Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/120

Standing agape and straining knees and eyes
At some rude sketch of fencers for a prize,
Where, drawn in charcoal or red ochre, just
As if alive, they parry and they thrust?
Davus gets called a loiterer and a scamp,
You (save the mark!) a critic of high stamp.
If hot sweet-cakes should tempt me, I am naught:
Do you say no to dainties as you ought?
Am I worse trounced than you when I obey
My stomach? true, my back is made to pay:
But when you let rich tit-bits pass your lip
That cost no trifle, do you 'scape the whip?
Indulging to excess, you loathe your meat,
And the bloat trunk betrays the gouty feet.
The lad's a rogue who goes by night to chop
A stolen flesh-brush at a fruiterer's shop:
The man who sells a farm to buy good fare,
Is there no slavery to the stomach there?
Then too you cannot spend an hour alone;
No company's more hateful than your own;
You dodge and give yourself the slip; you seek
In bed or in your cups from care to sneak:
In vain: the black dog follows you, and hangs
Close on your flying skirts with hungry fangs.
H. Where's there a stone?
D.Who wants it?
H.Or a pike?
D. Mere raving this, or verse-making belike.
H. Unless you're off at once, you'll join the eight
Who do their digging down at my estate.