Classic Poem

A level mind in crooked times
Preserve, preserve; nor in better fortune
Dash into rash self-glory,
My brother bound for death—

Whether your life be a string of doldrums
Or whether you loll on days of festa
At a private fête champêtre
With a bottle of vintage wine.

Towering pine and silver poplar—
Why do they intermingle their friendly
Shade? And why do these cantering waters
Jockey their way through winding banks?

Here is the place for wine and perfume
And the too fleeting bloom of the rose
While Time and Chance and the black threads
Of the three Fates give chance and time.

You must leave the estates you bought, the house
You built, which yellow Tiber washes,
Leave them—and all that pinnacled wealth,
Your work, will fall to another master.

If rich and of ancient lineage, it makes
No odds; no odds if born a beggar
You lived your life in the foulest slum,
Victims all of the pitiless Reaper.

All of us briefed the same; for all of us
Our lot is rattled like dice and sooner
Or later will fall and embark our souls
On the packet boat to eternal exile.