Lament XVI

Misfortune hath constrained me     To leave the lute and poetry,     Nor can I from their easing borrow             Sleep for my sorrow.     Do I see true, or hath a dream     Flown forth from ivory gates to gleam     In phantom gold, before forsaking             Its poor cheat, waking?     Oh, mad, mistaken humankind,     'Tis easy triumph for the mind     While yet no ill adventure strikes us             And naught mislikes us.     In plenty we praise poverty,     'Mid pleasures we hold grief to be     (And even death, ere it shall stifle             Our breath) a trifle.     But when the grudging spinner scants     Her thread and fate no surcease grants     From grief most deep and need most wearing,             Less calm our bearing.     Ah, Tully, thou didst flee from Rome     With weeping, who didst say his home     The wise man found in any station,             In any nation.     And why dost mourn thy daughter so     When thou hast said the only woe     That man need dread is base dishonor? -             Why sorrow on her?     Death, thou hast said, can terrify     The godless man alone. Then why     So loth, the pay for boldness giving,             To leave off living?     Thy words, that have persuaded men,     Persuade not thee, angelic pen;     Disaster findeth thy defenses,             Like mine, pretenses.     Soft stone is man: he takes the lines     That Fortune's cutting tool designs.     To press the wounds wherewith she graves us,             Racks us or saves us?     Time, father of forgetfulness     So longed for now in my distress,     Since wisdom nor the saints can steel me,             Oh, do thou heal me!