Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/173

 Be sure she'll treat you to the same ere long. No time for sleeping with a fire next door; Neglect such things, they only blaze the more.
 * A patron's service is a strange career;

The tiros love it, but the experts fear. You, while you're sailing on a prosperous tack, Look out for squalls which yet may drive you back. The gay dislike the grave, the staid the pert, The quick the slow, the lazy the alert; Hard drinkers hate the sober, though he swear Those bouts at night are more than he can bear. Unknit your brow; the silent man is sure To pass for crabbed, the modest for obscure.
 * Meantime, while thoughts like these your mind engage,

Neglect not books nor converse with the sage; Ply them with questions; lead them on to tell What things make life go happily and well; How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth? How moderate care for things of trifling worth? Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown? What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own? Is peace procured by honours, pickings, gains, Or, sought in highways, is she found in lanes?
 * For me, when freshened by my spring's pure cold

Which makes my villagers look pinched and old, What prayers are mine? "O may I yet possess The goods I have, or, if Heaven pleases, less! Let the few years that Fate may grant me still