Hunts down into the toils the foaming boar;

Or seeks the thrush, poor starveling, to ensnare,
In filmy net with bait delusive stored,
Entraps the travelled crane, and timorous hare,
Rare dainties these to glad his frugal board.

Who amid joys like these would not forget
The pangs which love to all its victims bears,
The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret,
And all the heart's lamentings and despairs?

But if a chaste and blooming wife, beside,
The cheerful home with sweet young blossoms fills,
Like some stout Sabine, or the sunburnt bride
Of the lithe peasant of the Apulian hills,

Who piles the hearth with logs well dried and old
Against the coming of her wearied lord,
And, when at eve the cattle seek the fold,
Drains their full udders of the milky hoard;

And bringing forth from her well-tended store
A jar of wine, the vintage of the year,
Spreads an unpurchased feast,--oh then, not more
Could choicest Lucrine oysters give me cheer,

Or the rich turbot, or the dainty char,
If ever to our bays the winter's blast
Should drive them in its fury from afar;