[250]: I have studied him and hope the style of his Epistles is not ill imitated here.
[251]: Le mot d'Auguste sur Horace est charmant, mais on ne peut citer, même en latin.
[252]: Treizième épître.
How bless'd is he who leads a country life,
Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!
With crowds attended of your ancient race,
You seek the champaign sports or sylvan chase:
With well-breath'd beagles you surround the wood,
E'en then industrious of the common good;
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chas'd e'en amid the folds, and made to bleed,
Like felons where they did the murderous deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintain'd,
Not yet by years extinguish'd, though restrain'd....
A patriot both the king and country serves,
Prerogative and privilege preserves;
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand,
The barriers of the state on either hand
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land.
When both are full they feed our bless'd abode,
Like those that water'd once the Paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;
In peace the people; and the prince in war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one sole Dictator sway'd.
Patriots in peace assert the people's right,
With noble stubbornness resisting might;
No lawless mandates from the court receive,
Nor lend by force, but in a body give.
Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is reason to the soul: and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Nor light us here; so Reason's glimm'ring ray
Was lent, not to assure our doleful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight,
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
[255]: Religio Laici, Hind and Panther.
But, gracious God! how well dost thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd,
And search no farther than thyself reveal'd;
But her alone for my director take,
Whom thou bast promised never to forsake!
My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires,
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
Follow'd false lights, and when their glimpse was gone,
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I; such by nature still I am;
Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame!
Good life be now my task; my doubts are done.
[256]: Theodore et Honoria.