Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/115

 On threshed-out straw, and spelt and darnels ate. At length the townsman cries: "I wonder how You can live here, friend, on this hill's rough brow: Take my advice, and leave these ups and downs, This hill and dale, for humankind and towns. Come now, go home with me: remember, all Who live on earth are mortal, great and small: Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may; With life so short, 'twere wrong to lose a day." This reasoning made the rustic's head turn round; Forth from his hole he issues with a bound, And they two make together for their mark, In hopes to reach the city during dark. The midnight sky was bending over all, When they set foot within a stately hall, Where couches of wrought ivory had been spread With gorgeous coverlets of Tyrian red, And viands piled up high in baskets lay, The relics of a feast of yesterday. The townsman does the honours, lays his guest At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed, Then nimbly moves in character of host, And offers in succession boiled and roast; Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents, And tastes before the tit-bits he presents. The guest, rejoicing in his altered fare, Assumes in turn a genial diner's air, When hark! a sudden banging of the door: Each from his couch is tumbled on the floor: