Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/148

118 "Tis bought: to make a lengthy tale concise, The man becomes a clown who once was nice, Talks all of elms and vineyards, ploughs and soil, And ages fast with struggling and sheer toil; Till, when his sheep are stolen, his bullock drops, His goats die off, a blight destroys his crops, One night he takes a waggon-horse, and sore With all his losses, rides to Philip's door. Philip perceives him squalid and unshorn, And cries, "Why, Mena! surely you look worn; You work too hard." "Nay, call me wretch," says he, "Good patron; 'tis the only name for me. So now, by all that's binding among men, I beg you, give me my old life again."
 * He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse,

Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse: For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast, 'That each man's shoe be made on his own last.



EALTH to friend Celsus—so, good Muse, report— Who holds the pen in Nero's little court! If asked about me, say, I plan and plan, 'Yet live useless and unhappy man: