Director of the busy throng,

Be thou the prelude of my song.

At Rome, you press me: “Without fail

A friend expects you for his bail;

Be nimble to perform your part,

Lest any rival get the start.

Though rapid Boreas sweep the ground,

Or winter in a narrower round

Contract the day, through storm and snow,

At all adventures you must go.”

When bound beyond equivocation,

Or any mental reservation,

By all the ties of legal traps,

And to my ruin, too, perhaps,

I still must bustle through the crowd,

And press the tardy; when aloud

A foul-mouth’d fellow reimburses

This usage with a peal of curses.

“What madness hath possess’d thy pate

To justle folk at such a rate,

When puffing through the streets you scour

To meet Maecenas at an hour?”

This pleases me, to tell the truth,

And is as honey to my tooth.

Yet when I reach th’ Esquilian Hill

(That deathful scene, and gloomy still),

A thousand busy cares surround me,

Distract my senses, and confound me.

“Roscius entreated you to meet

At court to-morrow before eight—

The secretaries have implor’d

Your presence at their council-board—

Pray, take this patent, and prevail

Upon your friend to fix the seal—”

Sir, I shall try—replies the man,

More urgent, “If you please you can—”

’Tis more than seven years complete,

It hardly wants a month of eight,

Since great Maecenas’ favour grac’d me,

Since first among his friends he plac’d me,

Sometimes to carry in his chair,

A mile or two, to take the air,

And might intrust with idle chat,

Discoursing upon this or that,

As in a free familiar way,

“How, tell me, Horace, goes the day?

Think you the Thracian can engage

The Syrian Hector of the stage?

This morning air is very bad

For folks who are but thinly clad.”

Our conversation chiefly dwells

On these, and such like bagatelles,

As might the veriest prattler hear,

Or be repos’d in leaky ear.

Yet every day, and every hour,

I’m more enslav’d to envy’s power.

“Our son of fortune (with a pox)

Sate with Maecenas in the box,

Just by the stage: you might remark,

They play’d together in the park.”

Should any rumour, without head

Or tail, about the streets be spread,

Whoever meets me gravely nods,

And says, “As you approach the gods,

It is no mystery to you,

What do the Dacians mean to do?”

Indeed I know not—“How you joke,

And love to sneer at simple folk!”

Then vengeance seize this head of mine,

If I have heard or can divine—

“Yet, prithee, where are Caesar’s bands

Allotted their debenture-lands?”

Although I swear I know no more

Of that than what they ask’d before,

They stand amaz’d, and think me grown

The closest mortal ever known.

Thus, in this giddy, busy maze

I lose the sun-shine of my days,