If the hand its pressure slack,
Straight the supple wood springs back.
Phoebus in the western main
Sinks; but swift his car again
By a secret path is borne
To the wonted gates of morn.

Thus are all things seen to yearn
In due time for due return;
And no order fixed may stay,
Save which in th' appointed way
Joins the end to the beginning
In a steady cycle spinning.



III.


'Ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin,
however faint, and though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise,
notwithstanding, ye discern the true end of happiness, and so the aim of
nature leads you thither--to that true good--while error in many forms
leads you astray therefrom. For reflect whether men are able to win
happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed
end. Truly, if either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them
anything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is
good, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition
of these things. But if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and,
moreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them