The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry by 65 BC-8 BC Horace
page 14 of 217 (06%)
page 14 of 217 (06%)
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How now? you won't be happy when you may."
Now, after this, would Jove be aught to blame If with both cheeks he burst into a flame, And vowed, when next they pray, they shall not find His temper easy, or his ear inclined? Well, not to treat things lightly (though, for me, Why truth may not be gay, I cannot see: Just as, we know, judicious teachers coax With sugar-plum or cake their little folks To learn their alphabet):--still, we will try A graver tone, and lay our joking by. The man that with his plough subdues the land, The soldier stout, the vintner sly and bland, The venturous sons of ocean, all declare That with one view the toils of life they bear, When age has come, and labour has amassed Enough to live on, to retire at last: E'en so the ant (for no bad pattern she), That tiny type of giant industry, Drags grain by grain, and adds it to the sum Of her full heap, foreseeing cold to come: Yet she, when winter turns the year to chill, Stirs not an inch beyond her mounded hill, But lives upon her savings: you, more bold, Ne'er quit your gain for fiercest heat or cold: Fire, ocean, sword, defying all, you strive To make yourself the richest man alive. Yet where's the profit, if you hide by stealth In pit or cavern your enormous wealth? |
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