A_las! my Postumus, alas! how speed_
  T_he passing years:  nor can devotion’s deed_
  S_tay wrinkled age one moment on its way_,
  N_or stay one moment death’s appointed day_;

  N_ot though with thrice a hundred oxen slain_
  E_ach day thou prayest Pluto to refrain_,
  T_he unmoved by tears, who threefold Geryon drave_,
  A_nd Tityus, beneath the darkening wave_.

  T_he wave we all must one day surely sail_
  W_ho live and breathe within this mortal vale_,
  W_hether our lot with princely rich to fare_,
  W_hether the peasant’s lowly life to share_.

  I_n vain for us from murderous Mars to flee_,
  I_n vain to shun the storms of Hadria’s sea_,
  I_n vain to fear the poison-laden breath_
  O_f Autumn’s sultry south-wind, fraught with death_;

  A_down the wandering stream we all must go_,
  A_down Cocytus’ waters, black and slow_;
  T_he ill-famed race of Danaus all must see_,
  A_nd Sisyphus, from labors never free_.

  A_ll must be left,—­lands, home, beloved wife_,—­
  A_ll left behind when we have done with life_;
  O_ne tree alone, of all thou holdest dear_,
  S_hall follow thee,—­the cypress, o’er thy bier!_

  T_hy wiser heir will soon drain to their lees_
  T_he casks now kept beneath a hundred keys_;
  T_he proud old Caecuban will stain the floor_,
  M_ore fit at pontiffs’ solemn feasts to pour_.

Nor is there a beyond filled with brightness for the victim of fate to look to.  Orcus is unpitying.  Mercury’s flock of souls is of sable hue, and Proserpina’s realm is the hue of the dusk.  Black Care clings to poor souls even beyond the grave.  Dull and persistent, it is the only substantial feature of the insubstantial world of shades.  Sappho still sighs there for love of her maiden companions, the plectrum of Alcaeus sounds its chords only to songs of earthly hardships by land and sea, Prometheus and Tantalus find no surcease from the pangs of torture, Sisyphus ever rolls the returning stone, and the Danaids fill the ever-emptying jars.

ii.  THE PLEASURES OF THIS WORLD

The picture is dark with shadow, and must be relieved with light and color.  The hasty conclusion should not be drawn that this is the philosophy of gloom.  The tone of Horace is neither that of the cheerless skeptic nor that of the despairing pessimist.  He does not rise from his contemplation with the words or the feeling of Lucretius: 

O miserable minds of men, O blind hearts!  In what obscurity and in what dangers is passed this uncertain little existence of yours!

He would have agreed with the philosophy of pessimism that life contains striving and pain, but he would not have shared in the gloom of a Schopenhauer, who in all will sees action, in all action want, in all want pain, who looks upon pain as the essential condition of will, and sees no end of suffering except in the surrender of the will to live.  The vanity of human wishes is no secret to Horace, but life is not to him “a soap-bubble which we blow out as long and as large as possible, though each of us knows perfectly well it must sooner or later burst.”