Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/173

Be sure she'll treat you to the same ere long.
No time for sleeping with a fire next door;
Neglect such things, they only blaze the more.
A patron's service is a strange career;
The tiros love it, but the experts fear.
You, while you're sailing on a prosperous tack,
Look out for squalls which yet may drive you back.
The gay dislike the grave, the staid the pert,
The quick the slow, the lazy the alert;
Hard drinkers hate the sober, though he swear
Those bouts at night are more than he can bear.
Unknit your brow; the silent man is sure
To pass for crabbed, the modest for obscure.
Meantime, while thoughts like these your mind engage,
Neglect not books nor converse with the sage;
Ply them with questions; lead them on to tell
What things make life go happily and well;
How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth?
How moderate care for things of trifling worth?
Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown?
What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own?
Is peace procured by honours, pickings, gains,
Or, sought in highways, is she found in lanes?
For me, when freshened by my spring's pure cold
Which makes my villagers look pinched and old,
What prayers are mine? "O may I yet possess
The goods I have, or, if Heaven pleases, less!
Let the few years that Fate may grant me still