Page:Miscellanies - With a biographical sketch by Ralph Waldo Emerson and a general index to the writings. -- by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/376

356

Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail.

[Thus rhymed by the old translator of Plutarch:

"Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough

Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."]

Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed

Horses delight one;

Others live in golden chambers;

And some even are pleased traversing securely

The swelling of the sea in a swift ship.

This I will say to thee:

The lot of fair and pleasant things

It behooves to show in public to all the people;

But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall

Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness.

Pindar said of the physiologists, that they "plucked the unripe fruit of wisdom."

Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake."