Classic Poem

L INUS , the country ever was your home,
How cheap that life, how costly ours in Rome!
You shake the creases of your toga out,
Say once a month. A single suit, no doubt,
Will last ten seasons ere its work be done—
Though at the first 'twas not a costly one;
Your woods provide a boar, your fields a hare!
To meet your simple needs; for richer fare
You beat the copse for thrushes, and of fish
Your river yields you freely many a dish.
No costly wines imported from afar
You ever need to fill your Samian jar:
No slave from dainty Greece doth call you lord,
But home-bred clowns attend your rustic board;
From fire and drought your house and lands are free,
You never lost or risked a ship at sea;
At knuckle-bones you stake a nut or two
But keep the guileful dice-box far from you;
Your mother too, whose passion was to hoard,
Left you a million, yet you can't afford
To spend or give—'Tis gone, so you aver.
Untouched, yet gone? You are a conjurer.