Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/209

 His nature revolutionized, the man Makes friends and money when and how he can: Keen-eyed and cool, though on ambition bent, He shuns all acts of which he may repent.
 * Grey hairs have many evils: without end

The old man gathers what he dares not spend, While, as for action, do he what he will, 'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes Into the future, grumbles, and complains, Extols his own young years with peevish praise, But rates and censures these degenerate days.
 * Years, as they come, bring blessings in their train;

Years, as they go, take blessings back again: Yet haste or chance may blink the obvious truth, Make youth discourse like age, and age like youth: Attention fixed on life alone can teach The traits and adjuncts which pertain to each.
 * Sometimes an action on the stage is shown,

Sometimes 'tis done elsewhere, and there made known. A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen. Yet 'twere not well in public to display A business best transacted far away, And much may be secluded from the eye For well-graced tongues to tell of by and by. Medea must not shed her children's blood, Nor savage Atreus cook man's flesh for food,