335. Clemency

For punishment in war it will sufficeIf the chief author of the faction dies;Let but few smart, but strike a fear through all;Where the fault springs there let the judgment fall.

Ah Posthumus! our years hence fly,And leave no sound; nor piety,Or prayers, or vowCan keep the wrinkle from the brow;But we must on,As fate does lead or draw us; none,None, Posthumus, could ere declineThe doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground,Must all be left, no one plant foundTo follow thee,Save only the curs'd cypress tree;A merry mindLooks forward, scorns what's left behind;Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,And here enjoy our holiday.

W'ave seen the past best times, and theseWill ne'er return; we see the seasAnd moons to waneBut they fill up their ebbs again;But vanish'd man,Like to a lily lost, ne'er can,Ne'er can repullulate, or bringHis days to see a second spring.

But on we must, and thither tend,Where Anchus and rich Tullus blendTheir sacred seed:Thus has infernal Jove decreed;We must be made,Ere long a song, ere long a shade.Why then, since life to us is short,Let's make it full up by our sport.

Crown we our heads with roses then,And 'noint with Tyrian balm; for whenWe two are dead,The world with us is buried.Then live we freeAs is the air, and let us beOur own fair wind, and mark each oneDay with the white and lucky stone.

We are not poor, although we haveNo roofs of cedar, nor our braveBaiæ, nor keepAccount of such a flock of sheep;Nor bullocks fedTo lard the shambles: barbels bredTo kiss our hands; nor do we wishFor Pollio's lampreys in our dish.

If we can meet and so conferBoth by a shining salt-cellar,And have our roof,Although not arch'd, yet weather-proof,And ceiling freeFrom that cheap candle bawdery;We'll eat our bean with that full mirthAs we were lords of all the earth.

Well then, on what seas we are toss'd,Our comfort is, we can't be lost.Let the winds driveOur barque, yet she will keep aliveAmidst the deeps.'Tis constancy, my Wickes, which keepsThe pinnace up; which, though she errsI' th' seas, she saves her passengers.

Say, we must part (sweet mercy blessUs both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness),Can we so farStray to become less circularThan we are now?No, no, that self-same heart, that vowWhich made us one, shall ne'er undo,Or ravel so to make us two.

Live in thy peace; as for myself,When I am bruised on the shelfOf time, and showMy locks behung with frost and snow;When with the rheum,The cough, the ptisick, I consumeUnto an almost nothing; thenThe ages fled I'll call again,

And with a tear compare these lastLame and bad times with those are past;While Baucis by,My old lean wife, shall kiss it dry.And so we'll sitBy th' fire, foretelling snow and sleet,And weather by our aches, grownNow old enough to be our own

True calendars, as puss's earWashed o'er's, to tell what change is near:Then to assuageThe gripings of the chine by age,I'll call my youngIülus to sing such a songI made upon my Julia's breast;And of her blush at such a feast.

Then shall he read that flower of mine,Enclos'd within a crystal shrine;A primrose next;A piece, then, of a higher text,For to begetIn me a more transcendent heatThan that insinuating fire,Which crept into each aged sire,

When the fair Helen, from her eyes,Shot forth her loving sorceries;At which I'll rearMine aged limbs above my chair,And, hearing it,Flutter and crow as in a fitOf fresh concupiscence, and cry:No lust there's like to poetry.

Thus, frantic-crazy man, God wot,I'll call to mind things half-forgot,And oft betweenRepeat the times that I have seen!Thus ripe with tears,And twisting my Iülus' hairs,Doting, I'll weep and say, in truth,Baucis, these were my sins of youth.

Then next I'll cause my hopeful lad,If a wild apple can be had,To crown the hearth,Lar thus conspiring with our mirth;Then to infuseOur browner ale into the cruse,Which sweetly spic'd, we'll first carouseUnto the Genius of the house.

Then the next health to friends of mine,Loving the brave Burgundian wine,High sons of pith,Whose fortunes I have frolicked with;Such as could wellBear up the magic bough and spell;And dancing 'bout the mystic thyrse,Give up the just applause to verse:

To those, and then again to thee,We'll drink, my Wickes, until we bePlump as the cherry,Though not so fresh, yet full as merryAs the cricket,The untam'd heifer, or the pricket,Until our tongues shall tell our earsWe're younger by a score of years.

Thus, till we see the fire less shineFrom th' embers than the kitling's eyne,We'll still sit up,Sphering about the wassail-cupTo all those timesWhich gave me honour for my rhymes.The coal once spent, we'll then to bed,Far more than night-bewearied.

Posthumus, the name is taken from Horace, Ode ii. 14, from which thebeginning of this lyric is translated.Repullulate, be born again.Anchus and rich Tullus. Herrick is again translating from Horace (Odeiv. 7, 14).Baiæ, the favourite sea-side resort of the Romans in the time ofHorace.Pollio, Vedius Pollio, who fed his lampreys with human flesh. Ob.,B.C. 15.Bawdery, dirt (with no moral meaning).Circular, self-sufficing, the "in se ipso totus teres atque rotundus"of Horace. Sat. ii. 7, 86.Iülus, the son of Æneas.Pith, marrow.Thyrse, bacchic staff.Pricket, a buck in his second year.