Nor were to me a welcomer repast

The Afric hen or the Ionic snipe,
Than olives newly gathered from the tree,
That hangs abroad its clusters rich and ripe,
Or sorrel, that doth love the pleasant lea,

Or mallows wholesome for the body's need,
Or lamb foredoomed upon some festal day
In offering to the guardian gods to bleed,
Or kidling which the wolf hath marked for prey.

What joy, amidst such feasts, to see the sheep,
Full of the pasture, hurrying homewards come;
To see the wearied oxen, as they creep,
Dragging the upturned ploughshare slowly home!

Or, ranged around the bright and blazing hearth,
To see the hinds, a house's surest wealth,
Beguile the evening with their simple mirth,
And all the cheerfulness of rosy health!

Thus spake the miser Alphius; and, bent
Upon a country life, called in amain
The money he at usury had lent;--
But ere the month was out, 'twas lent again.

In this charming sketch of the peasant's life it is easy to see that
Horace is drawing from nature, like Burns in his more elaborate
picture of the "Cottar's Saturday Night." Horace had obviously watched