Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/128

 So now I bid my idle songs adieu, And turn my thoughts to what is right and true; I search and search, and when I find, I lay The wisdom up against a rainy day.
 * But what's my sect? you ask me; I must be

A member sure of some fraternity: Why no; I've taken no man's shilling; none Of all your fathers owns me for his son; Just where the weather drives me, I invite Myself to take up quarters for the night. Now, all alert, I cope with life's rough main, A loyal follower in true virtue's train: Anon, to Aristippus' camp I flit, And say, the world's for me, not I for it.
 * Long as the night to him whose love is gone,

Long as the day to slaves that must work on, Slow as the year to the impatient ward Who finds a mother's tutelage too hard, So long, so slow the moments that prevent The execution of my high intent, Of studying truths that rich and poor concern, Which young and old are lost unless they learn. Well, if I cannot be a student, yet There's good in spelling at the alphabet. Your eyes will never see like Lynceus'; still You rub them with an ointment when they're ill: You cannot hope for Glyco's stalwart frame, Yet you'd avoid the gout that makes you lame. Some point of moral progress each may gain, Though to aspire beyond it should prove vain.