O Dellius, when there blows an adverse wind See thou preservest an untroubled mind! And when prosperity attests thy worth Refrain as well from unbecoming mirth; For thou must die and vanish from the earth. Whether thy life be spent in sorrow's ways Or in the griefless flow of festive days Thou lollest at thy ease in pastures where The hours are dreamed away remote from care, Choicest Falernian thy comrade there. Where the vast pine and poplar pale have made Their blended boughs a roof for social shade, And where between its winding banks the stream, That babbler-in-an-undertone, doth seem To shiver by, fugacious as a dream. Bring hither wine, be lavish of perfume And the too-quickly-fading roses' bloom, While youth remains with opportunity, And their dark threads awhile (how fruitlessly)! Are left unfingered by the Sisters three. Soon wilt thou leave thy widely purchased grove, Thy mansion with its satisfying loves, Thy villa that the tawny Tiber laves,— Wilt leave them all, and to the wind and waves Thy heir will cast the wealth affection saves. It matters not if riches thee were lent, From ancient Inachus thy long descent, Or if ignoble and of beggar birth Beneath the naked heavens they flung thee forth, The victim of unpitying Orcus' wrath. We are all hurried to the self-same bourn, The lots alike are shaken in the urn That soon or late our destiny will mark And send us helpless, by the fateful bark, To endless exile and the boundless dark. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...APRIL'S LAMBS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES WHEN MALINDY SINGS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE EMULATION by SARAH FYGE EGERTON TO A LILY by JAMES MATHEWES LEGARE THE THREE BEST THING: 1. WORK by HENRY VAN DYKE PEACE ON EARTH by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE ROSE OF PEACE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS |