Classic Poem

Now against (that which terrifies our age)
The last, and greatest grievance, we engage;
To her grim Death appears in all her shapes,
The hungry grave for her due tribute gapes.
Fond, foolish man! with fear of death surprised,
Which either should be wish'd for, or despised;
This, if our souls with bodies death destroy;
That, if our souls a second life enjoy.
What else is to be fear'd, when we shall gain
Eternal life, or have no sense of pain?
The youngest in the morning are not sure
That till the night their life they can secure;
Their age stands more exposed to accidents
Than ours, nor common care their fate prevents:
Death's force (with terror) against Nature strives,
Nor one of many to ripe age arrives.
From this ill fate the world's disorders rise,
For if all men were old, they would be wise;
Years and experience our forefathers taught,
Them under laws and into cities brought:
Why only should the fear of death belong
To age, which is as common to the young?
Your hopeful brothers, and my son, to you
(Scipio) and me, this maxim makes too true:
But vig'rous youth may his gay thoughts erect
To many years, which age must not expect.
But when he sees his airy hopes deceived,
With grief he says, Who this would have believed?
We happier are than they, who but desired
To possess that which we long since acquired.
What if our age to Nestor's could extend?
'Tis vain to think that lasting which must end;
And when 'tis past, not any part remains
Thereof, but the reward which virtue gains.
Days, months, and years, like running waters flow,
Nor what is past, nor what's to come, we know:
Our date, how short soe'er, must us content.
When a good actor doth his part present,
In every act he our attention draws,
That at the last he may find just applause;
So (though but short) yet we must learn the art
Of virtue, on the stage to act our part;
True wisdom must our actions so direct,
Not only the last plaudit to expect;
Yet grieve no more, though long that part should last,
Than husbandmen, because the spring is past.
The spring, like youth, fresh blossoms doth produce,
But autumn makes them ripe and fit for use:
So age a mature mellowness doth set
On the green promises of youthful heat.
All things which Nature did ordain, are good,
And so must be received and understood.
Age, like ripe apples, on earth's bosom drops,
While force our youth, like fruits untimely, crops;
The sparkling flame of our warm blood expires,
As when huge streams are pour'd on raging fires;
But age unforced falls by her own consent,
As coals to ashes, when the spirit's spent;
Therefore to death I with such joy resort,
As seamen from a tempest to their port.
Yet to that port ourselves we must not force,
Before our pilot, Nature, steers our course.
Let us the causes of our fear condemn,
Then Death at his approach we shall contemn.
Though to our heat of youth our age seems cold,
Yet when resolved, it is more brave and bold.
Thus Solon to Pisistratus replied,
Demanded, on what succour he relied,
When with so few he boldly did engage?
He said, he took his courage from his age.
Then death seems welcome, and our nature kind,
When, leaving us a perfect sense and mind,
She (like a workman in his science skill'd)
Pulls down with ease what her own hand did build.
That art which knew to join all parts in one,
Makes the least vi'lent separation.
Yet though our ligaments betimes grow weak,
We must not force them till themselves they break.
Pythagoras bids us in our station stand,
Till God, our general, shall us disband.
Wise Solon dying, wish'd his friends might grieve,
That in their memories he still might live.
Yet wiser Ennius gave command to all
His friends not to bewail his funeral;
Your tears for such a death in vain you spend,
Which straight in immortality shall end.
In death, if there be any sense of pain,
But a short space to age it will remain;
On which, without my fears, my wishes wait,
But tim'rous youth on this should meditate:
Who for light pleasure this advice rejects,
Finds little, when his thoughts he recollects.
Our death (though not its certain date) we know;
Nor whether it may be this night, or no:
How then can they contented live, who fear
A danger certain, and none knows how near?
They err, who for the fear of death dispute,
Our gallant actions this mistake confute.
Thee, Brutus! Rome's first martyr I must name;
The Curtii bravely dived the gulf of flame:
Attilius sacrificed himself, to save
That faith, which to his barb'rous foes he gave;
With the two Scipios did thy uncle fall,
Rather than fly from conqu'ring Hannibal.
The great Marcellus (who restorèd Rome)
His greatest foes with honour did entomb.
Their lives how many of our legions threw
Into the breach, whence no return they knew?
Must then the wise, the old, the learned fear,
What not the rude, the young, th'unlearn'd forbear?
Satiety from all things else doth come,
Then life must to itself grow wearisome.
Those trifles wherein children take delight,
Grow nauseous to the young man's appetite;
And from those gaieties our youth requires
To exercise their minds, our age retires.
And when the last delights of age shall die,
Life in itself will find satiety.
Now you (my friends) my sense of death shall hear,
Which I can well describe, for he stands near.
Your father, Lælius, and your's, Scipio,
My friends, and men of honour, I did know;
As certainly as we must die, they live
That life which justly may that name receive:
Till from these prisons of our flesh released,
Our souls with heavy burdens lie oppress'd;
Which part of man from heaven falling down,
Earth, in her low abyss, doth hide and drown,
A place so dark to the celestial light,
And pure, eternal fire's quite opposite,
The gods through human bodies did disperse
An heavenly soul, to guide this universe,
That man, when he of heavenly bodies saw
The order, might from thence a pattern draw:
Nor this to me did my own dictates show,
But to the old philosophers I owe.
I heard Pythagoras, and those who came
With him, and from our country took their name;
Who never doubted but the beams divine,
Derived from gods, in mortal breasts did shine.
Nor from my knowledge did the ancients hide
What Socrates declared the hour he died;
He th'immortality of souls proclaim'd,
(Whom th'oracle of men the wisest named)
Why should we doubt of that whereof our sense
Finds demonstration from experience?
Our minds are here, and there, below, above;
Nothing that's mortal can so swiftly move.
Our thoughts to future things their flight direct,
And in an instant all that's past collect.
Reason, remembrance, wit, inventive art,
No nature, but immortal, can impart.
Man's soul in a perpetual motion flows,
And to no outward cause that motion owes;
And therefore that no end can overtake,
Because our minds cannot themselves forsake.
And since the matter of our soul is pure
And simple, which no mixture can endure
Of parts, which not among themselves agree;
Therefore it never can divided be.
And Nature shows (without philosophy)
What cannot be divided, cannot die.
We even in early infancy discern
Knowledge is born with babes before they learn;
Ere they can speak they find so many ways
To serve their turn, and see more arts than days:
Before their thoughts they plainly can express,
The words and things they know are numberless;
Which Nature only and no art could find,
But what she taught before, she call'd to mind,
These to his sons (as Xenophon records)
Of the great Cyrus were the dying words;
'Fear not when I depart (nor therefore mourn)
I shall be nowhere, or to nothing turn:
That soul which gave me life, was seen by none,
Yet by the actions it design'd was known;
And though its flight no mortal eye shall see,
Yet know, for ever it the same shall be.
That soul which can immortal glory give
To her own virtues must for ever live.
Can you believe that man's all-knowing mind
Can to a mortal body be confined?
Though a foul foolish prison her immure
On earth, she (when escaped) is wise and pure.
Man's body when dissolved is but the same
With beasts, and must return from whence it came;
But whence into our bodies reason flows,
None sees it when it comes, or where it goes.
Nothing resembles death so much as sleep,
Yet then our minds themselves from slumber keep.
When from their fleshly bondage they are free,
Then what divine and future things they see!
Which makes it most apparent whence they are,
And what they shall hereafter be, declare.'
This noble speech the dying Cyrus made.
Me (Scipio) shall no argument persuade,
Thy grandsire, and his brother, to whom Fame
Gave, from two conquer'd parts o' th'world, their name,
Nor thy great grandsire, nor thy father Paul,
Who fell at Cannæ against Hannibal;
Nor I (for 'tis permitted to the aged
To boast their actions) had so oft engaged
In battles, and in pleadings, had we thought,
That only fame our virtuous actions bought;
'Twere better in soft pleasure and repose
Ingloriously our peaceful eyes to close:
Some high assurance hath possess'd my mind,
After my death an happier life to find.
Unless our souls from the immortals came,
What end have we to seek immortal fame?
All virtuous spirits some such hope attends,
Therefore the wise his days with pleasure ends.
The foolish and short-sighted die with fear,
That they go nowhere, or they know not where.
The wise and virtuous soul, with clearer eyes,
Before she parts, some happy port descries.
My friends, your fathers I shall surely see:
Nor only those I loved, or who loved me,
But such as before ours did end their days,
Of whom we hear, and read, and write their praise.
This I believe; for were I on my way,
None should persuade me to return, or stay:
Should some god tell me that I should be born
And cry again, his offer I would scorn;
Asham'd, when I have ended well my race,
To be led back to my first starting-place.
And since with life we are more grieved than joy'd,
We should be either satisfied or cloy'd:
Yet will I not my length of days deplore,
As many wise and learn'd have done before:
Nor can I think such life in vain is lent,
Which for our country and our friends is spent.
Hence from an inn, not from my home, I pass,
Since Nature meant us here no dwelling-place.
Happy when I, from this turmoil set free,
That peaceful and divine assembly see:
Not only those I named I there shall greet,
But my own gallant virtuous Cato meet.
Nor did I weep, when I to ashes turn'd
His belov'd body, who should mine have burn'd.
I in my thoughts beheld his soul ascend,
Where his fixed hopes our interview attend:
Then cease to wonder that I feel no grief
From age, which is of my delights the chief.
My hopes if this assurance hath deceived
(That I man's soul immortal have believed),
And if I err, no power shall dispossess
My thoughts of that expected happiness,
Though some minute philosophers pretend,
That with our days our pains and pleasures end.
If it be so, I hold the safer side,
For none of them my error shall deride.
And if hereafter no rewards appear,
Yet virtue hath itself rewarded here.
If those who this opinion have despised,
And their whole life to pleasure sacrificed,
Should feel their error, they, when undeceived,
Too late will wish that me they had believed.
If souls no immortality obtain,
'Tis fit our bodies should be out of pain.
The same uneasiness which everything
Gives to our nature, life must also bring.
Good acts, if long, seem tedious; so is age,
Acting too long upon this earth her stage.--
Thus much for age, to which when you arrive,
That joy to you, which it gives me, 'twill give.

Now must I draw my forces 'gainst that host
Of pleasures, which i' th'sea of age are lost.
O thou most high transcendant gift of age!
Youth from its folly thus to disengage.
And now receive from me that most divine
Oration of that noble Tarentine,
Which at Tarentum I long since did hear,
When I attended the great Fabius there.
Ye gods, was it man's nature, or his fate,
Betray'd him with sweet pleasure's poison'd bait?
Which he, with all designs of art or power,
Doth with unbridled appetite devour:
And as all poisons seek the noblest part,
Pleasure possesses first the head and heart;
Intoxicating both by them, she finds,
And burns the sacred temples of our minds.
Furies, which reason's divine chains had bound,
(That being broken) all the world confound.
Lust, murder, treason, avarice, and hell
Itself broke loose, in reason's palace dwell:
Truth, honour, justice, temperance, are fled,
All her attendants into darkness led.
But why all this discourse? when pleasure's rage
Hath conquer'd reason, we must treat with age.
Age undermines, and will in time surprise
Her strongest forts, and cut off all supplies;
And join'd in league with strong necessity,
Pleasure must fly, or else by famine die.
Flaminius, whom a consulship had graced,
(Then Censor) from the Senate I displaced;
When he in Gaul, a Consul, made a feast,
A beauteous courtesan did him request
To see the cutting off a pris'ner's head;
This crime I could not leave unpunished,
Since by a private villany he stain'd
That public honour which at Rome he gain'd.
Then to our age (when not to pleasures bent)
This seems an honour, not disparagement.
We not all pleasures like the Stoics hate,
But love and seek those which are moderate.
(Though divine Plato thus of pleasures thought,
They us, with hooks and baits, like fishes caught.)
When Questor, to the gods in public halls
I was the first who set up festivals.
Not with high tastes our appetites did force,
But fill'd with conversation and discourse;
Which feasts, Convivial Meetings we did name:
Not like the ancient Greeks, who to their shame,
Call'd it a Compotation, not a feast;
Declaring the worst part of it the best.
Those entertainments I did then frequent
Sometimes with youthful heat and merriment:
But now I thank my age, which gives me ease
From those excesses; yet myself I please
With cheerful talk to entertain my guests
(Discourses are to age continual feasts),
The love of meat and wine they recompense,
And cheer the mind, as much as those the sense.
I'm not more pleased with gravity among
The aged, than to be youthful with the young;
Nor 'gainst all pleasures proclaim open war,
To which, in age, some nat'ral motions are.
And still at my Sabinum I delight
To treat my neighbours till the depth of night.
But we the sense of gust and pleasure want,
Which youth at full possesses; this I grant;
But age seeks not the things which youth requires,
And no man needs that which he not desires.
When Sophocles was asked if he denied
Himself the use of pleasures, he replied,
'I humbly thank th'immortal gods, who me
From that fierce tyrant's insolence set free.'
But they whom pressing appetites constrain,
Grieve when they cannot their desires obtain.
Young men the use of pleasure understand,
As of an object new, and near at hand:
Though this stands more remote from age's sight,
Yet they behold it not without delight:
As ancient soldiers, from their duties eased,
With sense of honour and rewards are pleased;
So from ambitious hopes and lusts released,
Delighted with itself our age doth rest.
No part of life's more happy, when