the last day of life is in a manner the death of all
remaining Fortune. What difference, then, thinkest thou, is there,
whether thou leavest her by dying, or she leave thee by fleeing away?'

SONG III.

ALL PASSES.

When, in rosy chariot drawn,
Phoebus 'gins to light the dawn,
By his flaming beams assailed,
Every glimmering star is paled.
When the grove, by Zephyrs fed,
With rose-blossom blushes red;--
Doth rude Auster breathe thereon,
Bare it stands, its glory gone.
Smooth and tranquil lies the deep
While the winds are hushed in sleep.
Soon, when angry tempests lash,
Wild and high the billows dash.
Thus if Nature's changing face
Holds not still a moment's space,
Fleeting deem man's fortunes; deem
Bliss as transient as a dream.
One law only standeth fast:
Things created may not last.

IV.

Then said I: 'True are thine admonishings, thou nurse of all excellence;
nor can I deny the wonder of my fortune's swift career. Yet it is this
which chafes me the more cruelly in the recalling. For truly in adverse
fortune the worst sting of misery is to _have been_ happy.'

'Well,' said she, 'if thou art paying the penalty of a mistaken belief,
thou canst not rightly impute the fault to circumstances. If it is the
felicity which Fortune gives that moves thee--mere name though it
be--come reckon up with me how rich thou art in the number and
weightiness of thy blessings. Then if, by the blessing of Providence,
thou hast still preserved unto thee safe and inviolate that which,
howsoever thou mightest reckon thy fortune, thou wouldst have thought
thy most precious possession, what right hast thou to talk of
ill-fortune whilst keeping all Fortune's better gifts? Yet Symmachus,
thy wife's father--a man whose splendid character does honour to the
human race--is safe and unharmed; and while he bewails thy wrongs, this
rare nature, in whom wisdom and virtue are so nobly blended, is himself
out of danger--a boon thou wouldst have been quick to purchase at the
price of life itself. Thy wife yet lives, with her gentle disposition,
her peerless modesty and virtue--this the epitome of all her graces,
that she is the true daughter of her sire--she lives, I say, and for thy
sake only preserves the breath of life, though she loathes it, and pines
away in grief and tears for thy absence, wherein, if in naught else, I
would allow some marring of thy fel