142
PARAPHRASE UPON HORACE.
BOOK II. — ODE XIV.
Eheu fugaces Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni, &c.
1
ALAS! dear friend, alas! time hastes away,
Nor is it in our power to bribe its stay;
The rolling years with constant motion run,
Lo! while I speak, the present minute's gone,
And following hours still urge the foregoing on.
'Tis not thy wealth, 'tis not thy power,
'Tis not thy piety can thee secure;
They're all too feeble to withstand
Grey hairs, approaching age, and thy avoidless end.
When once thy glass is run,
When once thy utmost thread is spun,
'Twill then be fruitless to expect reprieve;
Couldst thou ten thousand Kingdoms give
In purchase for each hour of longer life,
They would not buy one gasp of breath,
Not move one jot inexorable death.
2
Which now, like swarms of insects, crawl
Upon the surface of earth's spacious ball,
Must quit this hillock of mortality,
And in its bowels buried lie.
The mightiest king, and proudest potentate
In spite of all his pomp, and all his state,
Must pay this necessary tribute unto fate.
The busy, restless monarch of the world, which now
Keeps such a pother, and so much ado
To fill gazettes alive,
And after in some lying annal to survive,
