned
Black victims to her gods of sorcery;
Yet asked I not love's loss, but love returned,
And would not wish for life, if robbed of thee.
ELEGY THE THIRD
SICKNESS AND ABSENCE
Am I abandoned? Does Messala sweep
Yon wide Aegean wave, not any more
He, nor my mates, remembering where I weep,
Struck down by fever on this alien shore?
Spare me, dark death! I have no mother here,
To clasp my relics to her widowed breast;
No sister, to pour forth with hallowing tear
Assyrian incense where my ashes rest.
Nor Delia, who, before she said adieu,
Asked omens fair at every potent shrine.
Thrice did the ministrants give blessings true,
The thrice-cast lot returned the lucky sign.
All promised safe return; but she had fears
And doubting sorrows, which implored my stay;
While I, though all was ready, dried her tears,
And found fresh pretext for one more delay.
An evil bird, I cried, did near me flit,
Or luckless portent thrust my plans aside;
Or Saturn's day, unhallowed and unfit,
Forbade a journey from my Delia's side.
Full oft, when starting on the fatal track,
My stumbling feet foretold unhappy hours:
Ah! he who journeys when love calls him back,
Should know he disobeys celestial powers!
Help me, great Goddess! For thy healing power
The votive tablets on thy shrine display.
See Delia there outwatch the midnight hour,
Sitting, white-stoled, until the dawn of day!
Each day her tresses twice she doth unbind,
And sings, the loveliest of the Pharian band.
O that my fathers' gods this prayer could find!
Gods of my hearth and of my native land!
How happily men lived when Saturn reigned!
Ere weary highways crossed the fair young world,
Ere lofty ships the purple seas disdained,
Their swelling canvas to the winds unfurled!
No roving seaman, from a distant course,
Filled full of far-fetched wares his frail ship's hold:
At home, the strong bull stood unyoked; the horse
Endured no bridle in the age of gold.
Men's houses had no doors? No firm-set rock
Marked field from field by niggard masters held.
The very oaks ran honey; the mild flock
Brought home its swelling udders, uncompelled.
Nor wrath nor war did that blest kingdom know;
No craft was taught in old Saturnian time,
By which the frowning smith, with blow on blow,
Could forge the furious sword and so much crime.
Now Jove is king! Now have we carnage foul,
And wreckful seas, and countless ways to die.
Nay! spare me, Father Jove, for on my soul
Nor perjury, nor words blaspheming lie.
If longer life I ask of Fate in vain,
O'er my frail dust this superscription be:—
"Here Death's dark hand TIBULLUS doth detain,Messala's follower over land and sea!"
Then, since my soul to love did always yield,
Let Venus guide it the immortal way,
Where dance and song fill all th' Elysian field,
And music that will never die away.
There many a song-bird with his fellow sails,
And cheerly carols on the cloudless air;
Each grove breathes incense; all the happy vales
O'er-run with roses, numberless and fair.
Bright bands of youth with tender maidens stray,
Led by the love-god all delights to share;
And each fond lover death once snatched away
Winds an immortal myrtle in his hair.
Far, far from such, the dreadful realms of gloom
By those black streams of Hades circled round,
Where viper-tressed, fierce ministers of doom,—
The Furies drive lost souls from bound to bound.
The doors of brass, and dragon-gate of Hell,
Grim Cerberus guards, and frights the phantoms back:
Ixion, who by Juno's beauty fell,
Gives his frail body to the whirling rack.
Stretched o'er nine roods, lies Tityos accursed,
The vulture at his vitals feeding slow;
There Tantalus, whose bitter, burning thirst
The fleeting waters madden as they flow.
There Danaus' daughters Venus' anger feel,
Filling their urns at Lethe all in vain;—
And there's the wretch who would my Delia steal,And wish me absent on a long campaign!
O chaste and true! In thy still house shall sit
The careful crone who guards thy virtuous bed;
She tells thee tales, and when the lamps are lit,
Reels from her distaff the unending thread.
Some evening, after tasks too closely plied,
My Delia, drowsing near the harmless dame,
All sweet surprise, will find me at her side,
Unheralded, as if from heaven I came.
Then to my arms, in lovely disarray,
With welcome kiss, thy darling feet will fly!
O happy dream and prayer! O blissful day!
What golden dawn, at last, shall bring thee nigh?