Nay, those themselves begot, and bred up too, No longer now they'll own; for madly they Proscribe them all, and what, on the last day, The misers cannot carry to the grave For their past sins, their prostitutes must have. But grant age lack'd these plagues: yet must they see As great, as many: frail mortality, In such a length of years, hath many falls, And deads a life with frequent funerals. The nimblest hour in all the span can steal A friend, or brother from's; there's no repeal In death, or time; this day a wife we mourn, To-morrow's tears a son; and the next urn A sister fills. Long-livers have assign'd These curses still, that with a restless mind, An age of fresh renewing cares they buy, And in a tide of tears grow old and die. Nestor,--if we great Homer may believe-- In his full strength three hundred years did live: Happy--thou'lt say--that for so long a time Enjoy'd free nature, with the grape and wine Of many autumns; but, I prithee thee, hear What Nestor says himself, when he his dear Antilochus had lost; how he complains Of life's too large extent, and copious pains? Of all he meets, he asks what is the cause He liv'd thus long; for what breach of their laws The gods thus punish'd him? what sin had he Done worthy of a long life's misery. Thus Peleus his Achilles mourned, and he Thus wept that his Ulysses lost at sea. Had Priam died before Phereclus' fleet Was built, or Paris stole the fatal Greek, Troy had yet stood, and he perhaps had gone In peace unto the lower shades; his son Sav'd with his plenteous offspring, and the rest In solemn pomp bearing his fun'ral chest. But long life hinder'd this: unhappy he, Kept for a public ruin, liv'd to see All Asia lost, and ere he could aspire, In his own house saw both the sword and fire; All white with age and cares, his feeble arm Had now forgot the war; but this alarm Gathers his dying spirits; and as we An aged ox worn out with labour see By his ungrateful master, after all His years of toil, a thankless victim fall: So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny: Yet died a man; but his surviving queen, Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen. I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king let pass, With Lydian Cr[oe]sus, whom in vain--alas!-- Just Solon's grave advice bad to attend, That happiness came not before the end. What man more bless'd in any age to come Or past, could Nature show the world, or Rome, Than Marius was? if amidst the pomp of war, And triumphs fetch'd with Roman blood from far, His soul had fled; exile and fetters then He ne'er had seen, nor known Minturna's fen; Nor had it, after Carthage got, been said A Roman general had begg'd his bread.