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90

XXVII
CLEONICUS

[_]

Epigram ix.

Let sailors watch the waning Pleiades,
And keep the shore. This man, made over-bold
By godless pride, and too much greed of gold,
Setting his gains before his health and ease,
Ran up his sails to catch the whistling breeze:
Whose corpse, ere now, the restless waves have rolled
From deep to deep, while all his freight, unsold,
Is tossed upon the tumult of the seas.
Such fate had one whose avaricious eyes
Lured him to peril in a mad emprise.
Yea, from the Syrian coast to Thasos bound,
He slipped his anchor with rich merchandise,
While the wet stars were slipping from the skies,
And with the drowning stars untimely drowned.