To His Book.

(HOR. EP. I., 20.)     For mart and street you seem to pine     With restless glances, Book of mine!     Still craving on some stall to stand,     Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand.     You chafe at locks, and burn to quit     Your modest haunt and audience fit     For hearers less discriminate.     I reared you up for no such fate.     Still, if you must be published, go;     But mind, you can't come back, you know!     "What have I done?" I hear you cry,     And writhe beneath some critic's eye;     "What did I want?"--when, scarce polite,     They do but yawn, and roll you tight.     And yet methinks, if I may guess     (Putting aside your heartlessness     In leaving me and this your home),     You should find favour, too, at Rome.     That is, they'll like you while you're young,     When you are old, you'll pass among     The Great Unwashed,--then thumbed and sped,     Be fretted of slow moths, unread,     Or to Ilerda you'll be sent,     Or Utica, for banishment!     And I, whose counsel you disdain,     At that your lot shall laugh amain,     Wryly, as he who, like a fool,     Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule.     Nay! there is worse behind. In age     They e'en may take your babbling page     In some remotest "slum" to teach     Mere boys their rudiments of speech!     But go. When on warm days you see     A chance of listeners, speak of me.     Tell them I soared from low estate,     A freedman's son, to higher fate     (That is, make up to me in worth     What you must take in point of birth);     Then tell them that I won renown     In peace and war, and pleased the town;     Paint me as early gray, and one     Little of stature, fond of sun,     Quick-tempered, too,--but nothing more.     Add (if they ask) I'm forty-four,     Or was, the year that over us     Both Lollius ruled and Lepidus.