Soon must you leave the woods you buy,Your villa, wash'd by Tiber's flow,Leave,—and your treasures, heap'd so high,Your reckless heir will level low.Whether from Argos' founder bornIn wealth you lived beneath the sun,Or nursed in beggary and scorn,You fall to Death, who pities none.One way all travel; the dark urnShakes each man's lot, that soon or lateWill force him, hopeless of return,On board the exile-ship of Fate.

Why, Xanthias, blush to own you loveYour slave? Briseis, long ago,A captive, could Achilles moveWith breast of snow.Tecmessa's charms enslaved her lord,Stout Ajax, heir of Telamon;Atrides, in his pride, adoredThe maid he won,