No part of life's more happy, when with bread
Of ancient knowledge, and new learning fed:
All youthful pleasures by degrees must cease,
But those of Age, ev'ʼn with our years increase.
We love not loaded boards, and goblets crown'd,
But free from surfeits our repose is found.
When old Fabricius to the Samnites went,
Ambassador from Rome to Pyrrhus sent,
He heard a grave philosopher maintain
That all the actions of our life were vain
Which with our sense of pleasure not conspir'd;
Fabricius the philosopher desir'd
That he to Pyrrhus would that maxim teach,
And to the Samnites the same doctrine preach,
Then of their conquest he should doubt no more,
Whom their own pleasures overcame before.
Now into rustic matters I must fall,
Which pleasure seems to me the chief of all.ˇ
Age no impediment to those can give,
Who wisely by the rules of Nature live.
Earth (tho' our mother) cheerfully obeys
All the commands her race upon her lays;
For whatsoever from our hand she takes,
Greater or less, a vast return she makes.
Nor am I only pleas'd with that resource,
But with her ways, her method, and her force.
The seed her bosom (by the plough made fit)
Receives, where kindly she embraces it,
Which with her genuine warmth diffus'd and spread,
Sends forth betimes a green and tender head,
Then gives it motion, life, and nourishment,
Which from the root thro' nerves and veins are sent ;
Straight in a hollow sheath upright it grows,
And, form receiving, doth itself disclose:
Drawn up in ranks and files, the bearded spikes
Guard it from birds, as with a stand of pikes.
When of the vine I speak, I seem inspir'd,
And with delight, as with her juice, am fir'd :
At Nature's godlike pow'r I stand amaz’d,
Which such vast bodies hath from atoms rais'd.
The kernel of a grape, the fig's small grain,
Can clothe a mountain, and o'ershade a plain :
But thou, dear Vine! forbidd'st me to be long, 125
Altho' thy trunk be neither large nor strong;
Nor can thy head (not help'd) itself sublime,
Yet, like a serpent, at all tree can climb:
Whate'er thy many fingers can entwine.
Proves thy support, and all its strength is thine: 130
Tho' Nature gave not legs it gave thee hands,
By which thy prop the proudest cedar stands :
As thou hast hands, so hath thy offspring wings,
And to the highest part of mortal springs.
But lest thou shouldst consume thy wealth in vain,
And starve thyself to feed a num'rous train,
Or like the bee, (sweet as thy blood) design'd
To be destroy'd to propagate his kind.
Lest thy redundant and superfluous juice
Should fading leaves instead of fruits produce, 140
The pruner's hand, with letting blood, must quench
Thy heat, and thy exuberant parts retrench:
Then from the joints of thy prolific stem
A swelling knot is raised, (call'd, a gem)
Whence in short space itself the cluster shows, 145
And from earth's moisture mix'd with sun-beams
I' th' spring,like youth, it yields an acid taste, [grows.
But summer doth, like Age, the sourness waste;
Then cloth'd with leaves, from heat and cold secure,
Like virgins, sweet and beauteous, when mature.150.
On fruits, flowers, herbs, and plants, I long could
At once to please my eye, my taste, my'smell. [dwell,
My walks of trees all planted by my hand,
Like children of my own begetting stand.
To tell the sev'ral natures of each earth,
What fruits from each most properly take birth;
And with what arts to enrich ev'ry mould,
The dry to moisten, and to warm the cold.
But when we graft, or buds inoculate,
Nature by art we nobly meliorate.
As Orpheus' music wildest beasts did tame,
From the sour crab the sweetest apple came:
The mother to the daughter goes to school,
The species changed, doth her laws o'er-rule.
Nature herself doth from herself depart
(Strange transmigration!) by the pow'r of art.
How little things give law to great! we see
The small bud captivates the greatest tree.
Here ev'n the pow'r divine we imitate,
And seem not to beget, but to create.
Much was I pleas'd with fowls and beasts, the tame
For food and profit, and the wild for game.
Excuse me when this pleasant string I touch,
(For Age of what delights it speaks too much.)
Who twice victorious Pyrrhus conquered,
The Sabines and the Samnites captive led,
Great Curius! his remaining days did spend,
And in this happy life his triumphs end.
My farm stands near, and when I there retire,
His and that age's temper I admire.
The Samnites' chiefs, as by his fire he sat,
With a vast sum of gold on him did wait ;
"Return," said he "your gold I nothing weigh,
"When those who can command it me obey."
This my assertion proves he may be old,
And yet not sordid, who refuses gold.
In summer to sit still, or walk, I love,
Near a cool fountain, or a shady grove.
What can in Winter render more delight
Than the high sun at noon and fire at night? 190
While our old friends and neighbours feast and play,
And with their harmless mirth turn night to day,
Unpurchas'd plenty our full tables loads,
And part of what they lent return t' our gods,
That honour and authority which dwells
With Age, all pleasures of our youth excels.
Observe that I that Age have only prais'd
Whose pillars were on youth's foundations rais'd,
And that (for which I great applause receiv'd)
As a true maxim hath been since believ'd.
That most unhappy Age great pity needs,
Which to defend itself new matter pleads.
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow,
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our Age those happy fruits present.
Those things to Age most honourable are
Which easy, common, and but light appear,
Salutes, consulting, compliment, resort,
Crowding attendance to and from the court:
And not on Rome alone this honour waits,
But on all civil and well-govern'd states.
Lysander pleading in his city's praise,
From thence his strongest argument did raise,
That Sparta did with honour Age support,
Paying them just respect at stage and court:
But at proud Athens youth did Age outface,
Nor at the plays would rise or give them place.
When an Athenian stranger
great Age
Arriv'd at Sparta, climbing up the stage,
To him the whole assembly rose, and ran
To place and ease this old and reverend man,
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