Poetical Works of John Oldham/Paraphrase upon Horace—Book I Ode XXXI

by John Oldham

PARAPHRASE UPON HORACE.

BOOK I. — ODE XXXI.

Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem
Vates? &c.

1

WHAT does the poet's modest wish require?
What boon does he of gracious heaven desire?
Not the large crops of Esham's goodly soil,
Which tire the mower's and the reaper's toil;
Not the soft flocks on hilly Cotswold fed,
Nor Lempster fields with living fleeces clad;
He does not ask the grounds, where gentle Thames,
Or swifter Severn, spread their fattening streams,
Where they with wanton windings play,
And eat their widened banks insensibly away;
He does not ask the wealth of Lombard-street,
Which consciences and souls are pawned to get;
Nor those exhaustless mines of gold,
Which Guinea and Peru in their rich bosoms hold.

2

Let those that live in the Canary Isles,

On which indidgent nature ever smiles,

Take pleasure in their plenteous vintages,
And from the juicy grape its racy liquor press;
Let wealthy merchants, when they dine,
Run o'er their costly names of wine,
Their chests of Florence, and their Mont-Alchine,
Their Mants, Champagnes, Chablis, Frontiniacs tell,
Their aumes^[1] of Hock, of Backrach, and Moselle;
He envies not their luxury,
Which they with so much pains and danger buy;
For which so many storms and wrecks they bear,
For which they pass the Straits so oft each year,
And 'scape so narrowly the bondage of Algier.

3

He wants no Cyprus birds, nor ortolans,

Nor dainties fetched from far to please his sense;
Cheap wholesome herbs content his frugal board,
The food of unfallen innocence,
Which the meanest village garden does afford;
Grant him, kind heaven, the sum of his desires,
What nature, not what luxury requires;
He only does a competency claim,
And, when he has it, wit to use the same.
Grant him sound health, impaired by no disease,
Nor by his own excess;
Let him in strength of mind and body live,
But not his reason, nor his sense survive;
His age (if age he e*er must live to see)
Let it from want, contempt, and care be free,
But not from mirth, and the delights of poetry.
Grant him but this, he's amply satisfied,
And scorns whatever fate can give beside.

1. A Dutch measure for Rhenish wine, containing forty gallons.