To a Friend

Who prop, thou ask'st in these bad days, my mind?—He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men,

Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,

And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,

That halting slave, who in

Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal

Cleared Rome of what most shamed him.  But be

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,

From first youth tested up to extreme old age,

Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole;

The mellow glory of the Attic stage,

Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child.