THE GARDEN GOD.

20.

TRAVELLER, as here I stand,
By homely rustic's artless hand
Out of a sapless poplar cleft,
This little field here on the left,
This cottage, and the garden small,
Its lowly owner's little all,

Protect; and knaves my vengeance feel,

Who wander here to pick and steal.
To me a chaplet doth he bring
Of many-tinted flowers in spring;
Anon to me in summer's heat

A sheaf he bears of reddening wheat;
In autumn luscious grapes he leaves,
Wrapp'd in a coil of freshest leaves;
And sees me in the winter cold

With olives wanly-green consoled.
The she-goat carries from my
down
Milk-teeming dugs to yonder town;
The wether fatten'd in my fold
Sends back its master rich in gold;

And often hence the young calf

goes,

Whilst all forlorn its mother lows,

And with its milky blood the shrines

Of mightier gods incarnadines.

So, traveller, my godship fear,

And keep your hands from fingering here.

You'd better follow my advice,

Or here is that will in a trice

66

Most soundly trounce you. Ha," you say,
"You'd like to see me do it," eh?
And so you shall, egad! and quick!
Here comes the farmer in the nick,
And in his brawny fist my club
Your shoulders lustily shall drub.

TO VARUS.

22

HAT well-bred, pleasant, chatty beau, I mean Suffenus, whom you know, My Varus, hours on hours will spend In scribbling verses without end. A thousand lines-a thousand ?-ten At least have dribbled from his pen, Not jotted down, like even the best By other bards, on palimpsest; No! all must be fire-new for him, The paper royal, covers trim, The bosses new, the fastenings red, Each sheet he uses ruled with lead, The whole affair, in short, I take it, As smooth as pumice-stone can make it. But when you read what's written there, This beau, so bright, so debonnair, Degenerates at once, by change Most disagreeable and strange, Into as coarse and dull a dog, As e'er cut ditch or tended hog.

Now, is it not most strange, that he,

Who was but now the soul of glee, Flashing his good things up and down, Grows duller than the dullest clown,

The moment that he lifts his pen,
To write a line of verse again?
Yet is he never happy, save

When hammering out some dreary stave,
O'er which he gloats, complacent elf,
Profoundly smitten with himself.

Yet, which of us is there but makes
About himself as odd mistakes?
In some one thing we all demean us
Not less absurdly than Suffenus;
For vice or failing, small or great,
Is dealt to every man by fate.
But in a wallet at our back
Do we our peccadilloes pack,
And, as we never look behind,
So out of sight is out of mind.*

* Other men's sins we ever bear in mind; None sees the fardell of his faults behind.

HERRICK.

THE MORTGAGE.

EAR friend, your little country-seat

Lies in a famous shelter,

That keeps it snug, though tempests beat
Around it helter-skelter.

But there's a mortgage, I've been told,
About it wound so neatly,

That, ere this new moon shall be old,
"Twill sweep it off completely.