Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/134

Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care
To rest by listening to a favourite air.
Robbers get up by night, men's throats to knive:
Will you not wake to keep yourself alive?
Well, if you will not stir when sound, at last,
When dropsical, you'll be for moving fast:
Unless you light your lamp ere dawn and read
Some wholesome book that high resolves may breed,
You'll find your sleep go from you, and will toss
Upon your pillow, envious, lovesick, cross.
You lose no time in taking out a fly,
Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye;
Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn
Till this day year all thought of the concern?
Come now, have courage to be wise: begin:
You're halfway over when you once plunge in:
He who puts off the time for mending, stands
A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands,
Waiting till all the water be gone past;
But it runs on, and will, while time shall last.
"Aye, but I must have money, and a bride
To bear me children, rich and well allied:
Those uncleared lands want tilling." Having got
What will suffice you, seek no happier lot.
Not house or grounds, not heaps of brass or gold
Will rid the frame of fever's heat and cold.
Or cleanse the heart of care. He needs good health,
Body and mind, who would enjoy his wealth:
Who fears or hankers, land and country-seat
Soothe just as much as tickling gouty feet,