Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/129

Say, is your bosom fevered with the fire
Of sordid avarice or unchecked desire?
Know, there are spells will help you to allay
The pain, and put good part of it away.
You're bloated by ambition? take advice;
Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice.
Run through the list of faults; whate'er you be,
Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee,
Submit to culture patiently, you'll find
Her charms can humanize the rudest mind.
To fly from vice is virtue: to be free
From foolishness is wisdom's first degree.
Think of some ill you feel a real disgrace,
The loss of money or the loss of place;
To keep yourself from these, how keen the strain!
How dire the sweat of body and of brain!
Through tropic heat, o'er rocks and seas you run
To furthest India, poverty to shun,
Yet scorn the sage who offers you release
From vagrant wishes that disturb your peace.
Take some provincial pugilist, who gains
A paltry cross-way prize for all his pains;
Place on his brow Olympia's chaplet, earned
Without a struggle, would the gift be spurned?
Gold counts for more than silver, all men hold:
Why doubt that virtue counts for more than gold?
"Seek money first, good friends, and virtue next,"
Each Janus lectures on the well-worn text;
Lads learn it for their lessons; grey-haired men,
Like schoolboys, drawl the sing-song o'er again.