Satire IV (Gifford)

What! you, my Alcibiades, aspire
To sway the state!--(Suppose that bearded sire,
Whom hemlock from a guilty world removed,
Thus to address the stripling that he loved.)
On what apt talents for a charge so high,
Ward of great Pericles, do you rely?
Forecast on others by gray hairs conferred,
Haply, with you, anticipates the beard!
And prompts you, prescient of the public weal,
Now to disclose your thoughts, and now conceal!
Hence, when the rabble form some daring plan,
And factious murmurs spread from man to man,
Mute and attentive you can bid them stand,
By the majestic wafture of your hand!
Lo! all is hushed: what now, what will he speak,
What floods of sense from his charged bosom break!
"Romans! I think--I fear--I think, I say,
This is not well:--perhaps, the better way."--
O power of eloquence! But you, forsooth,
In the nice, trembling scale can poise the truth,
With even hand; can with intentive view,
Amid deflecting curves, the right pursue;
Or, where the rule deceives the vulgar eye
With its warped foot, the unerring line apply:
And, while your sentence strikes with doom precise,
Stamp the black Theta on the front of vice!
Rash youth! relying on a specious skin,
While all is dark deformity within,
Check the fond thought; nor, like the peacock proud,
Spread your gay plumage to the applauding crowd,
Before your hour arrive:--Ah, rather drain
Whole isles of hellebore, to cool your brain!
For, what is YOUR chief good? "To heap my board
With every dainty earth and sea afford;
To bathe, and bask me in the sunny ray,
And doze the careless hours of life away."
Hold, hold! you tattered beldame, hobbling by,
If haply asked, would make the same reply.
"But I am nobly born." Agreed. "And fair."
'Tis granted too: yet goody Baucis there,
Who, to the looser slaves, her pot-herbs cries,
Is just as philosophic, just as wise.--
How few, alas! their proper faults explore!
While, on his loaded back, who walks before,
Each eye is fixed.--You touch a stranger's arm,
And ask him if he knows Vectidius' farm?
"Whose," he replies? That rich old chuff's, whose ground
Would tire a hawk to wheel it fairly round.
"O ho! that wretch, on whose devoted head
Ill stars and angry gods their rage have shed!
Who on high festivals, when all is glee,
And the loose yoke hangs on the cross-way tree,
As, from the jar, he scrapes the incrusted clay,
Groans o'er the revels of so dear a day;
Champs on a coated onion dipt in brine;
And while his hungry hinds exulting dine
On barley broth, sucks up, with thrifty care,
The mothery dregs of his palled vinegar!"
But, if "YOU bask you in the sunny ray,
And doze the careless hours of youth away,"
There are, who at such gross delights will spurn,
And spit their venom on your life in turn;
Expose, with eager hate, your low desires,
Your secret passions, and unhallowed fires.--
"Why, while the beard is nursed with every art,
Those anxious pains to bare the shameful part?
In vain:--should five athletic knaves essay
To pluck, with ceaseless care, the weeds away,
Still the rank fern, congenial to the soil,
Would spread luxuriant, and defeat their toil!"
Misled by rage, our bodies we expose,
And while we give, forget to ward, the blows;
This, this is life! and thus our faults are shown,
By mutual spleen: we know--and we are known!
But your defects elude inquiring eyes!--
Beneath the groin the ulcerous evil lies,
Impervious to the view; and o'er the wound
The broad effulgence of the zone is bound!
But can you, thus, the inward pang restrain,
Thus cheat the sense of languor and of pain?
"But if the people call me wise and just,
Sure I may take the general voice on trust!"--
No:--If you tremble at the sight of gold;
Indulge lust's wildest sallies uncontrolled;
Or, bent on outrage, at the midnight hour,
Girt with a ruffian band, the Forum scour;
Then, wretch! in vain the voice of praise you hear,
And drink the vulgar shout with greedy ear.
Hence, with your spurious claims! Rejudge your cause
And fling the rabble back their vile applause;
To your own breast, in quest of worth, repair,
And blush to find how poor a stock is there!