His soul is stupid, and his heart asleep; Fattened in vice, so callous, and so gross, He sins, and sees not, senseless of his loss. Down goes the wretch at once, unskilled to swim, Hopeless to bubble up, and reach the water's brim. Great father of the gods, when for our crimes Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times; Some tyrant-king, the terror of his age, The type, and true vicegerent of thy rage; Thus punish him: set virtue in his sight, With all her charms, adorned with all her graces bright; But set her distant, make him pale to see His gains outweighed by lost felicity! Sicilian tortures, and the brazen bull,[210] Are emblems, rather than express the full Of what he feels; yet what he fears is more: The wretch, who, sitting at his plenteous board, Looked up, and viewed on high the pointed sword Hang o'er his head, and hanging by a twine, Did with less dread, and more securely dine.[211] Even in his sleep he starts, and fears the knife, And, trembling, in his arms takes his accomplice wife; Down, down he goes; and from his darling friend Conceals the woes his guilty dreams portend. When I was young, I, like a lazy fool, Would blear my eyes with oil, to stay from school: Averse from pains, and loth to learn the part Of Cato, dying with a dauntless heart; Though much my master that stern virtue praised, Which o'er the vanquisher the vanquished raised; And my pleased father came with pride to see His boy defend the Roman liberty. But then my study was to cog the dice, And dexterously to throw the lucky sice; To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away, } And watch the box, for fear they should convey } False bones, and put upon me in the play; } Careful, besides, the whirling top to whip, And drive her giddy, till she fell asleep. Thy years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn What's good or ill, and both their ends discern: Thou in the Stoic-porch,[212] severely bred, Hast heard the dogmas of great Zeno read; Where on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand, The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches stand;[213] Where the shorn youth to midnight lectures rise, Roused from their slumbers to be early wise; Where the coarse cake, and homely husks of beans, From pampering riot the young stomach weans; And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun.[214] And yet thou snor'st, thou draw'st thy drunken breath, Sour with debauch, and sleep'st the sleep of death: Thy chaps are fallen, and thy frame disjoined; Thy body is dissolved as is thy mind. Hast thou not yet proposed some certain end, To which thy life, thy every act, may tend? Hast thou no mark, at which to bend thy bow?