and wishes they would faster go.
He knows not how to employ them; in and out
He comes, and goes, and smokes, and strolls about,
To gossip; turns, returns, with constant stress
Wearying himself to fly from weariness.
But now retired, sleep half his life employs,
And fain would all the day, whose light annoys.
Fool! wouldst thou know the sweetness of repose?
Seek it in work. The soul fastidious grows
Ever in sloth, self-gnawing and oppress’d,
And finds its torment even in its rest.
But if to Bacchus and to Ceres given,
Before his table laid, from morn to even,
At ease he fills himself, as held in stall:
See him his stomach make his god, his all!
Nor earth nor sea suffice his appetite;
Ill-tongued and gluttonous the like unite:
With such he passes his vain days along,
In drunken routs obscene, with toast and song,
And jests and dissolute delights; his aim
To gorge unmeasured, riot without shame.
But soon with these begins to blunt and lose
Stomach and appetite: he finds refuse
Offended Nature, as insipid food,
The savours others delicacies view’d.
Vainly from either India he seeks
For stimulants; in vain from art bespeaks
Fresh sauces, which his palate will reject;
His longings heighten’d, but life’s vigour wreck’d;
And thus worn out in mid career the cost,
Before life ends he finds his senses lost.
O bitter pleasures! O, what madness sore
Is theirs who covet them, and such implore
Humbly before a lying deity!
How the perfidious goddess to agree
But mocks them! Though perhaps at first she smile,
Exempt from pain and misery the long while
She never leaves them, and in place of joy
Gives what they ask, with weariness to cloy.
If trusted, soon is found experience taught
What ill-foreseen condition they have sought.
Niggard their wishes ever to fulfil,
Fickle in favour, vacillating still,
Inconstant, cruel, she afflicts today,
And casts down headlong to distress a prey,
Whom yesterday she flatter’d to upraise:
And now another from the mire she sways
Exalted to the clouds; but raised in vain,
With louder noise to cast him down again.
Seest thou not there a countless multitude,
Thronging her temple round, and oft renew’d,
Seeking admittance, and to offer fraught
With horrid incense, for their idol brought?
Fly from her; let not the contagion find
The base example enter in thy mind.
Fly, and in virtue thy asylum seek
To make thee happy: trust the words I speak.
There is no purer happiness to gain
Than the sweet calm the just from her attain.
If in prosperity their fortunes glide,
She makes them free from arrogance and pride;
In mid estate be tranquil and content;
In adverse be resign’d whate’er the event:
Implacable, if Envy’s hurricane
O’erwhelm them in misfortunes, even then
She hastes to save them, and its rage control;
With lofty fortitude the nobler soul
Enduing faithful; and if raised to sight,
At length they find the just reward requite,
Say is there aught to hope for prize so great
As the immortal crown for which they wait?
But is this feeling then, I hear thee cry,
That elevates my soul to virtue high,
This anxious wish to investigate and know,
Is it blameworthy as those passions low?
Why not to that for happiness repair?
Wilt thou condemn it? No, who would so dare,
That right would learn his origin and end?
Knowledge and Virtue, sisters like, descend
From heaven to perfect man in nobleness;
And far removing him, Bermudo, yes!
From vice and error, they will make him free,
Approaching even to the Deity.
But seek them not, in that false path to go
Which cunning Fortune will to others show.
Where then? to Wisdom’s temple only haste;
There thou wilt find
