Classic Poem

How swiftly glide our flying years!
Alas! nor piety, nor tears
Can stop the fleeting day;
Deep-furrowed wrinkles, posting age,
And death's unconquerable rage,
Are strangers to delay.

Though every day a bull should bleed
To Pluto, bootless were the deed,
The monarch tearless reigns,
Where vulture-tortured Tityus lies,
And triple Geryon's monstrous size
The gloomy wave detains.

Whoever tastes of earthly food
Is doomed to pass the joyless flood,
And hear the Stygian roar;
The sceptred king, who rules the earth,
The labouring hind, of humbler birth,
Must reach the distant shore.

The broken surge of Adria's main,
Hoarse-sounding, we avoid in vain,
And Mars in blood-stained arms;
The southern blast in vain we fear,
And autumn's life-annoying air
With idle fears alarms;

For all must see Cocytus flow,
Whose gloomy water sadly slow
Strays through the dreary soil.
The guilty maids, an ill-famed train!
And, Sisyphus, thy labours vain,
Condemned to endless toil.

Your pleasing consort must be left,
And you of villas, lands, bereft,
Must to the shades descend;
The cypress only, hated tree!
Of all thy much-loved groves, shall thee,
Its short-lived lord, attend.

Then shall your worthier heir discharge,
And set th' imprisoned casks at large,
And dye the floor with wine,
So rich and precious, not the feasts
Of holy pontiffs cheer their guests
With liquor more divine.