Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/391

Rh For selfish and malign is human grief Which in the tears of others finds relief.

Remove all men to fortune born, And none will think himself forlorn; Remove rich acres spreading wide, With grazing herds on every side: Straight will the poor man's drooping soul revive, For none are poor if all in common thrive.

The mariner his fate bewails, Who in a lonely vessel sails, And, losing all his scanty store, With life alone attains the shore; But with a stouter heart the gale he braves, That sinks a thousand ships beneath the waves.

When Phrixus fled in days of old Upon the ram with fleece of gold, His sister Helle with him fared And all his exiled wanderings shared; But when she fell and left him quite alone, Then nothing could for Helle's loss atone.

Not so they wept, that fabled pair, Deucalion and Pyrrha fair, When 'midst the boundless sea they stood The sole survivors of the flood; For though their lot was hard and desolate, They shared their sorrow—'twas a common fate.

Too soon our grieving company Shall scatter on the rolling sea, Where swelling sails and bending oars Shall speed us on to distant shores. Oh, then how hard shall be our wretched plight, When far away our country lies, And round us heaving billows rise, And lofty Ida's summit sinks from sight.

Then mother shall her child embrace, And point with straining eyes the place