Classic Poem

Ah! Postumus, the years keep slipping past.
Thy piety cannot check the gathering fast
Of wrinkles, nor the sure approach of eld
And death, the conqueror of all at last.

No, not if thou three hecatombs a day,
My friend, on pitiless Pluto's altar lay,
To soften him whose power the triple bulk
Of Geryon huge and Tityos can stay

Within the bourn of that fell stream we all
Must traverse once, where'er out lot may fall,
Who on Earth's bounty live, in cabin bare
Of peasant reared, or king's palatial hall.

'Twill nought avail from reach of battle spear
Or of hoarse Hadria's breakers to keep clear.
'Twill nought avail the south wind ague-fraught
Each autumn to elude with anxious fear.

We all alike must to that country go
Where black Cocytus winds with sickly flow,
And see the Danaids vile, and Sisyphus
To weary sentence doomed of labour slow.

We all must leave earth, home, and wife adored;
And, save alone the cypresses abhorred,
Not one of all the trees thou tendest here
Will follow thee, for but a day their lord.

Thy Caecuban with many a padlock vain
Secured, an heir of worthier mood will drain,
And with thy cellar's pride, more choice than aught
At pontiffs' banquet served, the floor will stain.