Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/151

 Fresh runnels, moss-grown rocks, and woodland green. What would you more? once let me leave the things You praise so much, my life is like a king's: Like the priest's runaway, I cannot eat Your cakes, but pine for bread of wholesome wheat.
 * Now say that it behoves us to adjust

Our lives to nature (wisdom says we must): You want a site for building: can you find A place that's like the country to your mind? Where have you milder winters? where are airs That breathe more grateful when the Dogstar glares, Or when the Lion feels in every vein The sun's sharp thrill, and maddens with the pain? Is there a spot where care contrives to keep At further distance from the couch of sleep? Is springing grass less sweet to nose or eyes Than Libyan marble's tesselated dyes? Does purer water strain your pipes of lead Than that which ripples down the brooklet's bed? Why, 'mid your Parian columns trees you train, And praise the house that fronts a wide domain. Drive Nature forth by force, she'll turn and rout The false refinements that would keep her out.
 * The luckless wight who can't tell side by side

A Tyrian fleece from one Aquinum-dyed, Is not more surely, keenly, made to smart Than he who knows not truth and lies apart. Take too much pleasure in good things, you'll feel The shock of adverse fortune makes you reel.