 | The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill |  |
331
“QUEM METUI MORITURA?”
ÆNEID, IV. 604
What 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, tread
Mine 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 until
The unhindered and unhastened hour was here.
So soon—what is there in the world to fear?
| The poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill | |