My Farm, or Sabine or Tiburtian,
(What name I care not we confab in,
Though they who hold me in aversion,
Persist and wager you are Sabine,)
In your suburban sweet recesses
Of that vile cough I timely rid me,
Merited well, for those excesses
My stomach failed not to forbid me,
When I with Sextius was convivial,
Who feasting read me his invective,
Vilest, 'gainst Attius his rival,
All venom--and, alas! effective.
For surely 'twas that poison seized me,
A chill--a heat--a cough then shook me
E'en to my vitals--and so teazed me,
That to thy bosom I betook me.
Thanks, my good farm! my fault you pardon'd,
And not revenged. We've much to settle
On score of thanks: my chest you harden'd,
And healed with basil-root and nettle.
But from henceforth, if I such vicious
Invectives read, though Sextius pen 'em,
Who but invites me with malicious
Intent to kill me with their venom--
If e'er I yield to his endeavour,
Expose me to his scrip infectious--
I call down ague, cold, and fever,
Oh! fall ye not on me,--but Sextius.
GRATIAN.--I see the next is that one which has been not unfrequently
translated and imitated. Is there not one by Cowley,--if I remember,
much lengthened?
AQUILIUS.--It can scarcely be called a translation. The Latin measure is
certainly here very sweet and tender.