LXXV.
The lover’s tears and sighs; what time in pleasure
And play we here unprofitably spend;
To this; of ignorant men the eternal leisure,
And vain designs, aye frustrate of their end.
Empty desires so far exceed all measure,
They o’er that valley’s better part extend.
There wilt thou find, if thou wilt thither post,
Whatever thou on earth beneath hast lost.
LXXVI.
He, passing by those heaps, on either hand,
Of this and now of that the meaning sought;
Formed of swollen bladders here a hill did stand,
Whence he heard cries and tumults, as he thought.
These were old crowns of the Assyrian land
And Lydian—as that paladin was taught—
Grecian and Persian, all of ancient fame;
And now, alas! well-nigh without a name.
LXXVII.
Golden and silver hooks to sight succeed,
Heaped in a mass, the gifts which courtiers bear,
—Hoping thereby to purchase future meed—
To greedy prince and patron; many a snare,
Concealed in garlands, did the warrior heed,
Who heard, these signs of adulation were;
And in cicalas, which their lungs had burst,
Saw fulsome lays by venal poets versed[12].
