(After Martial) <br /> <br />Bernard, if to you and me <br />Fortune all at once should give <br />Years to spend secure and free, <br />With the choice of how to live, <br />Tell me, what should we proclaim <br />Life deserving of the name? <br /> <br />Winning some one else's case? <br />Saving some one else's seat? <br />Hearing with a solemn face <br />People of importance bleat? <br />No, I think we should not still <br />Waste our time at others' will. <br /> <br />Summer noons beneath the limes, <br />Summer rides at evening cool, <br />Winter's tales and home-made rhymes, <br />Figures on the frozen pool--- <br />These would we for labours take, <br />And of these our business make. <br /> <br />Ah! but neither you nor I <br />Dare in earnest venture so; <br />Still we let the good days die <br />And to swell the reckoning go. <br />What are those that know the way, <br />Yet to walk therein delay?<br /><br />Sir Henry Newbolt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pereunt-et-imputantur/
