Брожу я, утомлённый пилигрим,
Почти что тридцать лет путём своим;
Я за собой оставил долгий след,
Но в самом деле жил не много лет.
Кто славой горд годов его седых,
Уж не живёт, но проживает их;
Другому шестьдесят, он полон сил, -
А на поверку – тридцати не жил.
Тот жив, кто в добродетели живёт,
И тот мертвец, кому грехи как мёд.
Robert Herrick
ON HIMSELF (XIV)
A wearied pilgrim I have wander'd here,
Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year;
Long I have lasted in this world; 'tis true
But yet those years that I have lived, but few.
Who by his gray hairs doth his lustres tell,
Lives not those years, but he that lives them well:
One man has reach'd his sixty years, but he
Of all those three-score has not lived half three:
He lives who lives to virtue; men who cast
Their ends for pleasure, do not live, but last.