Horatian Echo

Omit, omit, my simple friend,     Still to inquire how parties tend,     Or what we fix with foreign powers.     If France and we are really friends,     And what the Russian Czar intends,     Is no concern of ours.     Us not the daily quickening race     Of the invading populace     Shall draw to swell that shouldering herd.     Mourn will we not your closing hour,     Ye imbeciles in present power,     Doomd, pompous, and absurd!     And let us bear, that they debate     Of all the engine-work of state,     Of commerce, laws, and policy,     The secrets of the worlds machine,     And what the rights of man may mean,     With readier tongue than we.     Only, that with no finer art     They cloak the troubles of the heart     With pleasant smile, let us take care;     Nor with a lighter hand dispose     Fresh garlands of this dewy rose,     To crown Eugenias hair.     Of little threads our life is spun,     And he spins ill, who misses one.     But is thy fair Eugenia cold?     Yet Helen had an equal grace,     And Juliets was as fair a face,     And now their years are told.     The day approaches, when we must     Be crumbling bones and windy dust;     And scorn us as our mistress may,     Her beauty will no better be     Than the poor face she slights in thee,     When dawns that day, that day.