Poems (Sill)/"Quem Metui Moritura?"
HAT need have I to fear—so soon to die? Let me work on, not watch and wait in dread:What will it matter, when that I am dead,That they bore hate or love who near me lie?'T is but a lifetime, and the end is nigh At best or worst. Let me lift up my head And firmly, as with inner courage, treadMine own appointed way, on mandates high.Pain could but bring, from all its evil store, The close of pain: hate's venom could but kill; Repulse, defeat, desertion, could no more. Let me have lived my life, not cowered untilThe unhindered and unhastened hour was here.So soon—what is there in the world to fear?
"QUEM METUI MORITURA??"Æneid, IV. 604.
HAT need have I to fear—so soon to die? Let me work on, not watch and wait in dread:What will it matter, when that I am dead,That they bore hate or love who near me lie?'T is but a lifetime, and the end is nigh At best or worst. Let me lift up my head And firmly, as with inner courage, treadMine own appointed way, on mandates high.Pain could but bring, from all its evil store, The close of pain: hate's venom could but kill; Repulse, defeat, desertion, could no more. Let me have lived my life, not cowered untilThe unhindered and unhastened hour was here.So soon—what is there in the world to fear?