Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/145

 "I thank you, no." "Your boys won't like you less For taking home a sack of them, I guess." "I could not thank you more if I took all." "Ah well, if you won't eat them, the pigs shall." 'Tis silly prodigality, to throw Those gifts broadcast whose value you don't know: Such tillage yields ingratitude, and will, While human nature is the soil you till. A wise good man has ears for merit's claim, Yet does not reckon brass and gold the same. I also will "assume desert," and prove I value him whose bounty speaks his love.
 * If you would keep me always, give me back

My sturdy sides, my clustering locks of black, My pleasant voice and laugh, the tears I shed That night when Cinara from the table fled. A poor pinched field-mouse chanced to make its way Through a small rent in a wheat-sack one day, And, having gorged and stuffed, essayed in vain To squeeze its body through the hole again: "Ah!" cried a weasel, "wait till you get thin; Then, if you will, creep out as you crept in." Well, if to me the story folks apply, I give up all I've got without a sigh: Not mine to cram down guinea-fowls, and then Heap praises on the sleep of labouring men; Give me a country life and leave me free, I would not choose the wealth of Araby.