Fond youth! who dream’st that hoarded gold
Is needful not alone to pay
For all thy various items sold,
To serve the wants of every day;
Bread, vinegar, and oil, and meat,
For savory viands season’d high;
But somewhat more important yet–
I tell thee what it cannot buy.
No treasure hadst thou more amass’d
Than fame to Tantalus assign’d,
Would save thee from a tomb at last,
But thou must leave it all behind.
I give thee, therefore, counsel wise;
Confide not vainly in thy store,
However large — much less despise
Others comparatively poor;
But in thy more exalted state
A just and equal temper show
That all who see thee rich and great,
May deem thee worthy to be so.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
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Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
