From a just fraud God turneth not away.
273
There is a time when God doth falsehood prize.
274
The polished brass is mirror of the form,
Wine of the soul.
275
Words are the parents of a causeless wrath.
276
Men credit gain for oaths, not oaths for them.
277
God ever works with those that work with will.
278
Wisdom to learn is e'en for old men good.
281
The base who prosper are intolerable.
282
The seed of mortals broods o'er passing things,
And hath nought surer than the smoke-cloud's shadow.
283
Old age hath stronger sense of right than youth.
286
Yet though a man gets many wounds in breast,
He dieth not, unless the appointed time,
The limit of his life's span, coincide;
Nor does the man who by the hearth at home
Sits still, escape the doom that Fate decrees.
287
How far from just the hate men bear to death,
Which comes as safeguard against many ills.
288
_To_ FORTUNE
Thou did'st beget me; thou too, as it seems,
Wilt now destroy me.
289
The fire-moth's silly death is that I fear.
290
I by experience know the race full well
That dwells in Æthiop land, where seven-mouthed Nile
Rolls o'er the land with winds that bring the rain,
What time the fiery sun upon the earth
Pours its hot rays, and melts the snow till then
Hard as the rocks; and all the fertile soil
Of Egypt, filled with that pure-flowing stream,
Brings forth Demêter's ears that feed our life.
291
This hoopoo, witness of its own dire ills,
He hath in varied garb set forth, and shows
In full array that bold bird of the rocks
Which, when the spring first comes, unfurls a wing
Like that of white-plumed kite; for on one breast
It shows two forms, its own and eke its child's,
And when the corn grows gold, in autumn's prime,
A dappled plumage all its form will clothe;
And ever in its hate of these 'twill go
Far off to lonely thickets or bare rocks.
292
Still to the sufferer comes, as due from God,
A glory that to suffering owes its birth.
293
The air is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven,
Zeus all that is, and what transcends them all.
294
Take courage; pain's extremity soon ends.
298
When Strength and Justice are true yoke-fellows,
Where can be found a mightier pair than they?