Weakness to childhood, rashness to our youth;
To elder years to be discreet and grave,
Then to old age maturity she gave. 
(Scipio) you know, how Massinissa bears
His kingly port at more than ninety years;
When marching with his foot, he walks till night;
When with his horse, he never will alight;
Though cold or wet, his head is always bare;
So hot, so dry, his aged members are. 360
You see how exercise and temperance
Even to old years a youthful strength advance. 
Our law (because from age our strength retires)
No duty which belongs to strength requires. 
But age doth many men so feeble make,
That they no great design can undertake;
Yet that to age not singly is applied,
But to all man’s infirmities beside. 
That Scipio, who adopted you, did fall
Into such pains, he had no health at all; 370
Who else had equall’d Africanus’ parts,
Exceeding him in all the lib’ral arts: 
Why should those errors then imputed be
To age alone, from which our youth’s not free? 
Every disease of age we may prevent,
Like those of youth, by being diligent. 
When sick, such mod’rate exercise we use, 377
And diet, as our vital heat renews;
And if our body thence refreshment finds,
Then must we also exercise our minds. 
If with continual oil we not supply
Our lamp, the light for want of it will die;
Though bodies may be tired with exercise,
No weariness the mind could e’er surprise. 
Caecilius the comedian, when of age
He represents the follies on the stage,
They’re credulous, forgetful, dissolute;
Neither those crimes to age he doth impute,
But to old men, to whom those crimes belong. 
Lust, petulance, rashness, are in youth more strong 390
Than ago, and yet young men those vices hate,
Who virtuous are, discreet, and temperate: 
And so, what we call dotage seldom breeds
In bodies, but where nature sow’d the seeds. 
There are five daughters, and four gallant sons,
In whom the blood of noble Appius runs,
With a most num’rous family beside,
Whom he alone, though old and blind, did guide. 
Yet his clear-sighted mind was still intent,
And to his business like a bow stood bent:  400
By children, servants, neighbours so esteem’d,
He not a master, but a monarch seem’d. 
All his relations his admirers were,
His sons paid rev’rence, and his servants fear: 
The order and the ancient discipline
Of Romans, did in all his actions shine. 
Authority kept up old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures. 
Something of youth I in old age approve,
But more the marks of age in youth I love. 410
Who this observes may in his body find
Decrepit age, but never in his mind. 
The seven volumes of my own reports,