Classic Poem

When fortune frowns, thine equal mind
Preserve, and when her smiles are kind,
Exult not, arrogantly vain,
But keep thy calm and equal strain;

Whether black care consumes thine hours,
Or stretched in cool secluded bowers,
The festal day inspires thy soul,
And old Falernian fills the bowl;

Where the tall pine and poplar white
Above their social shades unite,
Marrying their boughs, and winding nigh,
The rapid lymph runs trembling by.

Here bring the wine, the perfume bring,
And the sweet rose, soon perishing;
While fortune, youth, and the black twine
Of the dread sisters leave them thine:

For from thy fields and fireside bless'd,
Thy domes by yellow Tiber kiss'd,
Soon thou must part; thine heaps now grown
So high, the heir shall call his own.

If rich, and sprung from lines of fame,
Or houseless, and without a name,
Indifferent is; at the fixed day,
Relentless hell demands its prey.

We are all onward urged, — the urn
Fraught with a death at every turn,
Must soon or late our lot discharge,
And we for endless exile mount the barge.