Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/106

 T. You get safe home, you see your native isle, And yet it craves for more, that heart of guile!
 * U. O source of truth unerring, you're aware,

I reach my home impoverished and stripped bare (So you predict), and find nor bit nor sup, My flocks all slaughtered and my wines drunk up: Yet family and worth, without the staff Of wealth to lean on, are the veriest draff.
 * T. Since, in plain terms, 'tis poverty you fear,

And riches are your aim, attend and hear. Suppose a thrush or other dainty placed At your disposal, for your private taste, Speed it to some great house, all gems and gold, Where means are ample, and their master old: Your choicest apples, ripe and full of juice, And whatsoe'er your garden may produce, Before they're offered at the Lares' shrine, Give them to your rich friend, as more divine: Be he a branded slave, forsworn, distained With brother's blood, in short, a rogue ingrained, Yet walk, if asked, beside him when you meet, And (pray mind this) between him and the street.
 * U. What, give a slave the wall? in happier days,

At Troy, for instance, these were not my ways: Then with the best I matched myself.
 * T. Indeed?

I'm sorry: then you'll always be in need.