How few, favored by ev'ry element,
With swelling sails make good the promised port,
With all their wishes freighted! Yet ev'n these,
Freighted with all their wishes, soon complain.
Free from misfortune, not from nature free,
They still are men; and when is man secure?
As fatal time, as storm. The rush of years
Beats down their strength; their numberless escapes
In ruin end: and, now, their proud success
But plants new terrors on the victor's brow.
What pain, to quit the world just made their own!
Their nests so deeply downed and built so high!--
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.