Exigua vehimur phaselo.
Illo beatum margine me meus
Exponat asser. Cur ego sistere
Aeterno reformidens quietus
Littore, si peritura linquam?

Where, when by th' Fates hee's gladly brought,
Whether disease, it matter's not,
Or enemies sword, doth thrust him on,
When his last journey he must run.
To th' Port wee are but once brought in
To which w'have alwayes sayling bin:
Whether, as mighty Princes, wee
In gallant ships have spread the Sea;
Or, as the common sort of men,
In smaller Barks, have carryed been.
May my poore bottome to that brinke
Mee happy bring; why should I shrinke--
Safe on th'Aeternall shore to stand,
If with such trash I can shake hand?

_Ad Q. Delliam._

Non tam populari exemplo, quam potius rationis ductu
vitam esse instituendam.

_Ode 10. Lib. 4._

To Q. Dellius.

_That our life ought not to bee instituted so much by
popular example, as by the guiding of reason._

_Ode 10. Lib. 4._

Delli, si populo duce
Vita degenerem carpimus orbitam,
Erramus, procul arduis
Virtus se nimium seposuit jugis.
Illuc quo via tritior,
Hoc est certa minus. Longus inutili
Error nectitur ordine:
Et mores populum, non ratio trahit.

Wee erre (my _Dellius_) if wee take
That baser path of life, the people make;
In highest and remotest Hills
Vertue sequesters up her selfe, and dwells.
There where the way more beaten lyes,
Lesse certaine, and more slipp'ry alwayes 'tis.
From fruitlesse order, errours grow;
Custome, not reason, drawes the people now.

Casu vivitur, & viam
Non metam premimus, qua praeeuntium
Per vestigia civium
Insanae strepitus plebis, & improbae
Voces invidiae vocant.
Exemplis trahimur & trahimus retro,
Soli nemo sibi est malus,
Nulli vita sua est: dum vaga postero
Tubam turba premit gradu,
Sunt primi exitio saepe sequentibus.

Men live by Chance, our time we spend
I'th' way, like Truants, and forget the end,
Where 'mid'st the throng of passers by,
The noyse of the mad rout, the hatefull cry
Of envy, calls, wee're drawne amaine
B'example; others wee draw back againe;
No man is ill to himselfe alone,
Nor no mans life is onely call'd his owne.
Whil'st that the rambling rout trea